DAY 12 thru 18…….LONG LAST THE 10 DAYS ARE OVER!!

We spent the last week at Mhailovka with Max and Alex and had a wonderful time watching them change before our very eyes. Max has actually started to speak English words He says Mama, Papa, Sasha (nickname for Alex), what, clock and the best of all is “Happy New Year” and Alex is just walking all over the place and also saying Mama and Papa. It was wonderful spending Christmas with them. The caretakers were having their “Happy New Year” party and wanted us to stay but we had to get back to Volgograd, they are all wonderful women and very caring.

Now for the recap of the last 7 days…Well at first there really was not much to do except hang out at the hotel and watch TV…and what a joy that is, 2 Russian TV stations, no interenet and no telephone. When we asked for a wake-up call we didn’t realize their wakeup call is a knock on the door. We did finally find a different restaurant to eat at besides the hotel, that is called CAMELOT at 8:30 it turns into a Supper Club with dinner and dancing and it’s probably the only place in this town to hang out. It looks like an old Castle and in one of the dining rooms it actually has a table that looks like King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. They are actually carving the beams and posts, it was a very interesting place. We liked it so much we went there to celebrate Martha’s Birthday and we tasted, maybe more than just tasted the Russian vodka, very powerful stuff!! Hugo found a favorite song called Chitty Chitty Bong Bong! The best is we asked for shrimp, we had to special order larger shrimp for dinner, which was also pretty funny because they were a size smaller then our baby shrimp. They came with the head on them and Hugo actually had them bring out ingredients to make his dinner at the table, bedside’s also having to peel the shrimp at the table.. They probably think these American are crazy!!