>From baikaltour@gin.global-one.ru Wed Oct 1 07:03:42 1997 Subject: over the hump! Hi everyone! A quick movie quote quiz for you: What movie had the exchange, "He likes to butt things with his head." "How proud you must be!" As you can probably guess, there is a reason why we have been thinking of this particular quote! Ben seems to have an affinity for whacking his head against any nearby object, the harder the better. We've actually grown immune to it by now, and so has he. We'll just be sitting then and BONK. What was that? Oh, just Ben head-butting the dresser. Okay. Hopefully there won't be any permanent damage. ;-) We have learned of another Russian tradition that we'd like to share with you. It's called the "Russian bath," and has evidently been quite popular among the people in this part of the country for centuries. It seems that the bather enters an enclosed room with rocks piled on top of a wood-burning furnace, and pours water on the rocks to create steam. So far, so good. Sounds pretty American, in fact. After a nice relaxing sauna, the bather -- and here's where it gets a bit weird -- flogs him or herself with a branch from a birch tree. If there is a group involved, the participants flog one another. We are not making this up! We've had to have Valentina explain it to us several times now, but evidently the feeling is very refreshing and rejuvenating. Go figure. The bather subsequently immerses him or herself in a cool tub of water to complete the effect. According to Valentina, this is what people in Siberia do every Saturday night. Perhaps she's just yanking a couple of gullible American chains, but she seems sincere! On our tour of the historic village at Lake Baikal the other day, we actually saw the room where the residents performed this activity. So there. This reminds us of our daily bathtime ritual with Benjamin. As it happens, he *loves* his bath. He particularly loves to *empty* his bath all over the room and any innocent bystanders. He's still small enough that we can bathe him in the sink in our hotel room, and he simply squeals with delight at the prospect. He gets both arms and legs going at once and makes as big a mess as he can. It's rather cute. He's less enthusiastic about the flogging with the birch branches though... Fortunately, the mess is not that much of a problem for us. Why? Because the entire bathroom in our hotel is a shower! No kidding. There is a hand-held shower head coming out of the wall and a curtain. That's it. The whole thing is tiled, and the floor slopes to a drain just beneath the sink. It's rather strange, but we're used to it now. There are other features of our hotel that are a bit unusual to us. Each floor has its own "floor lady". You are supposed to give your key to this woman for safe keeping whenever you leave. She also is the person to contact about any special needs or problems with the room. There is a little snack bar that she maintains as well. In a way, it's like having a small reception desk on each floor. As you can guess, we've become rather close to the women who staff the eighth floor. Each floor also has it's own restaurant or bar (or both). Each has a different theme. There is an Italian restaurant, a Chinese, a German, etc. No American though! And as we said in a previous message, we haven't had much luck at any of them. There is an ice cream bar on the ground floor that we should probably own stock in by now! One of the larger restaurants, where we have breakfast, is decorated in a hunting lodge motif. There are several stuffed animal heads over the serving area. Some the standards, including a couple of bucks with large antlers. Then there are the squirrels. Yup, squirrels. And not just the heads, either, but the whole thing. Stuck up there with a big stick right through each one. Like butterflys in a collection! There is also a critter that looks exactly like a kangaroo, but we know that can't be it. We get a good chuckle out of the display each morning. The Business Center is a nice feature. In addition to the e-mail facilities, we can fax, make international calls, and surf the Web. Pretty handy. As for our room itself, it isn't exactly palatial, but it's become home for now. It's about 12 by 15 feet, with two small beds (my feet stick out over the footboard by a good eight inches), a desk, TV, cushioned chair, small bench and two endtables. The bench, endtables and chair cushions have become Sasha's crib. (BONK BONK BONK) We also have a small fridge, which we have kept stocked with all sorts of unhealthy goodies from our trips to the central market. The view is actually quite nice. We have a panoramic view of the Angara River. Unfortunately, as we've mentioned in previous notes, during the midday the sun shines into our room relentlessly and makes it uncomfortably warm, even when it is in the 40s outside! This afternoon we killed some time actually lounging in the hallway with the Smiths and our boys. It was like being in a college dorm again! (A dorm in Siberia, but let's not nit-pick.) We met a young couple from New Zealand who said they were passing through. Passing through? We're in the middle of Siberia! Where in the heck can you be going? It turns out they're on their way to England via train. They'd been to Hong Kong and would be subsequently travelling to Moscow and other cities before reaching London. It sounded very exotic and exciting. Maybe when the kids are in college... Today we had Ben's passport picture taken, visited another Decembrist museum and made another trip to the central market. Not much to tell about. Well, that's it for today. Another long message to help you waste some time at work! Our thoughts are with all of you. We're half-way done with our trip now! We can actually start planning for the day we return. Love, Kevin & Julie P.S. It was Rick Moranis to Mary Steenburgen in PARENTHOOD.