Just some facts

We were extremely surprised to find that bank checks are being used here very actively. They were never used in Russia (or so rare that I have never heard about it even though I was working in the customer service of one of the Russia's biggest banks) and were really quickly substituted in Europe by other more comfortable options.  I still cannot get used to the fact that people prefer to use this paperwork instead of quick and simple online banking. Maybe I am just spoiled by Alfa-bank online and mobile banking.

We are also until now confused sometimes with parking rules. They are not so simple as they were in Russia or Austria. Often the sign is made in a form of a logical expression, so that you really have evaluate the current moment against it to understand how are these statements to be applied to you, if you are allowed to park now or not and what is going to change during the time you're going to stay. It's not complicated, but we're just not used. Maybe I was just spoiled by Moscow way of parking - anywhere if you are sure that the road police won't get you there. (Though as far as I know things changed a lot since I left...)

I like it a lot that here, like in Moscow, there are a lot of businesses open late at night or even during the night. You can for sure find a 24hours open grocery not very far. This one is our favorite:

At first we were astonished by it's size. I never used to go to such big stores in Moscow and in Austria they probably do not even exist :-P :) But now we've found our way there, we know where all our favorite products may be found and don't spend there too much time. We even succeeded to find there among thousands of different cereals 2 sorts that do not contain any additional ingredients, they even have 0 sugar. Funny, one of our first times there, when we were searching the shelves and discussing how complicated it was to find products with no sugar, a women suddenly spoke to us in German and told that she had the same problem in the beginning:)

And this is the store where I buy cottage-cheese ("Quark" in German which is much closer to the product I mean than "cottage-cheese", "Творог" in Russian): Slavic Shop. Normally I wouldn't need any special Russian store, but I just cannot live without Творог and I am too lazy to make it myself as some Russian women do.

Another routine that we really love here are Farmer's markets. We have one in Sunnyvale and so far we like this one the most. It's really quite close to our home, it takes place Saturdays in the downtown of Sunnyvale. Especially I like to come there a little bit hungry. You can try there almost everything that is being offered and this is a special pleasure to walk from one stand to another and try different tasty fruits and vegetables.

These Photos are old though, they were taken in Summer. There is unfortunately such big variety of fruits. 


My husband commutes to work by bicycle. There are mostly bicycle roads presented along with the normal road. Cars normally respect you. Riding a bicycle here you feel that you have rights and first of all the right to stay alive and in one piece, not like in Moscow:) I was commuting to work by bicycle in Moscow as well, but it was not at all so nice and comfortable as here.