Barnaul, Siberia. Our home for the next week.

We left Moscow to go to the airport five hours before our flight. This is because the traffic is horrible in Moscow. Apparently Muscovites  cannot guarantee whether it will take one or three hours to arrive to a destination. 

 

Security was a breeze by comparison to the states: I don't think this is necessarily a good thing. 

Once we arrived in the waiting area I started looking for potential photos. 

Like this one below: can you tell what this girl is reading? I'm sure my students can.

I don't even know what to make of this doll.

Finally we boarded. Aeroflot is a whole new experience:  think Southwest in Russia with even more chaos.

We were picked up by some of our host teachers whom you will see in later blog posts and toured the city.  

I love this monument of a mother saying goodbye to her son before he goes off to war.

But  what I enjoy most is seeing how people live.  We asked to go to a grocery store and  stumbled upon Barnaul's answer to Whole Foods.

Homemade juices:

And who doesn't love a good salad?

I felt very at home here.

Gardening is  huge  in this area. Nearly everyone gardens. Seed packets can be found outside stores. 

There were aisles and aisles of seeds dedicated  to Siberian varieties. Tomatoes don't go out until late in the season. I think I understood that they don't expect to harvest until August or September. Gardening is not just a fun activity. In this area people really need to garden in order to feed their families.

The local museum housed artifacts from the Soviet era.

Pioneer uniforms:

Factory worker suits:

Finally we took a quick visit to the lake where the ice is melting. According to our hosts one can walk across the entire lake during the depths of winter. People ice fish and skate.

We begin teaching tomorrow.