Finland and the Blockade

I started writing this entry back on March 7th and never finished it! Isn't that awful? I guess I'll finish it and then update on our newest adventure. On February 28th, we took a quick one-day trip on the train to Lahti, Finland. We had to leave the country to come back in on our new work visas. PTL we were able to get these visas! Now the hope is that we can get them extended to one year with no problems. Right now they are good until May 1st. Theoretically, we can get them extended without leaving the country again.

We only had a few hours in Lahti, and we visited some friends who live there. They graciously fed us lunch and let us join them in a gathering with some friends of theirs. Sorry I don't have any pictures to show you! Here is one of the train ride home. Lydia had some little playmates, which made the 5 hour train ride go a little faster!

As usual, Lydia did not want to go to sleep, even though we got home quite late. We tried blocking out the light with my hat, but no luck. She eventually did fall asleep, but not until we were almost back to St. Petersburg.

While we were in Lahti, we picked up some cloth diapers that we had ordered from England. These will save us lots of money when Baby arrives! Lydia is also now wearing them at night. These are not the diapers your grandma used- they work a lot like the disposable ones, but they have absorbant inserts, and everything can be washed. They are also adjustable, so they can be used for tiny babies up until toddlerhood. Pretty cool! Here is Lydia helping me wash them the first time and modeling one of the diapers.

We recently visited the museum of the Leningrad Blockade during World War II. It was pretty amazing to see some of the ways people had to live during those 900 days. I can't imagine what it would have been like to live through something like that. So many people did not live through it. The first picture shows a cutting board with a piece of bread that was one day's ration of food. It is baked with sawdust as a filler.

The next one is of a girl and her journal entry. In the journal she lists the food she wants to eat when the blockade is over. She says something about not even being able to dream of it, because she doesn't think she'll live. She was right.

On a lighter note, here I am with Lydia in the museum. We're practicing how to hold our hands so that we're not tempted to touch things. :)

I'll do another post of our latest adventure in Novgorod.