Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

Winter-Spring 1992. About Good People

As I’ve mentioned earlier, winter 1991-92 was especially bad economically. And as a consequence, people were the most unkind. Several months later, when a situation has become a little bit better, people were much more inclined to let me skip the line and started to express more kindness towards the babies.

One thing I still can’t understand was the fact that for some reason, my twins were drawing lots of male attraction in my direction. Once I was taking the bedding to the laundry service. I’ve left the baby carriage outside for just a couple of minutes to bring my bundles in (it was a norm in Russia at that time, nobody thought that something terrible could happen to the babies in the course of a couple of minutes, and who in the right mind would want extra babies in their lives?!). When I’ve emerged out of the laundry service, I saw a guy standing by the baby carriage marveling at my babies. They were tiny at that time, bundled tight in the blankets, one with pink polka dots, another – with dark green. This was an indication of the gender of a tiny person inside each of the bundles.

The guy moved his gaze away from the babies and looked at me. “Twins!” – He exclaimed – “a boy and a girl! How you are doing this?! Any chance you are taking orders?” “No,” – I’ve replied – “It’s a matter of inspiration!”

There were multiple other occasions, especially by late spring-early summer, when Vlad and Anna very not just tiny bundles anymore. Men would stop by me when I was sitting on the bench at the playground and say: “Such beautiful babies! Any chance they need a father?” This was especially surprising since by late spring when I was almost done with breastfeeding, I was far from being a pretty sight. I weighed 49 kilograms (about 109 lb) while being 164 centimeters tall (5 feet 3.5 inches). My clothes were hanging on me like on the coat hanger, my face was covered with sores due to the lack of vitamins, and my teeth became so fragile, that I was missing several pieces, so I can’t even say that my smile was pretty.

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To The 50th Anniversary Of The Landing On The Moon

In July 1969, I was six years old and living in the Soviet Union, and you may wonder who it the world I could remember just anything about Americans landing on the Moon. But in fact, I do remember!

That summer I was staying in the children sanatorium in Karelia, I was getting colds with the alarming frequency throughout the whole year, so my pediatrician prescribed to me some fresh air and sand beach (I hated being there, by the way, but that’s a separate story).

So one sunny day after the required nap we were gathered in the largest room in the building, and the director of the sanatorium told us grimly, that “Americans landed on the Moon.” I do not really know why I remember this episode so vividly, after all, I was not especially into space theme at that time. But for some reason, I remember even the dress I was wearing on that day and resentment in the voice of the director and the somber expression on her face.

One Funny Thing Happened During The Cruise

There was a big group of Japanese tourists on the same boat, and they took the task of taking pictures very seriously. They were way more organized than us, so while several of them were standing on the stern and taking photographs, the messenger from the inside was periodically popping out and alerting them about upcoming attractions. It turned out; you do not need to understand the language to figure out that something is coming up.

Later I’ve returned to the cabin. At that time we were passing the habituated boats, where people live permanently, and some of them had hose plans in the pots displayed on the decks. It was hilarious that one of the ladies started to point at these plants: bonsai! Bonsai! I can’t tell for sure what her neighbor was replying to her, but looked like she was saying something to the effect: you are out of your mind! What kind of bonsai it could be?! But the first lady did not seem to be convinced :).

Amsterdam Day 3 – A Canal Cruise

Several people have asked me, both in writing and in person, how did I manage to take pictures of Amsterdam with almost no people at sight. Especially because I’ve been saying that there are too many tourists.

Indeed, the city seems to be very crowded in the middle of summer. And in spite of the whole army of garbage tracks and janitors on the streets every morning, the city center only remains relatively clean for a couple of hours.

Yes, I could take tons of pictures of the garbage everywhere on the streets, of thousands and thousands of people in the city center, who make the said streets very difficult to walk on. But I didn’t see any point in it.

When we were walking down the streets of Amsterdam, I was trying to imagine how they looked at the time when young Peter the Great was visiting the city. For a person born in Saint Petersburg, visiting Amsterdam is like visiting living far-away grandparents and searching for your roots. You can’t stop from metally comparing the sights, the bridges, the overall feeling of the city. You can’t stop recalling the “new Holland” island in Saint Petersburg, and canals around it, which look exactly like in Amsterdam.

So yes, I was trying to capture even the most touristy places in a non- tourist mode.

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A Glimpse Of The Hague

The promise of the Hague in the name of this tour was misleading :). When I was visiting the Hague on my own, I saw the old palace, and the Art Museum, and the Escher museum. And it was great. I was hoping that we will have at least the palace and the Art Museum, but there were no stops except the International Court of Justice.

A whole hour was dedicated to the Madurodam, a park with the scale model of Holland. All the models were just exquisite, but you need to know the real places and monuments to appreciate the likeness and details truly. Besides, since we’ve arrived pretty late, close to 7 PM, when all the interactive activities were about to close. I do not regret us visiting the place, but perhaps time would be spent more productively otherwise.

A Half-Day Trip to Delft And The Hague

The Netherlands is not a very large country, and when you are in Amsterdam, it is easy to travel to multiple other places in the country for a day trip, or even just a half-day tour.

During my previous visit, I took a train to Rotterdam and the Hague and although initially, I could not believe my host that I can do both in one day, it appeared to be entirely possible.

This time I’ve opted for the organized tour. First, I was trying to book a tour to Delft, Rotterdam and the Hague, but unfortunately, it is only offered three times a week, and these specific days didn’t work for us.

A half-day tour to Delft and the Hague turned to be available every day, and I’ve booked it for the afternoon of our Day Two. This was the right decision because everything was organized just perfectly, and we didn’t need to find our ways and coordinate the tour time.

The buses depart from the Central Railway station from the upper level:

The bust brought us straight to the entrance of the famous Delft Porcelain Factory, and we got out and started the tour right away.

I like our tour guide a lot; she was very passionate about the history of the factory, and the porcelain in general; and was not a kind of tour guide who is bored to repeat the same text twenty times a day. She was really engaged.

How To Distinguish The Hand -Painted Delft Porcelain

The view from the factory window:

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The Independence Day Weekend

I’ve returned from my Amsterdam vacation on July 3, just in time to dive into the 4th of July festivities. That was the plan; during all my twenty-three years in the US, there was only one time when I was out of the country on this day. It happened two years ago, back then there was no option for me to be away from work for more than a couple of days, and I went to Helsinki to see Boris taking only one day off in addition to the long weekend.

And I felt that I’ve missed out for the whole year! Something had happened, and I was not a part of it! After all, missing a birthday of the country is almost like missing a birthday of a family member.


After that one time, I’ve told Boris I will never do it again and agreed to come to Amsterdam before the conference only under a condition that I will be back to the US for the holidays.

I am spending this weekend with my family and friends, and the best part of it is feeling being a part of my community.

While I Was Away

The playground, located very close to my house, the one my kids used to play when they were little, was under construction for the past couple of months. Also, there was some new construction going on at the opposite side or the road.
I went biking just a couple of hours after I’ve returned from my vacation, and when I was turning left to go to Lake Louise, I saw that this new part was completed.

Only ten years after I saw similar “sports- grounds” in Helsinki for the first time, and marveled them, they made their way to Palatine :).

Granted, they won’t substitute a gym, but it’s great to have such “sports- grounds” on the road and to be able to make a power-stops.


Amsterdam Day 2 – More Museums

Previous (and the only time) I’ve been to Amsterdam, I’ve only been to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, and the Holland Pass listed several dozen. Since I didn’t know much about either of them, I left it to the app to choose. In the end, we did everything, except for one – the Anne Frank House.

For this latter one when I’ve started to explore my options about three weeks before our vacation, I’ve found out that it’s already too late to book advanced tickets, and my only option is to catch the “same day” tickets at 9 AM whatever day is it. We tried to stay in the virtual line on Saturday morning (our Day Two), but when it was our turn, the available times were only late in the afternoon, and we already had a trip to Delft booked for that time. I’ve tried one more time on Sunday morning and reached my turn quite fast, but whenever I was trying to book tickets for available slots, it would tell me – sorry, there are no more tickets … I could not continue these experiments, as for the next two days Boris was already at the conference, at least for a part of the day, so there was no Anne Frank for us this time.

We’ve been to Van Loon House Museum, and this was quite interesting. Willem Van Loom was a co-founder of Dutch East India Company at the very beginning of the seventeenth century, and since then the history of the family was closely intertwined with the history of Amsterdam.

The house was built in 1672, but the interior was completely redone in the middle of the 18th century in a more popular Loui XV style.

This was the first house we saw on this trip, and later we saw the similar features in the other homes. Many of them look very much like the palaces in Saint Petersburg, where we both are from. No wonder, since Holland was a model for life transformation in the18th century Russia. But what I really liked in all of these museums was the fact that the living spaces on exhibit were not separated from the visitors by ropes, you could actually walk around each and single room and take a close look at all of the objects on display.

The Staircase
The Hallway
The Dining Room
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Do You Like Melons?

I love melons! And do you like to squizz some lemon juice on top of your melon to experience this beautiful combination of sweet and sour?

Now, what would you say to a “lemon melon”? I’ve bought it just out of plain curiosity. It looks like a small cantaloupe on the outside, inside it’s more like honeydew, and when you taste it, it is precisely like a honeydew sprinkled by lemon juice!