Deep in Altai

Guess to whom this nice pair of legs belongs to? And guess where they were laying at the time I took this picture? If you think these are my legs facing towards Mongolia, then you are right. Mongolia is just a couple of hundred km behind my feet. I just passed 3 days in Altai, a beautiful region only hours away from Novosibirsk. We were lucky the summer finally decided to show up and we had a nice and sunny week end. Actually, the pair of legs you are looking at with delight now turned redish and the skin is about to peel off.
The people there very much look like asian (Mongol type). There are animals left in the wild pretty much everywhere. The picture below shows horses, but believe me, I also saw cows, sheeps and goats. Simply amazing...
Altai is beautiful, particularly because it is empty and far from everything. Again, that's a feeling that I had not got anywhere in the U.S in the last years. And if I knew how to use my camera, I would have taken beautiful pictures of the sky at night with its thousands of stars.
I plan to go back there in the summer with my bicycle this time...I first need to get back in shape because the nice legs you are staring at lost much of their thrusting power during the cold winter.

A new website about Novosibirsk

For people who are interested in Novosibirsk beyond my small adventures, here is a all new webiste that has lots of goof stuffs in English:
http://novosibirskguide.com/
I thought I'd give them a hand by posting this link in my own blog. I hope their server is up to the task of handling all visitors that will swarm to their site after reading this blogpost.
Now, for the people who still doubt that there are things to do around here, let me quote them (under "Around Novosibirsk"):
"Here is an ordinary picture a traveler may occasionally come across in the Novosibirsk region: fields, birch groves, a brook and a tiny village nearby. Such delightful landscapes can be observed as far as only 10 km away from the city line. If one gazes at the direction of South-East long enough he or she might soon find that some massifs start peeping in the distance. The West, in its turn, is well-known for its salt and mud lakes. [...] Unfortunately, local tourist agencies hardly offer any tours around the region with the only exception of trips to the abovementioned lakes. "

Hmmm...another good one:
"“Apart from significant natural sights, the Novosibirsk region is saturated with industrial landscapes enchanting a viewer with the grandeur of their scales.”

So, book your flight tickets now before prices go up!

Labor day in Siberia

Local Labor day jokes:

-How do you say "Labor day" in Russian?
-Another cold and snowy day...


-What is the traditional wish for the 1st of May in Siberia?
-"I wish I had not put my summer tires back on last week."

A break and then I will continue

This week end is pretty calm. I mainly reorganized the layout of my apartment so that I have more room around my computer. Wireless expanded my options. And I also figured out how to plug my PSP system to my TV, and defintely FIFA 2007 is more interesting on the big screen TV...which explains why the blog post is short this time. Other things to report? mmmmh. I went to the hairdresser and answered the door to an old lady who is looking for her family members who said that they moved to my address. Obviously, Russian language is very hard, even for the natives, to the point that it affects family relationships.
Since I have nothing of interest to post, I would like to remind you all that your comments make me happy. So go ahead and post a little message. Obviously quality is not a criterion to write something in this blog, so don't feel bad if you think you are not good enough...Last post had 9 comments, with 3 of them being mine, one spam, and 2 from Ian (yes I still make a distinction between spam and Ian's comments). I think you can do better...

Mission Impossible

Last night I decided to finally set up my wireless connection. I had failed about 2 months ago when I bought my routeur and tried for the first time, and I decided to give it one more shot...this time, a real one, where I'd try everything. I spent 2 hours last night messing with the IP addresses, DNS servers, subnet masks and so on rather than enjoying a beer with my friends. After 2 hours of failed attempts, I gave up and decided to go back to my good ol' wire. I went to bed with a feeling of failure and being worthless. But it all changed today afternoon, when I received a phone call from my russian coworker who helped me with setting my internet account 6 months ago. She asked me if I did anything last night with my internet connection. Ashamed, but honest, I confessed I tried to set up the wireless connection with no success...she answered: "Well, your service provider is looking for you because last night, you broke the internet connection for your whole district and they want to charge you for the damage you created. There are still apartments without internet connection because of you...there is someone wanting to meet you at your place in 30 minutes."
I went back to my place. The cable guy was there and came in my place to set up my internet connection, and charged me 600 roubles before going fixing the internet connection at each of my neighbors, to whom I would like to apologize in this blog which I now write wirelessly.
Sorry neighbors. Thanks for the good story though. Now, if anybody can tell me how messing with my own IP address can cause failure of internet at the district's level, I am curious to hear the explanation. I am not satisfied this time with the traditional "because it's Russia".

My week-end in a cave

I could make the story very long... and I will in a next post. But for now I prefer posting the movie of our week end near Krasnoiarsk... In brief: a very intense week end with little sleep, a long walk on a frozen lake, a visit of a cave for 36 hours with lots of ice and bats and cold...and nobody else but the 4 of us.

Shashlik season has started

You might think it is a bit early in the season for barbequeing, just by looking at the people kite-snowboarding on the thick layer of ice covering the lake... But it is not too early for the local variant of BBQ: the shashlik. Shashlik means "kabob" or brochette, and is made with marinated meat to be eaten with pickled onions and sauce. It tastes awesome ("Vkusno", in Russian), and the fire keeps you warm. I already went shashlicking 2 times and I quite enjoy it, at least as much as I used to enjoy the BBQ+swimming pool parties in Texas, but with more clothes on, and without a cooler full of beer.
In the background of the first picture, you can also see little black dots: those are fishers who dig holes through the ice to find fish. I guess the fishing season stops after the first casualty falling through the ice, which is estimated to be about mid-May.

All right... and one more picture just to show you that Siberia looks nice when you look at it from the right angle: