Friday, June 26th

Today was day 7 of bonding. On the way we went to the big supermarket at Maxima to stock up again on water, snacks, etc. While at the Babyhouse, we try to get Roman to play outside because hubby is constantly sneezing in the play room. We kick the ball around outside and play with bubbles. Back in the playroom, we try making macaroni necklaces with Roman but that only keeps his attention for a few minutes. He did manage to make a small necklace. We also bring out a set of blocks we bought at the Green Market. The instructions which come with the blocks show a train. He gets excited about the train, but there is no train with this set and he is content to try to make a house. This keeps his interest for a short time as he tries to make a small house with the blocks. While outside, Roman’s attention is always caught by the ‘alma’ (apples) on the trees in the courtyard. He grabs one and tries to eat it, Galina and we tell him ‘nyet’ (no). When we get back in the room we bring out a small juice we bought at the supermarket and a small baggie with cookies which Galina brought. He is not as interested in the cookies…the boy loves his fruit, but he eventually eats them all. Galina says it’s common for the kids to overeat because they worry the food won’t be there and they don’t know what it’s like to be full.

After our bonding session, we return to the hotel for lunch in our room and a short nap. This is the point at which hubby blew out one of our converters (luckily we have a back up, but it’s at least 25 years old) and blew a fuse in our room. Since it’s warm and the fan in our room doesn’t work anymore, we decide to walk around and explore some. While exploring, we see some of the traffic lights out….hmmm, could this be from the incident in our hotel room? It caused quite a mess with the traffic which is crazy to begin with. We check out a couple of bookstores then we head back to the hotel. Luckily we finally are able to make a staff person in the hotel understand the problem in our room. A maintenance worker is summoned and quickly solves the problem.

After the other family returns from their babyhouse, we have Galina drop us off near Mama Mia for dinner as it was highly recommended to us. We were surprised we were offered real cloth napkins for a change! Every place we have been to, with the exception of Argento, only small squares of paper napkins are available. Guess us Americans are used to being messy! We shared grilled vegetables and a pepperoni pizza. The pizza was very thin and tasty. The walk back to hotel is a long one which takes us uphill. The wind picked up so at least it wasn’t hot. On the way, we stop in a store called Booking, which reminds us of a Borders or Barnes & Noble, with books, movies, and music.