Yummy mare's milk.
The vast expanse of meat.
Look closely for the links of horse sausage hanging up.
More meat.
Sophia asking to go on the rides.
She thinks she's so big turning the lights on and off.
A favorite activity, getting into mommy's closet.
She won't let me play. She always wants to get up there herself.
The mountains from our window.
It's getting snowy up there.
We had an enjoyable weekend with some new adventures. We didn't do anything except spend time together, so it was nice in that sense. On Saturday, at the grocery store, Joe thought he'd be a little adventurous and finally find out what all those bottles of white liquid with horse pictures were. He bought a bottle and opened it up at home. He gave a yell as it began to fizz over. Fizzy milk?
Now, I had my suspicions. I've heard that they drink fermented mare's milk here. The clues were leaning in that direction - a bottle of white, milky-looking liquid with a picture of a horse and a colt on it. It surely wasn't cola. It had to be the national drink of kumiss. A horrible sour milk smell was eminating from the bottle. "Should we even try this?" he asked.
"Try it," I urged him. He took a small sip and immediately began grasping around for some other beverage. There was no water, nothing. "Get some juice! Get some juice!" I chanted.
"Why do they drink that?" were the first words out of his mouth.
You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but no. I had to try it too. Only I was prepared with some juice to chase it down with. Disgusting! How do they drink that? It's like a sour, rotten tasting milk. Only it's not just that, it has natural aeration, so there are bubbles and fizz like a carbonated drink. Nasty. We can say we've tried it now!
The only problem is that the smell got to me, and after that I kept thinking I smelled it all day. It didn't help that we went to the Green Bazaar, the big open bazaar downtown. As we were walking along, we actually came to the kumiss section. Rows and rows of that stuff, the smell twisting my stomach.
We finally took some pictures of the market. Joe had to go up to the second floor to get a better view. I'm sure everyone wondered why he would take pictures of such a normal place. Whenever we go there, I feel like I'm in The Jungle. Here are some images that assaulted me within a couple of minutes as I was waiting for Joe to take the picture. A man was hacking and hacking away at a large, bony piece of meat with a huge axe. A sheep's skull was staring at me with its blackened teeth jutting out of its jawbone. A woman was working in a small room with a white tub. What was she doing? Rinsing out intestines, ropes and ropes of it. A woman was slicing into a gigantic slab of liver. A man was calling out to me to buy a slab of meat. I recommit to vegetarianism every time I go there. There's a stench of blood and animal that hangs in the air. Ironically, we had actually gone there for tofu. The funny thing is that it is all so organized. There are sections for chicken, sheep, cattle, and our favorite, horse.
After the Green Market, we headed to the central park. Sophia got to ride on her first rides. She was so excited even though the rides were very 1970's Soviet. She stood in the middle of the sidewalk pointing and calling out, "Ugh!" Finally, we decided to take her on some of them. We started on the merry-go-round which she loved. She sat on her horse and peacefully watched the world go around. When the ride ended and we took her off...woah...look out...she had a fit. When we put her down to walk, she would immediately walk away from us toward the ride. When we called her back, she would squat down in the sidewalk and yell out in frustration.
We took her on a train ride through the park too. I don't know what these people are thinking, seriously. We thought it was just going to be a nice, quiet jaunt through the park. We were going through the trees. We passed some young lovers hugging. We passed a few houses on the edges of the park. And then, we entered some tunnel. There was a scary, poorly made witch cackling. There were what we think were supposed to be the seven dwarfs, only they weren't so kind or kid-friendly. An ominous voice-over was threatening us and one dwarf looked like it was drowning a dwarf or performing some kind of sexual act on another dwarf in a pond. We weren't sure which. The little animated creatures were old and roughly made. They looked like scary old puppets. They got Disneyland all wrong! We inched through this tunnel, Joe and I both thanking God that we never saw this display when we were children.
One more trip to the merry-g0-round and our day was done. Hope you enjoy the pics.
Riding in the laundry basket is so much fun!
This is the way the nanny bundles her up. I don't think any other kids are going to play with her dressed like this.
This is the way we bundle her up.
Sophia's nanny Ira is on the left. Her daughter Dasha who is 15 came to meet Sophia yesterday.
