25 DAYS: COPS, HEAT, BUREAUCRACY, ETC.

For those of you who was and still is coming by this page, I'm sorry for not writing more frequently. We've been quite busy these day, eating, drinking tea, going to Parkentskiy market (where we can buy renovation materials), finding out about lots of stuff, educating my younger brother how to live healthily and save money, and many other things. If your head is spinning just from reading this, imagine mine from doing all that in 40+ degrees heat. Vertigo....

Many times I think "Oh, I should write that in our blog", but then because I don't write it down, I kind of forget it. Okay the first subtitle would be...............

COPS!
Almost since our arrival we've been driving our car. It's nice and big... and pretty for these surroundings. I've seen and heard a lot from my cousins and friends about the cops problem and their milking. Milking meaning we, the drivers are cows and they, the cops, are the "milkers". I was somewhat unprepared to deal with all of that, but steadily and slowly I'm getting used to it. I must admit that we get stopped for minor violations of traffic rules, but what I don't get is that it is almost impossible in my mind to avoid these violations, because the environment forces you to. Imagine driving on the road with many potholes. This will make any sound driver who cares about his car's suspension and other important parts to weave around them, which can be quite tricky on a busy road. Then I'm talking about broken traffic lights, which are just that: broken. And everyone goes everywhere on the intersection. Then there are obscure road signs or one, which I haven't seen in Korea or New Zealand, and I just don't know what that means. Then there are of course crazy drivers who never ever uses their blinkers, so, you never know if they're going straight or turning or what not. We've been stopped because of these factors or so I want to believe. :( Each time, I was let go with a relatively small amount of fine paid to the personal pocket of a policeman, who was lucky to catch me. Once I was stopped just because I was driving our car, which looks flashy here, and they wanted to check if there was anything wrong with me or my car to get some dough out of me. Unfortunately there was some problem with my documents, so, I had to part with my $10 that I had in my pocket in exchange for my freedom to go. Don't get too shocked. It's a reality here. We're learning how to deal with it. Every cop assume that we have lots of money because we're driving a car like that. So, recently I started to pretend that I'm just a driver who's driving a rich foreign lady. So, that brings down the plank of amount considerably downward. I played that trick ones, and it worked. I only parted with half of what I was "normally" giving out before. (Now "normally" here, of course doesn't mean it's normal to give a bribe to a policeman, although here it kind of means that. ^^). Anyways, other than corrupted policemen, potholes, and crazy drivers in their beat up Ladas who don't care if their car will get scratched or whatever, it's very nice to drive out here. Several times we noticed a difference in attitude when people saw us getting out of it because they'd assume we're rich. How funny and sad at the same time.

Thinking about the subject of this post, I think I've written enough about the heat and bureaucracy here, so, I'll write about my gym.

GYM!
We started going to the gym about 10 days now. It's good to be back with the iron. Our gym is not near as nice as the one I used to go in Korea in our HYundai building, but it's adequate for the price. I only pay about $12 a month and Katy only about $9. They give a discount to ladies. Katy also was offered to lead a group of ladies in the gym. I suppose she looked quite professional teaching my very unfit cousins. The gym is in the regular school in the old hall where I remember as a kid having our PE (physical education) class. It's stuffed with the old-ish machines and bellbars and dumbbells. Most of it still quite usable. What I thought was interesting compared with my nice gym in Korea, in Korea gym facility was awesome, members on the other hand were in a quite sad shape, for most part of it. Here, the facility is quite sad and run down, but the members are just in great shape. I'd even say too great shape. They are huge. I'm a skinny chicken compared with them. Not that I feel any inferiority about that. HA~ But one thing that kind of makes us laugh in the gym here is that most of the big guys here are very self-centered. They would walk around torso naked and every time they pass anything slightly reflective they would look and I'm almost sure sing with joy inside, liking what they see. It's a very funny behavior for adults in my opinion. We saw one guy the other day walk into the hair salon where Katy was getting her hair cut. He looked very funny with his 80's a-la Shwarzenegger (spelling?) hairstyle and his way too small shirt showing his belly and also his 80s style break-dance narrow sunglasses. And he was all important and very aware of his "fine" physic. Forgive me my bitterness... it's just funny...

Anyways, Katy's waiting for us to leave, so, we're better go.. I'll finish some time later...