Attention to Details

Well, I just made a cup of tea with salt instead of sugar. Perhaps it's going to be one of those days? I really think it was quite funny, but I didn't bother tasting it to see if it would be tasty… I'm pretty sure bitter tea with bitter salt wouldn't do much to crave my sweet tooth.

I'm often surprised or even amazed at how much I'm acculturating to some of the habits of the Russian people. For example, tea - I LOVE the stuff now. I think maybe mostly because it's a new form of sugar intake and an excuse to eat cookies and pastries more often, but perhaps it's also about slowing down a bit and sharing fellowship with others. Tea is a part of most everyone's day, several times!

In other news about details and bureaucracy, I wanted to share an interesting moment from this morning with you. Victoria and I headed out early this morning with breath puffing from our mouths this sunny Siberian morning, to buy a new photocopier for the center. So we went to the office (up the scary back stairway to the sales office) and shared what we wanted in a copier. They tried to upsell us with some advanced features that we didn't need, but we stood firm! Then they gave us our order form which we need to fax or email to a bank here in Tyumen. Well, we don't have a fax or a scanner at the center. So Victoria had to convince the woman that it would really be faster to take the form to the bank and wait for them to process it, instead of finding a fax or scanner and then going to the bank to pay. So Victoria's off to the bank to pay for our copier which should arrive in 2 to 3 weeks. I think they'll be constructing it for us in Japan sometime later this afternoon!