Kiwis Abroad: Day at the "Dacha" Part I

On Saturday we boarded a train that took us about an hour out into the country east of Novosibirsk. All along the way we mostly saw acres of green forests with little settlements here and there of "dachas", which are the country houses that families own and where they go during the summer to plant their vegetable gardens and lots of flowers. A lot of the harvest is sold to try and make some extra money and also some things like potatoes stored to be used in the hard winters that they have here. Just about every bit of available space in the yard is given over to growing the vegetables and flowers, which looks very lush and pretty. Also, in every garden there was an abundance of raspberries growing, of which we got to sample - delicious. Below are a few photos of our day there, but maybe there will be more at a later date.

The cottages are very rustic. The one we visited had two small shacks. The one at the front of the lot was for sleeping and the one at the back was the kitchen. They also had green houses for growing tomatoes and cucumbers (which they eat a lot of here).

Today (Monday) we had our third Russian class - I guess we are starting to learn the odd word, but we will never really conquer this language - it is REALLY HARD so don't expect us to come home with more than a word or two!! We have two more lessons to go - after the first lesson Les has just left us to find our own way to the school! I was a little nervous the first time, but we sort of know our way now.....we first walk a couple of blocks from their apartment to catch to Metro which takes us to the other side of the river and then we have to walk a few blocks to the school. Quite an eye-opener for us getting around in this way. Guess we have never walked so far in a long time - brings back many memories of the early days in Bogota, Colombia in the 1970's.