Yikes! Russian Chocolate!

The other day we chanced upon a Slavic grocery store. We went inside, marveled at all the products from various eastern european countries, from Czechia to Poland to Yugoslavia to Russia to Kazakhstan. I grabbed a chocolate bar... and now I realize that it's Russian, imported via Germany. The ingredients list is written in Russian, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek; and a separate ingredients sticker pasted over it in German. No Portuguese or Spanish or English. Hmm. How did it get here? And what sort of sanctions are imposed on Russian confectioners?

The chocolate itself is just okay, nothing special.

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Riding the Bus often

From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back. His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty. The air-conditioning usually works too well. I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...

String Quartet Broken String

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Música Tunas e Boémia

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