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Published: January 20th 2007
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I told you birthdays were a big thing here in Russia...lol So on Tuesday, I took my direct reports to dinner at the Douglas Hotel/Restaurant. It is the nicest closet restaurant we have to the plant. As you can see by the pictures, most of my direct reports took this very serious and all dressed up very nicely for the dinner. Photos are very important to most of the Russians I have met and since I did not have any of earlier years with me, I decided to put some pictures together since I have been here in Russia. Everyone laughed at me about it was suppose to be a dinner and not a presentation, but here I was with my Powerpoint presentation. It went over very well and I think helped some of my people better understand me.
After the presentation, my vets had a short presentation for me. One of the things I ask for everyday is our line speed, average bird temperatures, chlorine level, etc. so Nina was giving me my "daily update" but said they ran into a problem. There was one bird that they could not explain from the processing plant. Even with all of
their vet experience, they had not seen anything like this and needed my help to kill it and hand me this toy chicken. I go to grab it by the neck to "kill it" and it makes this choking sound and when you let go it plays the Duck Duck song. I am not sure what name of the song is, but they play it at all beer/Germanfests. It was so funny, I was even crying. I heard from Michael they came and asked him earlier that day if he thought it would be okay to give it to present it to me or not. It was a big hit and is now on my desk for anyone that needs a little stress relief.
Overall, the dinner went extremely well and I am glad I spend the money to make it happen. I think it was good for my staff. Also, I learned something new about toasting at birthdays. After the first round is for the birthday person, the second round is for his/her parents so Mom and Dad you too were toasted several times last Tuesday! Besides the fun chicken, Dasha and Michael (who are not living together
Gift
This is the gift from Dasha and Michael. in Michael's flat in Obninsk) got me a very nice vodka decanter, glasses and tray with some traditional Russian markings/colors from a specific region of Russia. I had looked at this at the gift store, but could not figure out what I would do with it so did not buy it, so it is a perfect gift!
No, we still are not done yet! I still have a few other Russian friends who could not do anything last weekend that still wanted to go out with me and celebrate so last night, Friday, five us head to Moscow to go one of the clubs there. It was Anna and Andrey, Nastia (she was funny, but I would hate to have that name) and her boyfriend, Eugene, and me. We then met my friend Alex there and a few other people I have met at Anna and Andrey's vacation home south of Obninsk. I will be honest, I was not real impressed with the club, but we had a good time. At one point, I realized I was pretty drunk because they would not pour me a small drink and always made me drink the full shot so I headed
Flowers
My Team presenting me with flowers. to the dance floor for a while. I did much better than Andrey who was DRUNK! Thank goodness he fell asleep very quickly on the way home.
So today has been pretty much a waste as I try to get my time clock back on track. As well as all of that vodka is going through me so I have not done much today but run a few errands and get caught up on emails and my blog. But I needed to do it and as you can read, I have been pretty busy during the month of January and it does not stop now. On Thursday, I leave for the States to catch up with Jamie and Mark for our cruise out of Miami. I am sure I will have plenty of pictures and stories from there as well, but will wait until I am back in Russia because they say the internet is very expensive on the ship. I doubt I will be on until I after I get back so hopefully I have posted enough to keep you busy for a few weeks. Talk to you soon and even see some of you later this week!
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Lorraine
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Happy B-day!
I'm glad you had such a wonderful birthday. That's a Russian tradition I think we should have in America. And even though the snow wasn't good, Zurich looked great! I'm so jealous! Hey, maybe you could get a one year contract for a company there since you liked it so much. :0)