Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Summer in Vladivostok (July 8, 2007)

Upon arriving back to a foggy 55-degree Vladivostok from sunny 95-degree Birobidzhan on July 7, I was reminded of that quote that is always attributed to Mark Twain -- "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Obviously, he never spent a summer in Vladivostok. They say the warm weather is soon to come, and late July and August will be downright hot! But for now we are in the midst of the same mist, fog and cool temperatures that have been the norm here since mid-May. That's okay; I'll take this weather over 95 any day.

So of course most of my life seems to be consumed by traveling and then catching up these days, and I guess that will be the case through the fall! But I have also started reading an excellent book totally unrelated to my project. It is called "An UnClean Force" (poor translation by me there -- Нечистая сила in Russian, by popular modern history writer Valentin Pikul'), and it's about Russia in the early 20th century, leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution, and the influence of Rasputin. It's pretty fascinating stuff (well, and kind of creepy). I definitely recommend it!

No comments: