Wednesday we went on our weekly excursion and because all the crazy Americans (us) lost our minds at the mention of a moose farm one day, they appeased us and put us on a coach bus to drive through the back country moose roads. I don't think I've ever felt more ridiculous. Wait. Yes I have. Every other day I've been here...
Two hours of driving later (because we are that dedicated to seeing moose) we stumbled upon what I can only describe as something similar to the enterance of Ngorongoro Park but covered in moose. It was large. It was noble. It was completely ridiculous.
We were greeted by the most intense moose farmer (compared to all the other moose farmers I've encountered... just go with it, guys) who delved into a lengthy schpeal on the process of moose birth. Actually, he could have been talking about anything and I wouldn't know the difference because he would talk for about 10 minutes and our translator would laugh and respond and just be generally involved in what he was saying and then give us about a 30 second translation of what was said. All I really got out of it are that while we were there, the moose were set free to meander the woods and would come back to give birth with a woman who didn't shower for 10 days so the moose wouldn't be offended by her smell and kill her when she stole the baby to raise it in a moose orphanage. ALL. TRUE.
Next thing we know we were being handed carrots and being told to feed the adolescent moose because "they have no teeth and are hungry." I don't know about you, but I have always been under the impression that to chew a carrot, one needs teeth. I'm pretty sure the moose farmers were just telling us that so we would blindly feed their moose and not worry about the very real possibility of losing a finger in a vicious moose feeding fiasco. All the same, we walked away unscathed and ready to take our coach bus on an even smaller and less appropriate dirt road to an orphanage in the woods for baby moose.
Once we arrived, we had another rough translation of a 15 minute moose monologue detailing the process of raising baby moose and something about how the caregivers have to time their exits perfectly and run downwind on stilts away from the babies when they're not looking so they don't get followed home by a heard of baby moose. How this crap hasn't taken the internet by storm is beyond me.We also learned the dangers of moose alcoholism in soviet times and the healing properties of a good shot of moose milk, which natrually meant we had to go try some.
IMPORTANT WARNING: When given the opportunity to try moose milk JUST. SAY. NO. It doesn't matter when they tell you "it doesn't have an odor" or that everyone in your group falls into some strange gotta drink the kool-aid gang mentality. The moose milk's flavor makes up for its lack of smell and the aftertaste cant' be erased even if you tried to burn it off your tongue. Take the hint when they tell you it's medicinal because of all the moose magic inside of it. No one has ever thought, "wow, there's a new flavor of cough syrup out, we should probably take a shot to see how it tastes" for a good reason. Unless you have. In which case you should probably drink some moose milk to cure yourself from all of those cough syrup shots.
Despite all of that, after taking a shot of what may be the worst beverage known to mankind other than kvas (described to us initially as "bread juice"), I didn't have allergies for the next four days. Time to learn how to import the milk.
After the moose extravaganza, we ventured around Kostroma and saw where the Romanovs were from and the kremlin they stayed in.
Four days later and I still can't get Anastasia songs out of my head. I have a feeling that will be a theme for this trip...
Look at you. You need a glass of moose milk in your life. Get some. crossculturalsolutions.org
Two hours of driving later (because we are that dedicated to seeing moose) we stumbled upon what I can only describe as something similar to the enterance of Ngorongoro Park but covered in moose. It was large. It was noble. It was completely ridiculous.
We were greeted by the most intense moose farmer (compared to all the other moose farmers I've encountered... just go with it, guys) who delved into a lengthy schpeal on the process of moose birth. Actually, he could have been talking about anything and I wouldn't know the difference because he would talk for about 10 minutes and our translator would laugh and respond and just be generally involved in what he was saying and then give us about a 30 second translation of what was said. All I really got out of it are that while we were there, the moose were set free to meander the woods and would come back to give birth with a woman who didn't shower for 10 days so the moose wouldn't be offended by her smell and kill her when she stole the baby to raise it in a moose orphanage. ALL. TRUE.
Next thing we know we were being handed carrots and being told to feed the adolescent moose because "they have no teeth and are hungry." I don't know about you, but I have always been under the impression that to chew a carrot, one needs teeth. I'm pretty sure the moose farmers were just telling us that so we would blindly feed their moose and not worry about the very real possibility of losing a finger in a vicious moose feeding fiasco. All the same, we walked away unscathed and ready to take our coach bus on an even smaller and less appropriate dirt road to an orphanage in the woods for baby moose.
Once we arrived, we had another rough translation of a 15 minute moose monologue detailing the process of raising baby moose and something about how the caregivers have to time their exits perfectly and run downwind on stilts away from the babies when they're not looking so they don't get followed home by a heard of baby moose. How this crap hasn't taken the internet by storm is beyond me.We also learned the dangers of moose alcoholism in soviet times and the healing properties of a good shot of moose milk, which natrually meant we had to go try some.
IMPORTANT WARNING: When given the opportunity to try moose milk JUST. SAY. NO. It doesn't matter when they tell you "it doesn't have an odor" or that everyone in your group falls into some strange gotta drink the kool-aid gang mentality. The moose milk's flavor makes up for its lack of smell and the aftertaste cant' be erased even if you tried to burn it off your tongue. Take the hint when they tell you it's medicinal because of all the moose magic inside of it. No one has ever thought, "wow, there's a new flavor of cough syrup out, we should probably take a shot to see how it tastes" for a good reason. Unless you have. In which case you should probably drink some moose milk to cure yourself from all of those cough syrup shots.
Despite all of that, after taking a shot of what may be the worst beverage known to mankind other than kvas (described to us initially as "bread juice"), I didn't have allergies for the next four days. Time to learn how to import the milk.
After the moose extravaganza, we ventured around Kostroma and saw where the Romanovs were from and the kremlin they stayed in.
Four days later and I still can't get Anastasia songs out of my head. I have a feeling that will be a theme for this trip...
Look at you. You need a glass of moose milk in your life. Get some. crossculturalsolutions.org
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