Well, dearest readers, somehow it is already that time in the semester when we head to Moscow and then off into the blue yonder. In anticipation, the past few days have gone by even faster than usual - which is saying something. We went to the opera at the concert hall of the Mariinsky Theater Wednesday night, Mozart's The Magic Flute. It was very well done, in a slightly modern style and in Russian (the latter rather unfortunately, in my opinion), the music was wonderful and they made it almost an interactive experience with some of the performers singing while walking through the audience and even surprising one woman so much that she screamed quite hysterically, which then threw the rest of the audience into a nice fit of laughter. It was a fun evening, and afterwards I met up with Jay and Brian at a cafe closer to home before heading home to pack and finish up some pre-vacation work. And now in just a few hours we'll be on the train, we're meeting up to get some snacks before hand and then heading to the train station. Tomorrow morning at first light we'll be in Moscow! I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post from my iPod - we are staying in a Holiday Inn and hoping that that means we'll actually have internet this time. I head to Copenhagen on Sunday, and will then buy a ticket to get to Stockholm on Wednesday, returning to Piter on Easter Sunday!
I hope all is well back home, and would appreciate you keeping me and all of us traveling this week in your prayers! I will be in touch as much as I can! Much love - b
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Winter and Spring are Duking it Out...
Where did that phrase come from? Did dukes used to fight all the time? Why was it the first thing that came into my head when I thought of the current craziness that’s occurring here in the weather department? Interesting. Anyway…
There is an old Russian saying, so my host mom tells me, that Winter and Spring always fight for a while before Spring finally wins out. Well, there is a first-class battle going on in this city. Even right this minute, through the gorgeous sunshine that has been shining since 9 AM this morning, snow has just started to come down rather strongly and the clouds are blowing in off of the Gulf of Finland and will soon block out the sun. Every day is an adventure, it can be sunny and freezing, sunny and warm (we had 2 of those this week and threw ourselves a celebration), cloudy wet and snowy, or cloudy freezing and snowing what feel like ice pellets. Its quite ridiculous – add to all of that that regardless of the weather, the area around our metro does not emerge from its ice-rink state and you’ve got quite the commute! But it makes the mornings fun, if a little stressful for your knees and stilettos as they try to prevent you from falling, and I feel slightly less Vitamin D deficient as a result of the sunny days.
Last weekend started early, with the cover show by Jarlath’s band (featuring ‘Special Guest from Flint, Brent’) on Thursday night about 11. As with most things in Russia, we weren’t sure where the bar was and ended up in a courtyard and heading through a door marked only by printouts done on Microsoft Word. Turned out to be a pretty chill bar, and their band (‘The Dudes’) played some great covers, mostly American music but also a Russian song or two and the crowd loved it all, Jarlath is a master at picking the slightly outdated songs that are more popular here than in the US, and also some classics including ‘Beat It’ and ‘Black or White’. We hung out for a while, then Brent and I went to take one of the girls home in a cab and returned to the bar after a half hour of incredibly interesting conversation with our cab driver who seemed very smart and was talking about how the opportunities in Russia are so much more difficult to come by, etc., and how he really wanted to improve his English because it gives you so many better opportunities. Got home nice and late, before up for classes on Friday morning. The weekend passed quickly, without excursions but with enough sunny weather for plenty of walking and lots of time spent with friends.
Classes are still going well, still teaching myself out of the second year book to try and fill in the gaps. The Ohio University study abroad program in Moscow starts this week, just one day before we arrive there for the start of our vacations. We’ll see if I can meet up with them that soon after their arrival.
This weekend started Thursday night with a trip to the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theater for a concert of Mozart’s Requiem. The hall is only a few years old, is absolutely beautiful and has been a topic of some discussion in the music world because of its superb acoustics. We were in the cheap seats, directly above the choir and behind the orchestra, but the sound quality was still incredible. The piece was beautiful, an hour and a half of the genius of Mozart made real by some of the best performers in Russia. This coming week we are going to an opera in the same hall, more Mozart, this time the Magic Flute. After the opera we met up with some of the guys in the center for a few drinks and to meet Jeremy’s friend who is visiting from Southern California. Headed home on the last metro to catch some sleep before our excursion to Pushkin on Saturday. Pushkin, so named in the 20th century after Russia’s favorite son who studied at an exclusive school for six years of his short life, is the town outside of St. Petersburg where the summer residence of the tsars was located. The palace there is magnificent, as are the gardens of both French and English style when there isn’t a foot of snow covering the, despite the fact that it was heavily damaged during the Second World War. The town was occupied by the Nazis, (interesting to note that in Russian they are always referred to as ‘the fascists’ rather than ‘the Germans’ as they often are in English), and the palace was sacked of almost every valuable treasure that had not been removed by the caretakers. Many of the restored rooms include photo displays of the rooms in the late 19th/early 20th centuries contrasted with photos of the rooms after the conclusion of the occupation of the region in the 1940s. The Nazis must have known that they had hit the motherload, almost everything was removed from the rooms and some parts of the palace that hadn’t been destroyed during the siege were destroyed when the approaching Russian army forced them out. Apparently, if there is one thing Russians are truly incredible at, it is restoring imperial palaces. The Catherine Palace in Pushkin has been absolutely stunningly restored, from the ethereal paintings on the ceilings to the parquet floors and the ridiculous amounts of gold and porcelain decorations. The amber room, the only one like it in the world, has also been brilliantly restored with almost 1 ton of amber from Kaliningrad, the Russian territory separated from the mainland by the Baltic States. Interestingly, in the original amber room there wasn’t enough for the very top of the walls or the fourth wall of the room, which is largely windows, and just so has it been restored. It is incredibly impressive, as are the rest of the rooms which have been restored, from the peacock room to the golden arcade. They are preparing for the celebration of the 300th birthday of the original part of the palace this summer, I can only imagine the utter opulence.
Meanwhile us regular citizens headed back to the city after the tour of the palace – it had started to do what Jarlath affectionately calls ‘slush from the sky’ so we weren’t exactly thrilled about wandering around the barren parks – but got stuck in traffic so we were starving when we finally made it back. Sveta, Irina, and I met up with Megan and proceed to eat and talk for the next 5 hours, at which point we were all wishing for a teleportation device to deposit us directly into our beds.
Today was the last time I’ll be in church until after Easter, I’m kind of disappointed that I’ll miss Easter Mass, one of the consulate couples are trying to organize a get-together afterwards which would be fun, but I’ll be in Stockholm until the mid-afternoon. Today after Mass we went to what has become the regular post-Mass café, where they always draw designs on top of the whipped cream on our cappuccinos. Had a great conversation with one of the couples that I haven’t talked to as much, they are leaving St. Petersburg in May just like I am. He is headed to Afghanistan for a year ‘tour unaccompanied.’ We talked about the incredible benefits of living abroad and about the differences that have taken place in St. Petersburg over the years, Mike was here in 1989, and then a few times in the 1990s as well before coming back two years ago. It is really incredible to think about the incredible changes that have taken place here in just 20 years, the incredible commercialization and privatization are just one noticeable part of it. They’ve gone through so much, maybe we should give them a break on the fact that they are a little behind on their snow removal skills. Just maybe. Though the ice is thinning on the Neva, and if this warm weather keeps up maybe it will all melt while we’re gone next week.
I’ll try to post once more before heading for Moscow Thursday evening, hope all is well over there where spring has already come!
There is an old Russian saying, so my host mom tells me, that Winter and Spring always fight for a while before Spring finally wins out. Well, there is a first-class battle going on in this city. Even right this minute, through the gorgeous sunshine that has been shining since 9 AM this morning, snow has just started to come down rather strongly and the clouds are blowing in off of the Gulf of Finland and will soon block out the sun. Every day is an adventure, it can be sunny and freezing, sunny and warm (we had 2 of those this week and threw ourselves a celebration), cloudy wet and snowy, or cloudy freezing and snowing what feel like ice pellets. Its quite ridiculous – add to all of that that regardless of the weather, the area around our metro does not emerge from its ice-rink state and you’ve got quite the commute! But it makes the mornings fun, if a little stressful for your knees and stilettos as they try to prevent you from falling, and I feel slightly less Vitamin D deficient as a result of the sunny days.
Last weekend started early, with the cover show by Jarlath’s band (featuring ‘Special Guest from Flint, Brent’) on Thursday night about 11. As with most things in Russia, we weren’t sure where the bar was and ended up in a courtyard and heading through a door marked only by printouts done on Microsoft Word. Turned out to be a pretty chill bar, and their band (‘The Dudes’) played some great covers, mostly American music but also a Russian song or two and the crowd loved it all, Jarlath is a master at picking the slightly outdated songs that are more popular here than in the US, and also some classics including ‘Beat It’ and ‘Black or White’. We hung out for a while, then Brent and I went to take one of the girls home in a cab and returned to the bar after a half hour of incredibly interesting conversation with our cab driver who seemed very smart and was talking about how the opportunities in Russia are so much more difficult to come by, etc., and how he really wanted to improve his English because it gives you so many better opportunities. Got home nice and late, before up for classes on Friday morning. The weekend passed quickly, without excursions but with enough sunny weather for plenty of walking and lots of time spent with friends.
Classes are still going well, still teaching myself out of the second year book to try and fill in the gaps. The Ohio University study abroad program in Moscow starts this week, just one day before we arrive there for the start of our vacations. We’ll see if I can meet up with them that soon after their arrival.
This weekend started Thursday night with a trip to the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theater for a concert of Mozart’s Requiem. The hall is only a few years old, is absolutely beautiful and has been a topic of some discussion in the music world because of its superb acoustics. We were in the cheap seats, directly above the choir and behind the orchestra, but the sound quality was still incredible. The piece was beautiful, an hour and a half of the genius of Mozart made real by some of the best performers in Russia. This coming week we are going to an opera in the same hall, more Mozart, this time the Magic Flute. After the opera we met up with some of the guys in the center for a few drinks and to meet Jeremy’s friend who is visiting from Southern California. Headed home on the last metro to catch some sleep before our excursion to Pushkin on Saturday. Pushkin, so named in the 20th century after Russia’s favorite son who studied at an exclusive school for six years of his short life, is the town outside of St. Petersburg where the summer residence of the tsars was located. The palace there is magnificent, as are the gardens of both French and English style when there isn’t a foot of snow covering the, despite the fact that it was heavily damaged during the Second World War. The town was occupied by the Nazis, (interesting to note that in Russian they are always referred to as ‘the fascists’ rather than ‘the Germans’ as they often are in English), and the palace was sacked of almost every valuable treasure that had not been removed by the caretakers. Many of the restored rooms include photo displays of the rooms in the late 19th/early 20th centuries contrasted with photos of the rooms after the conclusion of the occupation of the region in the 1940s. The Nazis must have known that they had hit the motherload, almost everything was removed from the rooms and some parts of the palace that hadn’t been destroyed during the siege were destroyed when the approaching Russian army forced them out. Apparently, if there is one thing Russians are truly incredible at, it is restoring imperial palaces. The Catherine Palace in Pushkin has been absolutely stunningly restored, from the ethereal paintings on the ceilings to the parquet floors and the ridiculous amounts of gold and porcelain decorations. The amber room, the only one like it in the world, has also been brilliantly restored with almost 1 ton of amber from Kaliningrad, the Russian territory separated from the mainland by the Baltic States. Interestingly, in the original amber room there wasn’t enough for the very top of the walls or the fourth wall of the room, which is largely windows, and just so has it been restored. It is incredibly impressive, as are the rest of the rooms which have been restored, from the peacock room to the golden arcade. They are preparing for the celebration of the 300th birthday of the original part of the palace this summer, I can only imagine the utter opulence.
Meanwhile us regular citizens headed back to the city after the tour of the palace – it had started to do what Jarlath affectionately calls ‘slush from the sky’ so we weren’t exactly thrilled about wandering around the barren parks – but got stuck in traffic so we were starving when we finally made it back. Sveta, Irina, and I met up with Megan and proceed to eat and talk for the next 5 hours, at which point we were all wishing for a teleportation device to deposit us directly into our beds.
Today was the last time I’ll be in church until after Easter, I’m kind of disappointed that I’ll miss Easter Mass, one of the consulate couples are trying to organize a get-together afterwards which would be fun, but I’ll be in Stockholm until the mid-afternoon. Today after Mass we went to what has become the regular post-Mass café, where they always draw designs on top of the whipped cream on our cappuccinos. Had a great conversation with one of the couples that I haven’t talked to as much, they are leaving St. Petersburg in May just like I am. He is headed to Afghanistan for a year ‘tour unaccompanied.’ We talked about the incredible benefits of living abroad and about the differences that have taken place in St. Petersburg over the years, Mike was here in 1989, and then a few times in the 1990s as well before coming back two years ago. It is really incredible to think about the incredible changes that have taken place here in just 20 years, the incredible commercialization and privatization are just one noticeable part of it. They’ve gone through so much, maybe we should give them a break on the fact that they are a little behind on their snow removal skills. Just maybe. Though the ice is thinning on the Neva, and if this warm weather keeps up maybe it will all melt while we’re gone next week.
I’ll try to post once more before heading for Moscow Thursday evening, hope all is well over there where spring has already come!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Happy Women's Day, and Happy Birthday Padre!!
March 8th is International Women’s Day, a holiday which manifests itself largely in a day off and incredible amounts of flower purchasing by the men of Russia. We celebrated at my host grandmothers with plenty of champagne and food, and a friend of my host grandmothers was there as well. She is from Siberia, her family was aristocratic and was sent there at the time of the revolution. She taught us how to drink cognac in the Russian aristocratic tradition; a drink followed by a lemon with salt and coffee. Quite interesting, not exactly delicious but definitely not bad either. The guys also took us out last night (Sunday night), paid for our bill at the café that we went to the night before Men’s Day a few weeks ago. It turned out to be quite a late night, and Monday was a day full of more champagne and trying to start studying for our grammar test on Wednesday.
As always, Ira wanted to know what was going to be on the test so that she could help explain things or use them repetitively so they would be easier to remember. Half of the test had to do with the million different ways to tell time and the specific prepositions for various units of time and time relationships and time periods and sequences and… you get the idea. Somehow in the middle of all of that we got to talking again about the comparisons between the Soviet Union and Russia today. She gave her now typical spiel about how everyone had a job and there was enough food and space and everything (though by this time we had had not only champagne but also some home-made wine that someone had brought her at work for women’s day that was pretty strong so she was a little more animated than usual), and then we started talking about the nineties when everything changed. She’s not yet 40, but she talks about the seventies as though she remembers how great the life was, so I’m not sure whether its propaganda that’s informing her thought processes or whether that was how her parents explained life to her when she was young. In the eighties and nineties she said life became almost unbearable. There was nothing to be found in any of the stores and no one knew where the country was heading. The ideology had broken down and no one knew quite what to believe. It was then she explained that the change in the censorship policy took effect.
Under the Soviet Union, no one knew what was going on in the ‘West’ or the outside world in general, and they didn’t worry about it because life was good (provided your great-grandparents hadn’t been ‘enemies of the people’ and that you were ethnically Russian). In the last years, that started to change and people in Russia began to be interested in what life was like elsewhere. In the Soviet Union, news was censored so many tragedies didn’t make it to the evening news. (In conversation class one day a few weeks ago we talked about how the average person in Russia didn’t know about the real disaster at Chernobyl until days after the fact because of the censorship. Our conversation teacher knew about it earlier because his neighbors at his dacha had relatives in Finland who had been warned about the radiation.) Their lack of knowledge led to a feeling of comfort, Ira explained, that quickly evaporated as soon as people began to see both what life was like on the other side of the Iron Curtain and that terrible things were happening all around them. We had an interesting discussion about whether it is better to not know and feel safe and secure and comfortable, or to know and be always on edge and unhappy. What she said rings true about the Russian people, there are so many struggles in their daily lives – how many 70-year-olds do you know who work as conductors on busses because the pension from the government they have served their whole life is only about $50 a month – that I can see how it would be hard to additionally be constantly on edge and worried. So I took her argument with a grain of salt – I’m still in favor of ‘knowing’ but understand better now where she is coming from – and we moved on to talking about other wonderful things like the difference between the prepositions за & на and when not to use a preposition at all with time periods. Oh my.
And now its already Wednesday, and the grammar test is history! I studied quite a bit more than I have for any other test during my time in Russia, guess that’s what happens when you’re in a group a little over your head! But the time has been filled with much more than studying! One day last week I went with some friends to a vegetarian café not far from Sennaya ploschad and situated on a little side street. It reminded me so much of my roommate Mary that I immediately wanted to call her, unfortunately I had about 30 cents on my phone so I just gushed to my Russian friends about her and how much it felt like a place she would love. That got us on to a conversation about youth culture, where more things are similar than different between our two countries, and then on to music. Turns out that quite a few Russian guys like Bob Dylan, some even Neil Young. Most haven’t heard of Jackson Browne, but I had a pretty lengthy discussion about the differences between some of Bruce Springsteen songs and albums with a couple of the guys, in a combination of English and Russian which is usually what happens when we get together. Afterwards, we got in a snowball fight on Nevsky which ended with me in a snowbank and the old men on the park bench next to us laughing at us as they took a break from their chess match – yes, it was snowing, and -10, but they were playing chess. I also fell a few times walking around that night on the ice, so my streak of not falling is officially ended. Andrey caught me by the arm both times so I never totally ended up on the ground, except when I was in the snowbank of course.
Then this past Friday we went to a ‘folk show’ at the same palace where we had our end of the year party at the end of last semester with our host families. Our host moms were once again invited, and as usual my diva mama spent longer than I did ensuring that ‘we were again the most beautiful ones there’. I can’t even tell you how many times that phrase was repeated. In any event, she at least was the most beautiful of the host moms, helped by the fact that she is the youngest but also by the fact that she is legitimately very beautiful (hence the guys in the group want to learn pelmenni in the hopes that she’ll let them in the house and they get to talk to her for an hour or two). We had champagne and snacks at the break, and whispered about which of the young Russian dancers we liked best during the performances. A quartet sang beautiful Russian folk songs, and dance troupes performed traditional Russian dances both individually and as a group. Yes, the dance where the guy squats low to the ground and does various kicks was performed many times, and no, I still cannot do it. At one point Brian – at 6’8” – was pulled on stage to dance with the shortest dancer, after which much hilarity ensued. Luckily plenty of people didn’t lose their cameras while sledding, so there are lots of pictures and video of the event. It was a fun evening with my host mom, and afterwards we walked out arm in arm as she got in a marshutka and I headed to Brent’s hockey game with some of the group. It was a great game – with the exception of the 30 seconds in which the other team scored 3 goals – but we were wiped out from rushing around after school and the folk show so most of us headed home. The next night Jarlath was DJing at a new bar, which turned out to be a great time – the first and only time I will hear ACDC in a bar in Russia, I am almost positive – though another late night. And then Sunday night the guys took us out for women’s day, and now it is already Wednesday! Two weeks from tomorrow we head to Moscow – which means I really need to buy tickets! Tomorrow night. No, tomorrow night Brent is playing a show with Jarlath’s band. So Friday. I’m planning on Denmark and Sweden, but if you have any amazing suggestions I’ll take them into consideration until Friday ☺ I’m ready to take a little break from Russia, though I kind of wish I could take my host family with me! We are planning on Finland just after the holidays.
All the best to all of you, and if you are one of the lucky ones who gets to see my dad today, give him a hug and a happy birthday from me! Love - b
As always, Ira wanted to know what was going to be on the test so that she could help explain things or use them repetitively so they would be easier to remember. Half of the test had to do with the million different ways to tell time and the specific prepositions for various units of time and time relationships and time periods and sequences and… you get the idea. Somehow in the middle of all of that we got to talking again about the comparisons between the Soviet Union and Russia today. She gave her now typical spiel about how everyone had a job and there was enough food and space and everything (though by this time we had had not only champagne but also some home-made wine that someone had brought her at work for women’s day that was pretty strong so she was a little more animated than usual), and then we started talking about the nineties when everything changed. She’s not yet 40, but she talks about the seventies as though she remembers how great the life was, so I’m not sure whether its propaganda that’s informing her thought processes or whether that was how her parents explained life to her when she was young. In the eighties and nineties she said life became almost unbearable. There was nothing to be found in any of the stores and no one knew where the country was heading. The ideology had broken down and no one knew quite what to believe. It was then she explained that the change in the censorship policy took effect.
Under the Soviet Union, no one knew what was going on in the ‘West’ or the outside world in general, and they didn’t worry about it because life was good (provided your great-grandparents hadn’t been ‘enemies of the people’ and that you were ethnically Russian). In the last years, that started to change and people in Russia began to be interested in what life was like elsewhere. In the Soviet Union, news was censored so many tragedies didn’t make it to the evening news. (In conversation class one day a few weeks ago we talked about how the average person in Russia didn’t know about the real disaster at Chernobyl until days after the fact because of the censorship. Our conversation teacher knew about it earlier because his neighbors at his dacha had relatives in Finland who had been warned about the radiation.) Their lack of knowledge led to a feeling of comfort, Ira explained, that quickly evaporated as soon as people began to see both what life was like on the other side of the Iron Curtain and that terrible things were happening all around them. We had an interesting discussion about whether it is better to not know and feel safe and secure and comfortable, or to know and be always on edge and unhappy. What she said rings true about the Russian people, there are so many struggles in their daily lives – how many 70-year-olds do you know who work as conductors on busses because the pension from the government they have served their whole life is only about $50 a month – that I can see how it would be hard to additionally be constantly on edge and worried. So I took her argument with a grain of salt – I’m still in favor of ‘knowing’ but understand better now where she is coming from – and we moved on to talking about other wonderful things like the difference between the prepositions за & на and when not to use a preposition at all with time periods. Oh my.
And now its already Wednesday, and the grammar test is history! I studied quite a bit more than I have for any other test during my time in Russia, guess that’s what happens when you’re in a group a little over your head! But the time has been filled with much more than studying! One day last week I went with some friends to a vegetarian café not far from Sennaya ploschad and situated on a little side street. It reminded me so much of my roommate Mary that I immediately wanted to call her, unfortunately I had about 30 cents on my phone so I just gushed to my Russian friends about her and how much it felt like a place she would love. That got us on to a conversation about youth culture, where more things are similar than different between our two countries, and then on to music. Turns out that quite a few Russian guys like Bob Dylan, some even Neil Young. Most haven’t heard of Jackson Browne, but I had a pretty lengthy discussion about the differences between some of Bruce Springsteen songs and albums with a couple of the guys, in a combination of English and Russian which is usually what happens when we get together. Afterwards, we got in a snowball fight on Nevsky which ended with me in a snowbank and the old men on the park bench next to us laughing at us as they took a break from their chess match – yes, it was snowing, and -10, but they were playing chess. I also fell a few times walking around that night on the ice, so my streak of not falling is officially ended. Andrey caught me by the arm both times so I never totally ended up on the ground, except when I was in the snowbank of course.
Then this past Friday we went to a ‘folk show’ at the same palace where we had our end of the year party at the end of last semester with our host families. Our host moms were once again invited, and as usual my diva mama spent longer than I did ensuring that ‘we were again the most beautiful ones there’. I can’t even tell you how many times that phrase was repeated. In any event, she at least was the most beautiful of the host moms, helped by the fact that she is the youngest but also by the fact that she is legitimately very beautiful (hence the guys in the group want to learn pelmenni in the hopes that she’ll let them in the house and they get to talk to her for an hour or two). We had champagne and snacks at the break, and whispered about which of the young Russian dancers we liked best during the performances. A quartet sang beautiful Russian folk songs, and dance troupes performed traditional Russian dances both individually and as a group. Yes, the dance where the guy squats low to the ground and does various kicks was performed many times, and no, I still cannot do it. At one point Brian – at 6’8” – was pulled on stage to dance with the shortest dancer, after which much hilarity ensued. Luckily plenty of people didn’t lose their cameras while sledding, so there are lots of pictures and video of the event. It was a fun evening with my host mom, and afterwards we walked out arm in arm as she got in a marshutka and I headed to Brent’s hockey game with some of the group. It was a great game – with the exception of the 30 seconds in which the other team scored 3 goals – but we were wiped out from rushing around after school and the folk show so most of us headed home. The next night Jarlath was DJing at a new bar, which turned out to be a great time – the first and only time I will hear ACDC in a bar in Russia, I am almost positive – though another late night. And then Sunday night the guys took us out for women’s day, and now it is already Wednesday! Two weeks from tomorrow we head to Moscow – which means I really need to buy tickets! Tomorrow night. No, tomorrow night Brent is playing a show with Jarlath’s band. So Friday. I’m planning on Denmark and Sweden, but if you have any amazing suggestions I’ll take them into consideration until Friday ☺ I’m ready to take a little break from Russia, though I kind of wish I could take my host family with me! We are planning on Finland just after the holidays.
All the best to all of you, and if you are one of the lucky ones who gets to see my dad today, give him a hug and a happy birthday from me! Love - b
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