Our plane got in late yesterday, and I was surprised to discover that the sun hadn’t set by the time we got home. I knew in the back of my mind that Belarus never went back from daylight-saving time last autumn, but didn’t fully appreciate what that would mean to me until this morning.
I had another surprise, too. It’s been warm here all week and if Minsk ever got any snow thus far, it all melted long ago. After unpacking most of my stuff, I decided to go off to the supermarket and get a few basic supplies. Keeping my jeans on, I threw on a jacket and cap and walked to the store. By the time I got there, I’d unzipped the jacket and had already begun making plans to get my bike on the road right away.
At the store I had to recalibrate my expectations too. I picked up a little bag of rice and saw that it cost 24,000 rubles. Momentarily, my hair stood up. Then I remembered that we’re now getting more than 8,000 rubles to the dollar. OK, the bag of rice was worth about three dollars, not eight dollars. I’ll get the hang of this.
Some things may adjust faster than I do, however. Recent developments suggest, for example, that I may not be riding my bike after all. I couldn’t even see the street when I woke up this morning because it was so dark out. This came as a bit of a surprise, because the streetlight outside our bedroom window bathed the whole back yard in light when I went to bed at 11:00. Apparently they turned it off after midnight and whoever controls this stuff didn’t see any need to turn it on again in the morning. We felt our way to the light switch and lit up the apartment this morning. I kept looking at the clock because I imagined I was confused about the time. Can it really be daytime when it’s so dark out? Dawn finally began breaking around 9:30. By ten or eleven o’clock I could see outside well enough to discover that the weather had changed. As I write this, it’s snowing hard.
I guess I’d better pull on my warm pants and go out to buy Alla a pair of ski poles before they sell out of her size. I don’t think the sporting goods store restocks after the New Year’s rush, so if they don’t have her size today they will never have it. At least, they never got any last winter, when we had snow to ski on. I’m not so sure that today’s snow will change anything fundamental, but I am still committed to those ski poles. I want to be prepared.
I had another surprise, too. It’s been warm here all week and if Minsk ever got any snow thus far, it all melted long ago. After unpacking most of my stuff, I decided to go off to the supermarket and get a few basic supplies. Keeping my jeans on, I threw on a jacket and cap and walked to the store. By the time I got there, I’d unzipped the jacket and had already begun making plans to get my bike on the road right away.
At the store I had to recalibrate my expectations too. I picked up a little bag of rice and saw that it cost 24,000 rubles. Momentarily, my hair stood up. Then I remembered that we’re now getting more than 8,000 rubles to the dollar. OK, the bag of rice was worth about three dollars, not eight dollars. I’ll get the hang of this.
Some things may adjust faster than I do, however. Recent developments suggest, for example, that I may not be riding my bike after all. I couldn’t even see the street when I woke up this morning because it was so dark out. This came as a bit of a surprise, because the streetlight outside our bedroom window bathed the whole back yard in light when I went to bed at 11:00. Apparently they turned it off after midnight and whoever controls this stuff didn’t see any need to turn it on again in the morning. We felt our way to the light switch and lit up the apartment this morning. I kept looking at the clock because I imagined I was confused about the time. Can it really be daytime when it’s so dark out? Dawn finally began breaking around 9:30. By ten or eleven o’clock I could see outside well enough to discover that the weather had changed. As I write this, it’s snowing hard.
I guess I’d better pull on my warm pants and go out to buy Alla a pair of ski poles before they sell out of her size. I don’t think the sporting goods store restocks after the New Year’s rush, so if they don’t have her size today they will never have it. At least, they never got any last winter, when we had snow to ski on. I’m not so sure that today’s snow will change anything fundamental, but I am still committed to those ski poles. I want to be prepared.
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