Auchan, Moscow style

Supermarket shopping can be and often is, traumatic in Moscow. The first hurdle to jump is getting there by car and parking. Getting there will give you a small taste for being there once you finally arrive. Push you way through the city traffic and reach your shopping destination at one of the main big names in Russia 'Auchan' for that taste of home and a cathedral to food. Big, and cheaper than the luxury ones here, it's your best choice for monthly stocks of food, washing powder, toilet paper and other essential stuff.

When you arrive find a parking space. You can either park outside or head on down to the underground car park where BMW's and huge black boxes on wheels snarl at each other aggressively for that last free parking space. Engines roar and its a case of seeing a space and heading for it and to hell with any shopping carts, kids or old ladies that happen to be in your way. Unload the car of kids and head up the traveling stairway to hell. Find a cart, they are free, unlike in most other countries where you have to put a coin deposit into the cart to take one off the chains. They are free carts here and carts do not suffer the shackles of cart chained slavery, they can escape whenever they want to and can roll free to a river, pond or field.

Push in through the shop gates, go past the woman or man that likes to wrap your bags up in kilometers clear plastic and make your way down the big supermarket aisles. If are like me, who has a small kid, who likes to pull everything off the shelves as he passes by then you may want to ask the women at the entrance to wrap your darling up in clear plastic allowing for a breathing hole and two holes for his eyes. That way they will not be able to grab everything from their cart seat and you will feel less stressed knowing they are bound up and secure in plastic. Of course this would not be allowed in my country as it would be seen as child cruelty, I call it child management. I'm only joking by the way, before I get any hate comments.

The annoying thing about shopping at a big supermarket in Russia, is that they often block off the main aisles with large wooden pallets of food that they use to re stock the shelves, look at the shop workers in a dirty way as you pass them and they will look back at you with killer eyes or may even punch you. You can find almost everything you need at Auchan, curtsey of those kind French. Although those French have obviously not put very much effort into their overseas training and shopping experience in Russia as they have back home. The shop gets very busy on Saturdays and expect shopping cart traffic jams at peak times. I was disappointed by the vegetable section. In France, shopping at one of these big shops is a pleasant experience, civilized, polite and at times, even a religious experience in gastronomy. In France, you can happily push your cart around a French supermarket like Auchan and see the neatly stacked fruit and vegetables looking like art, be amazed at the tidy seafood counter and salivate at the choice of delicious sea food on offer. You won't get the same experience here in Moscow. Here it's animal instinct and paratrooper style. Get in, hit your mission target and chopper out.

The vegetable section at Auchan in Russia is not like it is in France. There is no soft Barry Manilow music playing softly out of the shop speakers to calm your nerves, there is no pumped morning mist to gently caress the vegetables like morning valley dew. Instead, it's every man and woman for themselves. Carrots lie stacked like holocaust victims in random untidy heaps. Courgettes lie battered and bruised across fields of damaged mushrooms, stray and lost oranges find themselves lost in foreign lands mixed in with the potatoes and other victims of vegetable abuse and vegetable battle. Load up your shopping cart with your battle scared fruit and vegetables and make your way to your next nerve test, the weighing machine. People stand in lines stretching around the blocks of fruit with their stuff in bags to be weighed. They look visibly nervous, waiting to get their sticky price label. I often stand their feeling stressed, asking myself will the machine work? Will it run out of sticky labels? Will the machine give me what I ask it? When I get there, it usually has run out of sticky labels. My kid smiles up at me from his cart seat, happily chewing on a dirty potato, while I desperately search for another free weighing machine. I find one and with trebling hands, I search for a button with a photo of bananas on it to get my sticky label, no Russian langauge is required.

If you go with your husband or wife, take a shopping cart each and split up, sometimes quite literally. Divorce at the supermarket has been known to happen and I often get divorced at least once a month at these big Moscow supermarkets. I will shoot off with my kid and cart, while my wife will shoot off with her cart in a different direction with her own agenda. A female agenda that you do not question as it knows no logic or reason. She spends hours deciding which shampoo to choose, she spends hours deciding which mince is best. I grab and throw and then spend ages looking for her. It takes me about thirty minutes to fill my cart, it takes her over an hour to half fill hers. Grab and throw is the best tactic for survival.

Once you have been reunited with you wife or husband and re married, head for the checkout tills. People wait in line. Cart and people watching is a fascinating hobby. Some people have a cart stacked with just beer or just meat, some people have a cart stacked with just clothes, while some people have a cart with just four items. You will see crazy unshaven men, fat crazy women, thin worried women, men with gold teeth, men covered in tattoos, girls that look like they have just left the local bordello, all types of people. People guard their cart space like a lion guarding his mating ground. I grip my cart handle with white knuckled determination to get to the golden cup and to my way out of Auchan hell. Once we get to the checkout till, we unload and bag up. My wife tells me off and shouts at me asking me to put everything on the checkout belt in a logical way. Toiletry products all go together, juice and drink all go together, meat all goes together. I once asked he why she did this, after a slap round the face, she told me it makes unpacking the shopping at home a lot easier. Female logic, don't question it, don't ask, just accept it as you accept losing your socks in the washing machine as you accept all other life mysteries. Don't fight it just be.

When you have paid, leave and find your car. Get divorced for the second time that day after spending hours in the rain searching for your car in a sea of other cars. Load up the boot (car trunk) making sure all the bags are of course female logically placed for easy unloading and hit the Moscow jam to get back to the cocoon and safety of your Moscow flat.

I think big supermarkets here are a still being accepted in Russia, It's a cultural thing. I feel many people go shopping every other day for small things, as and when, they need them. People by a loaf of bread or some oranges in small quantities from a local market or local small shop rather than get stressed at an Auchan supermarket. We go shopping once a month, that way its out the way and all over till the next month, although I am not sure this the best way to shop.

Shopping, love it or hate we cannot avoid it where ever we are in the world. I love eating and cooking but for me, food shopping in Moscow is a hell on earth, I would rather watch cricket for three hours than go shopping and I hate cricket.

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Madonna is coming to Moscow with her candy

I have been going to a gym here in Moscow for about a year. The price is good and it has great exercise machines and a swimming pool. The thing about moving to a big city or any large foreign city, is that it's important to meet people and to make new friends. A gym can give you that opportunity and if you are a stay at home parent, it will get you out the flat.

I have met a few people at this gym. One morning at 7 am, in an empty gym, I spotted a guy arriving as I pounded the tread mill. He had shorts on with white hairy legs and looked as English as an English man could look, a kind of Mr Bean in Moscow. From my running machine, I asked him "are you English?" He looked at me surprised and said he was, after that we would exchange friendly conversation whenever we met. He told me he married a Russian woman and works as an accountant at one of the big ones in Moscow. There are many foreign guys here married to Russian women. I can think of far easier places to fall in love than in Moscow.

I often chat to a large man in his early 50's. He is Russian but speaks very good English. The other day he asked me if I was a football fan, not wanting to disappoint him, I lied and said I was. He told me he is a Manchester United fan. He talked to me about different matches and I would smile and nod pretending to know what he was talking about. What was more interesting was that he later told me he has a wife in America and that he goes out two times a month to see her. He has a daughter at Washing State university and a son with a drug problem. He told me he owns thirty houses there and lets them out for rent. I got the feeling he is wealthy but he is not arrogant. I know this man is the type of Russian guy who would step over my dying, bullet filled body in a bar shoot out but despite this, I like him, he is a character and I need characters to escape the monotony of the expat community and from every day life.

It's hard to make genuine friends these days and even harder when you meet them in a big city and in a gym. Characters feed the soul. The eccentric old woman who keeps nine cats, the man who has been married four times, the man who was once a mercenary in Bolivia, the women who adopted eight children and who lives in Dublin, the man who washes his car in the rain, (me) the guy who built a wind turbine on his roof, I could go on but I have always been drawn to characters and met many of these. They make our world a little less boring. Living abroad you get to meet the very dull and the very interesting.

There is a pretty girl who works at the reception at the gym. She speaks good English with a slight Russian accent and uses a lot of Americanisms. One day, I told her that her English was good, I asked her if she had studied abroad, she told me with pride that had studied in America in the land of the free. The next time we met, she spoke to me with an American accent, she sounded like a college kid from an 80's American teen movie. I thought maybe it was a different girl but it was the same girl. I found this very strange but I have noticed that many native Russians speak with American accents, they practice it as one would practice the violin to music perfection. It almost seems to be a 'must have' as one would want to buy the latest Apple, fridge freezer or iPhone. An American accent is sought after and seen as cool. I have never understood why and I never will but then again I am British so please forgive my disability. I find a Russian accent on a women very sexy and on a man cool but maybe I have watched too many old James Bond movies? Listening to over done and Californian American accents is like raw knuckles on a cheese grater to my nerves.

Sadly, this gym that I go to, is closing and changing to a new gym and a new brand. Madonna is coming to town and to St. Petersburg. She is opening two luxury gyms here in Russia called  'Hard Candy' Her face is pasted on large posters on every wall in the fitness club, she poses in a boxing ring bent down showing her tits. Tits made of gold that will either make her richer in Russia or be a total financial disaster. I will not see Mr Bean anymore or fat man but that's come and go meetings in a sea of new faces, that pass silently like ships in the night. Pity I will miss them.

The gym membership will be 160,000 rubles a year, a bit more than I paid! When I joined, the gym was 55,000 rubles (approx 1,375 British pounds) for fifteen months membership. The gym is not luxury but does the job. Its now becoming a luxury gym for yet more vile Russian stereotypes to go to. I will look for another gym. In Moscow, it seems to me you either have a choice of shit or luxury, finding a middle way in quality is not always so easy in this city of a million stereotypes and vast inequalities between mega rich and very poor.

Note: Sorry if you are from California.  You know the type, Vally girls or college kids who sound like actors from a teen musical.

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How to - Drive in Moscow

Driving

Driving in Moscow requires a change of what you have ever learned at driving school in your own country. Throw away your rule book and learn new ways of driving. When pulling out or turning, do not signal or use any form of turning signal, pull out sharply and speed away. If another driver protests at your lack of signal, hoot at them or give them the finger. When driving on a main Moscow road, do not respect your lane but in the spirit of community, lane share and make face contact with your mobile driving neighbour. Drive half in your lane and half in the lane next to you. If you see a window of opportunity to get past the car in front of you, slam on the gas and overtake on either side, don't signal, just pull out, slam on your beaks when you get back into a lane, don't worry about the car behind you or use any of your mirrors. On motorways, overtake and or drive on the hard shoulder, rules are made to be broken.

It is very important to not thank another driver if they let you in front of them as this is seen as very weak and unnecessary. Try to drive with one ear on your mobile and if you can park while talking on your mobile, you will be seen as highly skilled by other drivers. At Zebra crossings and at traffic lights, it is not always necessary to stop, if you are in a hurry just continue on your way, never mind old ladies or children. In the winter, try to drive with very dirty black headlights and dirty break lights (tail lights), it does not matter if your number plate is black and unreadable, in fact it does not matter if you don't have a number plate. If you have one headlight or no break lights (tail lights) its not a problem. Headlights and break light are an option in Russia.

Parking

Don't worry about parking close to the curb and pavement (sidewalk) edge its not necessary, park how you like and where you like. You can park with one or two wheels balanced on the pavement or simply drive onto the pavement leaving the back end off your car or 4X4 sticking out at a sharp angle on the road, (for some mild examples see here). Park with just one back wheel balanced on the pavement if you like. Parking across or fully on zebra crossings, is strongly encouraged and where possible try to park on the corner of roads. If you are in a hurry for that important meeting, deal or date, simply park your car in the middle of the road and on a turning, don't be shy as others drivers will do the same as you.

Double parking is also highly encouraged, why worry about looking for space? Simply park next to another car. To ensure that the person next to your can get out, you can leave your mobile phone number on your window, it does not matter if you cannot get back to your car as you may be two hours away by metro from your parked car, they can wait for you, it's your driving right. When choosing your car, the rule is the bigger the better and if possible choose black. Try and buy a car like a 4X4 BMW, Porsche, Mercedes or Hummer. Make sure all the windows are black and if possible put a blue light on your roof, that way if you are in a hurry just switch it on and drive over all the traffic lights. Try and carry a gun or weapon under your seat as you never know when you may need it. Hire an old driver who likes a drink and who chain smokes while he waits for you when you call into see your mistress Olga, before you head off to that important parliament vote.

Unless you have driven in Moscow, you may think everything here is either an exaggeration or made up, believe me it's not. For a small fee, I can offer you a driving master class. For three hundred dollars an hour, I will teach you, just email me when you arrive in Moscow.

P.S Don't be surprised if you see dogs on some drivers laps with their paws on the wheel or kids sitting in the front or back without seat belts or child seats.

Related stories: Driving rules in Russia

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Accepting Moscow

I had a wart on one buttock cheek. It was small, round and brown. It was there when I woke up, there when I washed and there when I went to bed for about six years. Then one day, I decided to get it removed. I felt it was time to say goodbye to my small round brown friend, so I had it removed by a doctor. It took less than a minute and it was gone for ever. I had got used to it. Moscow has become that wart on my bottom. Although I can't see this wart, I am used to it now. I cannot say Moscow is my friend or attractive to me but I have become attached to it like my old bottom wart. After a year and half of living here, I have finally accepted that I'm here for the duration.

I am used to the spitting in the street and to looking at the ground when I walk, I am used to seeing men with moon shaped faces sweeping the streets in all weathers and to seeing them shovel snow at 7 am in the mornings, seven days a week, I am used to the smell of the metro and feeling the warm rush of warm stale air hit me as I enter the metro's main doors. I am used to hearing adverts for products or services I don't understand as I strand on the steep escalator going down to the pit of hell. I am used to hearing car alarms that sound like amazon jungle animals high on cocaine, making mating noises at 3 am in the morning, I am used to being asked for change in shops by unsmiling grumpy women when they should have the change. I am used to seeing BMW's, Mercedes, Porsche's, Aston Martin's and Hummer's with blacked out windows, I am used to seeing old women bent down on pavements begging for small change, I am used to seeing drunks with dirty faces sleeping in the parks. I am used to seeing wild dogs sleeping in the sun and in the snow. I am used seeing people drive like pricks without signalling or thanking you for letting them in.

I have got used to being alone in Moscow, to walking and playing with my kid in the park, to being surrounded by Russian women and by cold expat women who mirror my country in attitude and in behavior. I have got used to driving in Moscow but I will never get used to seeing how people park. Cars are parked across zebra crossings, cars are parked half on the pavement and parked half on the road at sharp angles.

Before the snow melted, cars were dirty with brown snow and each time I had to go onto the busy road with my pushchair (child stroller) to get round the blocking car. I must confess, I took up a new and dangerous hobby, car graffiti.

Being very careful that no one was in the car, I would draw a penis on the drivers door, each time I saw a car parked blocking a zebra crossing or blocking a road crossing. Drawing penis on car door gave me a tiny satisfaction in knowing that the driver would understand my message but knowing in reality that the driver may not know why a penis had been drawn on his car door. Bad and selfish parking is so normal in Moscow and is a cultural thing, for many Russian drivers, it's normal and the way its done here. Drawing a penis on car doors was my frustration at their selfishness, communicated through a washable art. I know it was wrong to do but anger made me do it. I cannot accept Moscow parking, it makes my blood boil.

I have got used to freezing winters and hot summers, I have got used to not living in the United Kingdom where it is anything but united. For all the negatives of Moscow, there are many positives if you look for them under the carpet. Moscow has grown on me like my wart and I like Russian people. Sure, they take time to get used to and we have cultural differences but I am gaining an affection for these Russians. I would not choose to live in London and although I find it strange to admit this, I would rather live in Moscow than in London despite its cost, pollution and cultural differences. Moscow feels safer than London and more friendly than London. I like the many small markets dotted about the city. People with gold teeth selling big red tomatoes, small cucumbers, fruits and vegetables. I like the large ramshackle electronic markets and markets selling everything you need from fish and meat to plastic toilet pipes, mobile phones and every kind of cable. People survive in Moscow, they know where to shop and make their rubles stretch, to meet their daily living needs. Once you know where to shop and where to go, Moscow is full of bargains and secret places to buy what you need. It takes time and a lot of foot work to find these places but they are jewels in survival. The eccentricity of the place grows on you like a mad old aunt would.

Except for the parking, I have got used to Moscow like my old bottom wart. Moscow is there everyday and very much visible to me even shut off in my flat comfort zone of high rise living.  I have finally accepted it for all the annoying things as mentioned above. I will still complain about it now and in the future but with a different attitude to before. Complaining is what I do, it's my job. If you see a penis drawn on your car door, it was me, I confess. Park better next time!

Photos: Examples of Moscow parking. I took this with my mobile while walking one day on just an ordinary day. These photos show the Russian love affair with big black cars and Muscovite's hopeless parking efforts. Of course there are worse examples of parking other than these photos that I was able to take but when I see crazy things I don't always have my camera with me. See photos.

See: Russian customer service guide 

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Tulips in Moscow

Apothecaries' Garden is worth a visit on a weekend. The gardens are defined as botanical, although the botanical green house is currently closed and you can only see it by booked appointment. You can get there by metro and the nearest metro is Prospect Mira. Go out of the metro and turn left. The gardens are a five minute walk down the road from the metro station. The entrance is a up a ramp. At first you think you have entered a small shopping centre but it's the entrance to the gardens. There a restaurant and gift shop by the main entrance doors. The entrance price to Apothecaries was just one hundred ruble each.

We went last Monday, as part of our let's explore some of Moscow. The garden is small but charming and you can forget you are in a big dirty metropolis. At this time of year, the tulips were in flower and my son and I skipped happily among the tulips around winding wooden paths that traverse the flower beds. I exaggerate this romantic image, we did not skip through the tulips, rather it was case of dad trying to hold onto and to junior and stop him from running through all the flowers and from walking on the grass which is forbidden. Trying to hold onto a lively toddler in a flower garden is not easy but worth a try.

The gardens have some large unfenced ponds, so if you take your small kids, be very careful. There are some nice trees and the park has a play area at the bottom with some fun fast slides and a sandpit. If you don't have young kids you may enjoy the park a lot more. You can sit on one of the many benches and feel peaceful and relaxed, while looking at the many beautiful and colorful flowers. When I go anywhere food is always important to me and if it is to you, I suggest you take a walk around the park then have a coffee or meal at the entrance of the park when you have finished and end a perfect afternoon.

Photos:

Apothecaries white
Apothecaries  red
Apothecaries yellow*

For more photos of Russia see here
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On a Sunday afternoon

Abramtsevo is worth visiting if only to hear the sound of birds singing and to smell fresh air. The place is an eighty minute train ride from Moscow. Again, as per our last trip, the train is rough, basic but cheap and gets you there and back on time. Going there we were offered a variety of goods while on the train.  I must say I like the Russian style of business in the efforts of people to sell you stuff while you sit on a train. We were offered flower bulbs, garden cutters, Cd's, a magic sponge that could 'remove any stain', train timetables and a man with one arm played the guitar. We gave him money and bought the magic sponge. These sales people and performing singers helped pass the eighty minute train journey. It's a pity we don't get these train sellers on trains in the United Kingdom it would make journeys a lot more interesting.

We went to Abramtsevo, after reading about day trips in the Moscow News. This is a free advertising newspaper written in English. When you arrive at the station, walk down the platform, cross the rail line, making sure a train is not coming, walk over a bridge and follow the road down through a small forest to the main road. As we walked through the forest, I noticed tons of rubbish (trash) that had been dumped by the side of the road. It mostly consisted of empty and broken vodka and beer bottles, what I call 'Russian nature art'. I know dumping rubbish in nature areas is not unique to just Russia, it happens everywhere but I cannot understand why people do it and it makes me really angry. My anger slightly subsided when I breathed in teh fresh air and heard the sound of birds signing, I felt relaxed. Better than any beer could ever do and a lot healthier. Once you get to the main road, after walking through the forest from the train platform, turn left and walk down the main road and up to Abramtsevo. Be careful as the road as no pavement (sidewalk) as you walk up. Abramtsevo is at the top on the right, there are no signs to say which way to go or even any sign to say it exists. Abramtsevo is a kind of private garden with houses within it that was once used by Russian artists in the 19th century.

Before you go into Abramtsevo, have lunch first. I recommend you arrive there at about midday and go to a restaurant called Galerya you won't have much choice as that is the only place to eat. Galerya is situated on the right of Abramtsevo, down a road. I had a very good Cesar salad and a delicious mushroom soup. The waiter bought the salad first and then later the soup. Then he bought my wife's soup fifteen minutes later fater she had watched me eat my soup. Three things to get used to in Russia. One, in some restaurants they tend to bring the food as it comes out of the kitchen, that fact that you eat soup first and then a main meal (my large salad) is unimportant to the waiter and to the cook in Russia. The second thing is, Russian soups are very tasty and I think Russians specialise in making all kinds of soups. The third thing is, a salad may not be a salad as you are used to with lettuce and salad stuff, it could be a mixture of things drowned in thick mayonnaise.  The hotel opposite the restaurant is not cheap and will cost about six thousand rubles for a 'standard' room, be careful of the definition of a 'standard room' before you book a hotel in Russia. The hotel looks good but like many things here, it is very over priced.

Abramtsevo, is worth seeing and is the perfect nature tonic from Moscow living. Our entrance tickets cost five hundred rubles. I have noticed that in Russia, they have a strange habit of selling entrance tickets with separate prices for each museum house/hut. They don't generally sell one ticket for all things within the museum area. I expect their sales logic is that it gives people a choice but they are not making as much profit at they could in their ticket sales. It's also rather annoying as when you get inside, you see a charming house/hut that was once 19th century washroom for example, you go up the steps and are met by a grumpy old women who won't let you in because your ticket does not include that house/hut! You can only enter where you have paid for that house/hut (museum attraction). Since you don't know what everything is like inside until you get inside, you won't know what you want to see until you get into the museum area. I hope I make some sense?

The gardens of Abramtsevo are worth walking around, although I would not say the artists huts are very interesting but there is nice small church within the grounds. Walk through the forest, see the big lake, listen to birds, smell the fresh air and return back to smoky Moscow feeling a little bit more relaxed than when you left it.

Note: Restaurant Galerya has kids high chairs for eating but no baby changing area.

Photos:

Abramtsevo hut
Abramtsevo church
Abramtsevo lake

Life Olympics

Making a baby is fun but the fun can wear off after many months of no success. The younger you are, the easier it is and this applies to men and women. Life is ironic - literally! Some girls get pregnant at fourteen and have the baby while they are still children and living at home, while some women get pregnant easily and for reasons that are individual to each woman, don't want the baby, have it aborted or sadly lose it. Some women yearn, dream and hope of having baby, yet cannot have one after months or years of trying. They get tests done, their husband or boyfriend has tests and one or sometimes both people have a problem in conceiving. The solution is to get help via scientific methods, 'via in vitro fertilization' (IVF).

We had this problem but had not tried for years but rather left it late to have a child. This is both good and bad. If I had a child when I was in my late 20's I would have been too selfish and immature to have coped with looking after a kid. Now I am older I am more mature and can cope but luckily for me it's my full time job. On the bad side, I will be older than other dads when junior is a teenager and I am sure I will be mistaken for his lost senile old grandfather who sits in the park talking to trees. Little could I have known that one day I would be doing it full time and in Moscow Russia and I fact I do sit in the park now and talk to trees, so the change of future old age should be easy. We don't have a nanny I do it myself without magic or mirror's but on my own as a hairy, knuckle scraping alpha male.

We tried IVF and it failed. It's an unpleasant process for the woman but easier for the man.  I had to go to the clinic and make a 'deposit' it's a bit like putting cash in the bank but a lot more fun. This activity is something I have always done from an early age and have pursued this hobby with great enthusiasm. The only thing is, when you have to do it next to a waiting room full off people it not such fun. At the clinic, you have to walk through the waiting room where couples sit reading through magazines about boating, DIY and health and beauty. I sat down and started to read a DIY magazine which seemed appropriate for my task in hand! I flicked through instructions on how to make a coffee table, how to build a bed and others useful DIY tips but found nothing on making life. Then my name was called and an invisible stage spot light fell on me, I got up from my chair while people looked at me and applauded me with pats on the back and wishes of good luck as I made my way to my sperm sample room. This is of course not true, instead, people sit in the waiting room with with their faces hidden behind magazines, everyone look embarrassed and rather desperate. My sperms would be kicked out of their wheel chairs, put on a strict salad diet and forced to hit the gym to get ready for the big race and a gold medal of life.

I was led into the room by a pretty nurse where I would produce my sample of life. I felt like asking her in with me to help me on my quest but decided that would be a bad idea. She gave me a small plastic pot, showed me hatch in the wall and asked me to leave my sample pot in the wall hatch and left me alone to do my job.

On the other side of the hatch was another room where the nurse would collect the sample pot and take it to the lab for sperm debriefing and marathon training for the future egg race Olympics. On the table were a collection of dated porn mags that looked very used. The women in the magazines looked as tired as their readership and posed on tables, beds and in the standard positions for maximum titillation. You have to try to get inspiration from such magazines, a job I had done with ease and great happiness in the past but the situation I found myself in made it difficult to do. As I said, they give you a tiny plastic pot for your deposit, try stopping an express train with a feather. Once you have made your deposit, you leave the tiny pot in the hatch and leave the room to go back to the waiting room while you wait for your wife to return from her tests. I have never felt so guilty in my life and it makes no difference that other men are waiting to do exactly the same thing that you have just done, embarrassment is carved into your face, you sit down cough and try to act as if you have just been to the coffee machine. Of course this embarrassment is all in your mind and you should not feel ashamed.

Some women and couples see IVF almost like buying a new TV or a pair of shoes, some men make a baby with a woman they have only known a week. IVF for the desperate, is a last attempt to reach their dreams of having a child. Either way, without IVF, adoption would be the only way. We tried IVF and it failed. Five months later and totally naturally, junior swam the Olympics and won. The rest is history and I probably would not be writing this blog about being a stay at home dad and about living in Moscow. It's a lot harder for the woman with daily injections into the stomach done by herself every morning and the indignity of going to the clinic to be inspected at regular intervals by a group of strangers in white coats. The mans job is very easy.

My reason for writing about this here is to share the experience of IVF with others who have tried it or who want to try it. Who knows, in a few years time it may be a lot easier and lot more successful? Life is a miracle and I don't care if I sound like cheesy TV commercial but it truly is. Life is even more precious when it's produced in difficult circumstances. Enjoy it, respect it, protect it and value it. Don't give up and keep trying if you want something badly enough you can get it. IVF is not fun but without it, having a baby would be impossible for many people so lets thank Robert Edwards who pioneered it even if it did not work for us, can I have my money back Robert?

Note: Clinics will be different in quality, service and in price from country to country. IVF Moscow.
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A world in crisis

I don't usually get too political on here but feel I must express great worry. I read online today from my host country, about the apparent death of Osama Bin Laden, hero of the fanatic and holy war. He was killed yards from the Pakistani boarder. They say they did not know about it. If you believe that you will believe anything. He is now seen as a hero in the fanatics world and in my opinion will be replaced within days of his apparent 'death'. I am extremely suspicious of Pakistan, Iran, Libya and Egypt. It seems to me if you get rid off one crackpot dictator you get them replaced by a fanatic religious regime often backed up and supported by the people of that country. Kill one cockroach and many thousands of others lay waiting under the floorboards to take his place. Is it easier to kill than to talk and to follow a democratic path? A distorted evil view of Islam is a dangerous one with fatal consequences.

We recently had a Royal wedding in the United Kingdom and I expected a terrorist act to take place but luckily it did not. British anarchists were arrested for putting on mock executions near he Royal wedding event to bring attention the the Monarchy in the United Kingdom. Cambridge students got totally drunk on the recent English bank holiday and vomited and urinated in parks causing outrage. There are too many incidents to mention here. Perhaps the rise of a fanatic religion is caused by and because of the moral decline in our societies. I am not religious but I am increasingly beginning to think we need a non fanatic and peaceful religion to glue society back together again to stop this anti social behavior and social rot. It seems people are increasingly becoming like animals where anything goes without any consequence. I am not all together surprised that one world religion is now spreading across people and continents like a dark shadow of control. I would support any cause or religion that seeks peace and that seeks to bring people together in friendship and love. I am not sure such a religion or cause exists.

We cannot support a religion or cause that encourages control, oppression and death. Where has the sanity gone and when will it end? My opinion may be simplistic or even uninformed but I believe often in complex arguments people overlook the basic reasons as to why something is happening or failing. Society the world over is in meltdown but this does not mean we cannot turn the situation around and make it better for all.

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A train out of Moscow

We took a train out of Moscow today to a place called Sergiyev Posad. This is a large monastery about 50 km away from Moscow. We went from the train station Loroslavskaya. We paid peanuts for two tickets just 550 rubles, (12.00 GBP) junior went free. The train certainty was not an  express or a luxury experience, it took one hour and twenty minutes and we chugged along at a snails pace to get there but we were not in a hurry. The train made worrying loud banging noises of metal on metal and the carriages were full of people. I sat opposite an old woman who drank milk from a plastic bottle while she chewed on a large lump of bread. She did not have many teeth so the milk must have helped her to swallow the bread.  The interior of the train smelt of stale pee. On the way back home, I needed a pee and looked for a toilet but could not find one. Toilets are not included in the ticket price. Desperate to pee, I did like many others. I walked down to an empty part of the train and went through one of the interconnecting carriage doors, shut it behind me and peed out through the gap between the carriages. When an emergency calls you have to go.

When you arrive at the train station at Sergiyev Posad you have to walk past scruffy looking kiosks, down a long boulevard and then walk down the road and up to the monastery. I saw many strange and scruffy men in track suites standing about drinking beer from a can or bottle. One man that I saw started to aggressively shout at me, so I looked past him as if looking at something else and prayed to be invisible, it worked and he moved on.

At the monastery, It was free to go into the church area and it was very busy with many people, since today is a Russian holiday. A long line of people stretched around the path from the entrance of the main golden domed church inside the monastery so we did not go in, I could not be bothered to wait. People queued at a water fountain to fill plastic bottles up with water. I don't know if they were collecting it because it was pure spring water or if it was holy water from Jesus? I did not ask or collect any but I dipped my finger into the water and put some on junior for good luck as he has had bronchitis for the last five months. All around, women of all ages wore scarves on their heads and men in long black robes doing gods work, rushed about in different directions as we walked around the church gardens.

I have visited a lot of churches since coming to Russia and to be honest I don't care if I don't see anymore as when you have seen one you have seen them all. However, I do like churches here that are peaceful and non touristic. I like them when they are empty and smelling of candles. I feel very peaceful, calm and safe inside, I think I could become religious, if I were to see or hear some divine intervention from upstairs. I am still waiting for this divine intervention and am open to persuasion.

I would recommend a visit to this monastery if you like monasteries. The train is cheap and probably a lot faster than going by car. A journey by train here to Sergiyev Posad takes over an hour, by car it could take several hours through the heavy Moscow traffic. Why stress yourself out, if you don't mind pee smells and are not in any hurry, take it slowly and make a day trip out of Moscow. The monastery is worth seeing.