Sunday, October 28, 2007

More pictures!

Here is our living room. You can see we have a nice large window, and a large storage cabinet area. You can also see the great drying racks you can find here. Most people don't have dryers, but these racks work quite well in the winter when the heat is on in the buildings. Most apartments are quite warm (some people say too warm, and you can't control the temperature).

Here are the rest of the rooms in our apartment. The washing machine is small compared to American standards (and it takes about an hour and a half for one cycle), but we are so thankful for it, since I don't think there are laundromats here. We are also thankful for the new toilet, which you can see is MUCH nicer than the old one. Lydia's room is currently occupied by a friend from central Asia that is staying with us, so you can see Lydia's crib in our room. We currently have 2 single beds, but we plan to push them together and put a large mattress on top to make one larger bed.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Welcome to our Blog!

Hello! Thanks for checking out our blog! Our hope is that it will help you to experience a little bit of life in St. Petersburg with us! First, a picture from our trip here. This was our flight from the US to Frankfurt, Germany. Lydia and another little friend had great beds to sleep in on the way. They slept a little (think slumber party!). So Mommy and Daddy also slept a little!








Now for some pictures of where we live! This picture shows the hall of our apartment, looking towards the entrance. Then you can see the close up of the inner door, which Aaron had to smash open with a meat mallet, after we got locked inside our apartment, and our friend and the landlady had to climb in through the window to try to help us!










If you come inside our door and turn left, you would see the entrance to our living room.




Straight ahead, you would see the door to our bedroom, which you see in the picture below on the left. There is an old freezer in the hall, which probably doesn't work. There are all kinds of odds and ends that were either left here by tenants, or belong to the landlady. Lydia's room is to the left if you are facing our bedroom, and if you turn right, you see our toilet room door straight ahead (below, right).


If you go toward our toilet room, the kitchen is on the left, and the bathroom is on the right. Now for the kitchen:

Everyone seems to have these great dish racks in the cupboard above the sink. -->