Осторожно Тигры

Here are some pictures that Max took on his school visit to the Bronx Zoo about a month ago. Interestingly, the sign "Осторожно Тигры Рядом" was only in Russian...

Rip Current

After an uneventful day at the beach, kids went to cool off at the pool with a waterslide. Leon got a bit too enthusiastic going down the concrete chute one too many times, ending up with an epic and embarrassing rip on the back of his trunks. His "back" is ok, though this pretty much concludes the watersports part of the trip for him.

Before...

... After

Few more pictures from Irene's phone added to the album here.

Discovering San Juan

Blue stones of Old San Juan

In the morning (our morning here starts at noon), we went for a swim, reinforced ourselves with a fresh coconut hacked by an enterprising local right from the tree above, and headed for San Juan.

Finally! After four days in the banana republic of the East, we discovered modern, clean and fast-paced city. We spend rest of the day walking the streets of Old San Juan, which is so beautiful, we couldn't get enough pictures of it.

Fort San Cristobal

See more San Juan pictures in the updated photo album here.

We liked San Juan so much, we went there again on Thursday.

Walk in the Park

On Tuesday, we got adventurous and headed for the much hyped, "one-and-only" rainforest. What we found at the end of the serpentine road looked more like a run-down Disney park then a wild nature preserve. The waterfalls were small, their basin filled with murky water crowded with wet, semi-naked (and mostly ugly) tourists posing for pictures. The forest was no more dense or challenging then our local Cranbury park. And of the animal species, we saw only one stray cat (the home kind).

We had an authentic lunch of some fried crap on the side of the road in a shack that looked like a post-war Sarajevo.

Roadside lunch

By the evening, we were done with exotics and went for a proper dinner in a standard American resort not far from home.

At the resort's convention center

More pictures added here

Going Local

On Monday, we drove to the beach, advertised as secluded and pristine. Well, it wasn't neither, but not too bad. The water was not as warm and clear as it was same time of the year in the neighboring Dominican Republic. More like at home in August. The beach facilities, which charged a dollar per person, were of a third world quality. We wanted "local" - we got plenty of it.

Somewhere on the Internet, Max picked up that a toy store at the nearby mall sells a rare edition of some Lego thing. It became his raison d'etre for the whole P.R. trip, so after the beach, craving a bit of civilization, without much fight, we gave in and drove to the mall. When after sitting in traffic for an hour we got there, we didn't find any toy stores. So, we drove around for another hour (including a horrifying "shortcut" through a one-lane mountain road). Then we came back to the same mall - you know, to make sure that the toy store didn't somehow came into being while we were balancing our car on a cliff. The toy store was still not there.

Because going to the same mall twice was not embarrassing enough, on the way home, we stopped by a Wallmart, where we bought some crappy tea and a loaf of Wonderbread. Let's see if we can get any lower.

Mayo and Ketchup

We spent the first full day in P.R. getting acquainted with the immediate vicinity, the "playas" (beaches), restaurants and other food sources.

At Fajardo

We live on the Northeast coast of the island, which is rocky and with some cliffs. The views are spectacular but the beaches are not so much. We'll keep looking.

While getting loaded with provisions in the supermarket, Max discovered a dream condiment - mayo and ketchup in the same bottle. Hot tea, which we drink at home quite a lot, is not a popular drink around here. In fact, in a huge supermarket, we found no tea of any kind. Though oddly, in the spices section, we found linden flowers ("липовый цвет"). Other than that, the shop looks indistinguishable from one at home.

Back at home, we staged a photoshoot in the infinity pool (the edge dissolves into the horizon).

Infinity Pool

More pictures added here

Fajardo, Puerto Rico

We are at Puerto Rico for the spring break week.

Yesterday, we met up with Leon at the airport and after an easy four hour flight landed in San Juan, where we picked up the rented car (a Taurus, to kids disappointment) and not without getting lost for a bit, an hour later arrived at the apartment which we booked for the stay. The apartment is bigger than our house and it took the owner good 15 minutes to tour us through the enfilade of rooms, nooks, verandas, appliances, etc.

We had a quick dinner a some place next door and closed the night with some quality American television.

View from the terrace

More first day pictures here.

Happy Birthday, Alik

Alik, a fan of the series "Sons of Anarchy", got this cut for his birthday. Hope, it's not an actual club or a gang.

P.S. We are also going to tattoo this on his back, when we see him next time.

See more modeling shots here.



On the subject of celebrations, please read these two essays про водку, by Е. Гришковец - "Из личного опыта...", "Коллективная память". Или смотрите тут (и далее по ссылкам):