Did I mention that the weather has been absolutely beautiful?

Like so much nicer than it had been in Seattle when I left. 

Spring in Siberia. 

It is much cooler today, but I am still so taken aback by all the sunshine of the previous week. 

I was in the woods yesterday (another story, I’ll get to that later) and there were these little purple flowers sprung out of the dead grass.  My translator told me that they were the first flowers of spring. 

Our hotel is situated next to a walking path that runs along the River Tom.  All week there were people strolling along this path, roller skating, strutting around in their fancy spring threads…teenagers flirting, young couples pushing babies in prams (like the old school kind…pink, four wheels and a  little bonnet; the kind where the baby is in a little mobile bed looking back at you…you never see those back home, except in books and old movies). 

And the other morning, I was falling asleep in my room following my night shift with the window open and the birds were singing.  They sound just like the birds back home in the spring. 

So birds sing the same in Russian as they do in English.