28 days later...

...The virus is spreading.

Merry Christmas to you and your family

Who needs expensive gaming systems and fancy gifts for Christmas? All you need is warm clothes and a piece of plastic to have fun in this town.
Merry Christmas. I am taking off. Talk to you next year,

Sculptures at the mall

Houston has its rodeo, New Orleans has its Mardi Gras, and Akademgorodok has its "snow sculpture at the mall" festival. No steak, no more alcohol than usual, but a bunch of nice sculptures taking shape right under the lens of my camera. May this blog help this great event getting the international attention it deserves.
Happy holidays to all of you,

A new bar in town

A new pub (type lounge) has opened in Akademgorodok. It is called Nikuda. Someone told me about the subtle pun in the name, but I forgot. Beside its well chosen name, it also has the good initiative to offer "Buy 3 Stella get 1 free". Much less subtlety in that aspect, but very well thought too. It feels like they designed their business model to fit the profile of most of my dear readers. Combined with the usual Sambucca, it is a very good option for a late night drink. They have live bands and a staff of about 3 times the optimal size to run the place efficiently.
I can't emphasize enough that you have to come visit to check out all these good places.

Trees from my street

The place is really getting pretty with snow and frost on the trees. A temperature of about -12C ensures that it stays that way. So, since I fell lazy to do any skiing or skating this week end, I just went out and took of few pictures of trees, the easiest thing to find in Akademgorodok.
All these trees are in my street, (Zolotodalunskaya Ulitsa). I hope they will fill your house with a bit of Christmas spirit.

Hockey

My first hockey game turned out to be quite fun. Some key pictures of that event are pasted here... As you can see, I suck pretty bad at it, but that was expected. It will come with time and practice. In the mean time, make sure you wear shinguards when I am on the icerink. You can view more pictures in the slideshow in the right hand side barre.


Shoot... I missed the puck.


Darn! Missed again.


An error in the defense (composed of me) lead to a dramatic goal.

Havannah club kills brain cells

Last night was my first night out in a club in Novosibirsk. I went to Havannah club with a bunch of friends (I did not know them all at the start of the evening, but I fixed that quite well). Havannah club is a cuban club as its name indicates. Well, for a cuban club, they had good vodka and good stella artois. As a good companion, I drank to be social, (that was needed because there was a significant language barrier) but at the rate we drank, I inadvertently skipped the warning sign that indicates the dangerous crossing from social drinking to getting wasted. I blew off the language barrier in the process, along with a few brain cells.
I recommend Havannah club to anyone coming to Novosibirsk. They first serve a very good dinner, and then there is a show w/ very good dancers around midnight, and then you can dance (the dancers stick around and they dance with you as well).
There is a very appreciated policy in the siberian club that says "we don't close until the last customer leaves". I did not believe that in the first place, so we stayed just to check that it was true. We finished up at 5:30am and jumped in a taxi to go back home.

I learned yesterday that my favorite local drink TAMOUGA was actually called Sambucca. Major disappointment. We had some of course, but they were not as good as in Moscow... The waitress was obviously a novice at serving sambucca and she lit up the drinks with our straws in the glass. The melting point of a plastic straws being quite low, the straws melted and shrunk at the bottom of the glass. We drank it anyway.


Can't wait to try other places. If you are dropping by for a visit, I'll show you those good clubs of Novosibirsk.

My bagages are back from Cancun!

Very very good news. My bagages made it back to Novosibirsk after 10 days at the Moscow airport. Aeroflot must have thought that after all, they did not need the detailed list of my luggage content with an estimated value of each article that they asked me when I called them last week, because the list was still being translated in Russian at my office when my assistant called Aeroflot who said that they just sent the luggages to Novosibirsk. And the best thing is that my luggages are almost intact: I am only missing my laser pointer (all new: the box was still in the suitcase), a torchlight, a pen and my leather gloves. As for the dirty dust that was all spread all over my clothes, it is probably me who must have dumped the vacuum bag over the suitcase and forgot about it. Anyway, I forgive the guy who took my little gadgets and scratched his dandruffs over my clothes in exchange of sending my luggage back to me.

Winter sport season has started... yoohoo!

This is what Akademgorodok looks like now. A little piece of heaven wrapped in a layer of immaculate snow. And on the right, this is one of the numerous cross country skiing tracks that are litterally at a walking distance from my place. I said "walking", because apparently, you don't want to ski in the city... I don't know why, but when I mention we could use skis, locals look at me like I am a total weirdo. Anyway, there is nothing like a good walk home by minus 15C after 2 hours of skiing at the same temperature.


I had a lot of fun this week end: on Friday night, I went to a rock climbing gym, which is litterally at a walking distance from my place. There, I could appreciate how my forearms shrunk in size in the last 3 years where I did not go climbing. Then on Saturday, I went to the all new shopping mall, called MEGA CENTER. And well, if you think the Russians have anything to learn from the westerners for building shopping malls, you are totally wrong: there are IKEA, AUCHAN, Leroy Merlin, Benetton, Nike, Reebok, Puma, Apple retailer, Zara, and even Subway... (and much more). I forgot how great it was to shop in a noisy and crowded mall, with the good ol' junk food smell. And, of course, there is the standard ice rink in the middle (you would have thought they'd come up with something more original than an ice rink for Russia, like maybe snorkeling or fly fishing).
On our way back from the mall, we drove by the Ob Sea. It looks much more fun in winter than in summer: the trash is covered with white snow, and there are wind sailers (on skates) and kite surfers (on some type of skates as well). I guess it is advisable to learn kite surfing in water before going on ice, but that looks like a lot of fun! And there are also ice fishers.
In brief, the whole city is like a giant winter sport resort. It's getting fun.

Where would you rather be?

In this serie, guess which picture was not taken in Mexico, but from work on my way to the airport... Watch out! It is a trick question.
So, I am back in Akademgorodok after a week in Cancun and a brain cell damaging stop-over in Moscow. Let's skip the boring part in Cancun (for the sake of being consistent with the title of the blog). I am now back in Russia, so no more COCO BONGO for me... Anyway, Moscow has other perks than just the Red Square. One of them is called... TAMOUGA! It is a drink that consists in setting fire to a glass of absinthe, and then put another glass upside down on top of it to cut oxygen from the fire. Then, this latter glass is put upside down on a straw: you first drink the absinthe and then breath in from the straw... That would warm up a dead body. The only issue is that you can't drink more than 2 of those after you had 5 vodkas because it gives a headache. Since it gets hard to count all the way up to 2 after 5 vodkas, both Sonia and me had a serious headache the day after. So we only went for a quick walk in Moscow, but that was enough for me since my luggage had been lost on the way from Cancun so I was freezing my butt, even in Eddie's coat.
For the people interested in having fun on Moscow, the bar we went to is called the Art Garbage. Very cool place, but don't stay in the restrooms for too long when you go there: there was a guy in front of me who got beaten up because he stayed too long in the bathrooms according to another client who slapped him in the face when he got out. I must have done pretty good on time when I got there, because nobody slapped me in the face when I got out. My trick was to save on time by not washing hands.
Thanks for reading my blog while I was away. Da Svidania everybody.

Too cold... I am going

Today, it started with a nice warm and liquid rain. And then, it got cold and it started snowing...and it is going to be really cold this week end. So I am leaving.... and going to Cancun for the week. Arrrrrrriba!

The Ob sea

Hi everyone. This morning, the weather was nice and warm, and I thought I would go down to the lake by Akademgorodok to make nice pictures for the blog. The name of the lake is the Ob Sea (yes, only "ob", like in "oben merde alors"). I only put on 4 layers of clothes and rode my bike (on which I have put winter tires with little metallic studs) down to the lake. I got my camera out and... no memory card. I had left it at my place. So no picture from the actual lake for you, but a picture of the Ob river downstream of the lake which I took a few days earlier.

The Ob Sea is actually the Novosibirsk reservoir. It is the largest artificial lake in Novosibirsk Oblast and Altai Krai created by a dam on the Ob River near Novosibirsk. The reservoir is 200 km long and up to 20 km wide. The power of hydroelectric power is 400 MW. During the summer, it is one of the most popular destinations for Novosibirsk residents with many yachts and boats dotting the surface of the lake, and the beaches teaming with people (thanks Wikipedia... now my turn). In November, the beaches are very empty except for a few stray dogs and empty beer cans.
I don't know if I will go back there before a while (probably not before the lake is totally frozen, and litters covered with a layer of pure white snow). It is almost depressing in November. However, on my way back, I got lost in the woods by the botanical garden, and I had a lot of fun on my bicycle. The place is really quite good for mountain biking.
More pictures of the Ob Sea are available at this link.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Fashionable for one day

Akademgorodok... The statues and the coffee place

Pictures I took on my way to the office (by foot). I could not resist stopping at the traveler's coffee for a "latte bolchoe". It is quite a nice place for lunch and coffee, and they are quite tolerant w/ regards to non Russian speakers. Definitely a good address. One of the only addresses anyway.

More snow...

Well, this time I believe that snow season has really started. I was advised to go buy skis. I don;t want to be the first guy on skis in town, though. In the mean time, some pictures of Akademgorodok under the snow.

My second snow.

Today is Saturday. I had planned to go jogging and then go for a bike ride. I might have to revise my plans. Whatever my plans will turn out to be, they will probably include cold and wet feet... Numbness is slowly settling in...

My first snow!!!

This is it! That is how it is supposed to look! I woke up on Wednesday, and this is what I saw... woooow, boy o boy o boy! That's real snow. However I was the only one excited at the office. How can you get ever snow numb? Will I ever experience that?

Going to work by bike

It is not so hard to ride bicycle in Akademgorodok. It is all in the layering. Now, why would I do that when it is so easy to go to work by taxi? Just because I came to Siberia to experience cold... so that's not a few snowflakes and a bit of headwind that are going to keep me from enjoying my ride.

Random pictures from Novosibirsk

There is no joking here.


Nokia. Stay connected to your party.


Lenine's legacy is still alive...


...as is the legacy from St Patrick (is that historically correct?)

Of course, there is much more to see in the city. I just don't want to put everything on my first day, otherwise I will be losing my audience. Enjoy your life in the West.

A picture by Vladimir

I was just passing by when a friend of mine took this picture. Amazing, uh, how Vladimir and I have same body language...
Anyway, this is my first time "in town". I could not let this opportunity passing by without having my picture taken there. I guess that would do a great background on your desktop. Let me post more pictures of Vladimir's friends.

I really need to get cable

A sample of what I get on my local TV channels... Boring. I really need to upgrade to cable once I can call a provider in Russian.

No Russian class today

Today, my lesson of Russian has been canceled because my teacher has been bitten by a dog on her way to my office (it was actually on the property of my company). And I thought pretending that the dog ate my paper was a good excuse for not doing my homework...

Can't wait for the week end

Today, I was happy that my friend Ivan invited me for a drink in a new place. 'turns out it is the same place I went to last Saturday. Is it possible I already pub crawled all the good places in Akademgorodok?
I realize I need to take more pics of the place if I want this blog to be of interest to my friends with short attention span who can't take text w/o pictures. I will do that this week end as I will have my first day out in town!!! Novosibirsk, here I am! Yeehaa!

My nights in Russia

Nothing really interesting happened to me today. I already caught my first cold (and it is only -5C in the morning!) and I am tired. So I am thinking back to these crazy nights in MOCKBA, when the local spice girls, Tatiana, Natalia, Natacha and their brother Oleg offered a nice little show. See my movie...

My place in Novosibirsk

My place is actually in Akademgorodok. Here are some pictures. The long time readers of my blog will recognize the pictures of the apartment I posted on the very first day of this blog. And yes, I DO like the green and orange coaches. No trace of the cat yet.

Lesson learned #1

I decided to post lessons learned from my transfer in Novosibirsk. These lessons learned will be posted at regular intervals, and will be accompanied by examples of application. They are of interest for the people who want to move to Russia. The handful of people who are not considering moving to Siberia can skip this part.

Lesson learned #1:

When a person answers your question by “Yes, yes! No problem”, the only reliable information you then have is that the person has the physical capability of saying “Yes, yes! No problem”. Drawing any correlation between your question and the answer is highly speculative.

Example of application:

Me, calling for scheduling a taxi pick up: “Please make sure the driver comes with a big car, because I have a shitload of luggage. Something like a minivan would be the best.

Taxi dispatcher: -Yes, yes! No problem!

Me: -And, by the way, can I pay by credit card? I would prefer because I have little cash.

Taxi dispatcher: -Yes, yes! No problem!”

If you understand lesson learned #1, you should have no difficulty to figure out the size of the cab that came to pick me up, and the final mode of payment.

Back in!

All right, my internet now is set up at my new apartment. I hope I did not lose too many readers in that short time span. But you are lucky because I kept drafts of my posts these last 3 days.
Let me first share some pics from Moscow... or should I say MOCKBA? Oups... Sorry Eddie, your picture did not upload well.

So... looks goos, uh?

Sonia and her Russian cheeseburger.