Author: billkralovec

This time of year is always very busy for me as an educator. With the school year coming to an end, it always feels like there is not enough time to complete everything that has to get done before closing up the office for the summer. There are lots of celebrations and farewells, completing goals and setting new ones for the following school year, preparing for the summer holiday work, and prepping for the orientation so we are not scrambling upon arrival in August. I try to find balance through exercise and spending time with family. I took the photo above on my bike ride last Saturday.

Last night, after the graduation ceremony, I went with my friend Aaron to our favorite Russian-style баня (sauna/spa) The Bani located in Central Park. Russians love soups and creams, and the щи (pronounced SSHHeee)or Sorrel Soup didn’t disappoint. The Sorrel is a plant native to Eurasia and is found in grassland habitats throughout Central Asia. It has a slightly sour taste and the cream takes the edge off the soup. I love a boiled egg anytime, and the beef chunks were lean and added to the dish. I highly recommend it!

My friend Iso and I attended the Uzbekistan Oil & Gas Exhibition last week. It was my first time in the Central Asia Expo Hall. It is a huge space and the new convention center is located on the highway to Chirchiq. I often bike by it and it was nice to finally go inside. We were trying to drum up business for the school. I noted that 2/3 of the companies were Chinese, both solar and petroleum. The booths are a step up from the education booths that we have at recruiting fairs. I guess that is another difference between business and non-profits.

I really enjoyed helping Owen pack out his college house and move his belongings to our home in Caspian. We rented a U-Haul in Marquette and after clearing out his house, we then drove to Caspian and set Owen up on our second floor. He will be in Caspian for a couple of weeks while his brother Oliver finishes exams at St. Norbert College. It was nice to see him and meet his friend Parker. Oliver is such a great guy!

We took some time on Sunday to enjoy beautiful Lake Superior and the surrounding forests. We hiked up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, about a 15-minute drive out of town. The lookout offers spectacular views of Lake Superior on one side, and Hogback Mountain on the other side. Owen took us to Wetmore Landing, a beach a further 5 minutes up the coast. Most of us went for a quick swim (water is very cold in May) and hung out at the beach for an hour. The fresh air, blue skies, cold water, and cool pines/moss are so relaxing for me.

It really is another major milestone in our family. Owen’s graduation brought us such happiness and pride. He is maturing into a fine young man and we are looking forward to see what will be next in his journey to adulthood.

It was an awesome day for the Kralovec family! Our eldest son Owen graduated from Northern Michigan University on Saturday. The ceremony was held in the Superior Dome, aka “Yooper Dome” and it is one of the largest wooden dome structures in the world. It opened in 1991 and can seat up to 16,000 people. Thankfully, the ceremony was held indoors as it was a cool and windy day, although no snow flurries like on Friday. It takes a long time to announce 1000+ names, and luckily, Owen was near the front so we didn’t have to stay for the whole ceremony. Owen celebrated with a four-finger gesture signifying he finished his degree in four years. I took 5 years to complete my Bachelor’s degree as did my two brothers. Thank you Owen for saving us a year’s tuition!

After the ceremony, jet lag hit us and we took an afternoon nap. Owen and his roommates, “domestic Owen”, Jack, and Josh hosted a party for the parents and relatives. It was nice to get to know his roommates and their families. He made good friends here and grew up quite a bit over the four years. This is the purpose of college. He will make the Dean’s list again this semester with all As. He narrowly missed graduating with honors due to low grades in his first year. It was quite the transition for him to go from living life as an expatriate abroad to a provincial university in rural northern Michigan. I am from a small town in the Upper Peninsula, and with family and friends nearby, we thought NMU was a good choice for him. We had limited options for his education due to COVID. Owen’s first choice was to study at Queensland University in Australia due to his Australian citizenship. However, COVID restrictions had Australia shut down in July of 2021, and we weren’t sure how long the country would be in lockdown. We decided after visiting Marquette that summer and staying at the university for a night, to enroll in NMU. Owen would never be a perfect fit for the public university’s culture, but he did appreciate getting to know where I grew up and the natural beauty of Lake Superior and the deciduous/coniferous forests of the Upper Peninsula. People are friendly and very laid back here, not pretentious at all, and it is a safe and quiet place to live.

It was a classic Marquette early May afternoon. Very cold, but sunny. This is the first time I’ve been to the Upper Peninsula in May since the 1980s, and I forgot how long the winter and cold weather last. Marquette is a very liveable small town with many amenities, interesting people, and culture/arts offerings. Coupled with the scenic beauty with miles of biking/hiking/ski trails, coastline, fresh air, and water, it will be a great place to retire to someday. It is also in the ideal location for future generations, with climate change on the horizon. Hiking up to Sugarloaf Mountain on Sunday, I envisioned a coast full of condominiums and homes, as Americans flee the south and west and move to the Great Lakes region. I’ll be long gone from Earth when that happens, but I would love to come back and check it out in 200 years.

We landed at K.I. Sawyer International Airport (a former military base) just outside of Marquette, Michigan, Thursday evening around 9:30 PM local time. My Uncle Jack met us at the gate in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and we made our way to the Days Inn hotel. The city is bustling this weekend for graduation and we met several parents on the flight. After settling into the hotel, my son Owen took us to the Michigan-based grocery chain called Meijer. He works there and gave us a quick tour of the online pickup area that he is assigned to. He knows every aisle like the back of his hand and is a master in shooting the bar code reader gun. 🙂 Meijer (pronounced Meijer’s in Michigander) has been really good to him. They give annual $5,000 scholarships to employees who are full-time students.

We started Friday at Third Street Bagel for Ocean and Nadia. They make delicious bagels and it is kind of a tradition for us when we visit Marquette. We spent most of the day helping Owen plan to move out of his house. We are renting a U-Haul truck on Monday to take his furniture and personal belongings to my childhood home in Caspian, about a 90-minute drive southwest of Marquette. We also met Owen’s roommates and his parents. They are all decent gentlemen, and I feel relieved they were a good influence on him. We met their parents, too, and are looking forward to the party Saturday night at his house following the ceremony. We attended his roommate Jack’s ceremony for Construction Manager majors at the Dominic Jacobetti Center. Graduates from that program received NMU hard hats instead of the traditional caps and gowns.

We switched hotels due to a booking error and set up at the Fairfield Inn & Suites located near Lake Superior. Definitely an upgrade from the Days Inn! I managed to work out yesterday, getting a sweaty power yoga workout, a 15-minute weight workout, and a walk along the beach. It snowed in the afternoon, yes, it is May 2, but that is the Upper Peninsula. It was “refreshing” and got me ready for going out to dinner with the family. My middle son Oliver drove up from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he is studying at St. Norbert College. We met at the Black Rocks Brewery, where there was a live band. It was crowded, but we did have fun. Anytime all five of us are together, it is awesome. My brother Andy and his wife Chantal drove up from Chicago and also met us there. Marquette is a trendy university town, but the casualness of the Upper Peninsula still keeps it from becoming too uptight. We had a white fish dinner at The Vierling Tavern. A classic Marquette – Lake Superior restaurant.

I am traveling today to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to attend my son Owen’s graduation from Northern Michigan University. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and a certification in Cyber Security. He graduated in four years (thanks!), a first in our family, and we are looking forward to seeing him and celebrating this special day with him. We are trying Qatar Airways for the first time and it is a new route for us between Tashkent and Marquette. It is a four-hour flight to Doha and then a 14+ hour flight to Chicago. We then fly north approximately 90 minutes on American to Marquette. It is a lot of flying for a short visit, but this is the expatriate life.

International airports in affluent countries are so much better designed and fitted than American airports. My other son Oliver’s birthday was yesterday (April 30) and so we bought him a PSG soccer jersey when we landed in Doha this morning. Qatar hosted the World Cup 2022 and so there were plenty of soccer stores in the airport. We have never been to Qatar (UAE and Bahrain yes) but I don’t count a country on my list unless we leave the grounds of the airport. (My daughter Ocean was looking like a baddie) – Ocean’s contribution to MY blog. I am writing this at hour 8 on our flight to Chicago. QA has free, fast internet on the plane. I am ambivalent – I can get work done and blog, but I used to love shutting off and diving into a book while flying. I am trying to do a bit of both on this flight.

It was a busy weekend with the Cyclothon and Scholarship Gala on Saturday, so it was a full day of work. On Sunday, I went for a bike ride after doing some yoga. The warm weather arrived in Tashkent. The city has a lot of bike paths and beautiful parks. Tashkenters take advantage of the green spaces. Above are some photos of the Park of the Oppression of Victims of the Great World Wars. I have a route that goes from the main Ankhor Canal pathway to this park.

It was a quiet few days in the house without our daughter Ocean. She competed this week at the Central Asian Federation of Athletics & Activities High School Volleyball Championship in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Ocean is the captain of a very young team and they finished in fifth place. Our seniors do not play in the spring tournament because they are preparing for IB examinations in May. This puts us at a disadvantage when competing against the non-IB schools in the region. I picked her up from the airport after midnight last night. It was worth getting up because she was in a talkative mood upon her return and we had fun together at home until almost 2:00 AM. A rare late night for me! She is an excellent athlete and will probably play a big role in soccer, basketball, and volleyball next season, her last at TIS. We are hosting the volleyball tournament so our seniors will be able to participate. Above are some photos shared on the Telegram Channel from the tournament.

Saturday morning, I practiced my newly learned kayak paddling skills! Robin, Kim, and I went for a relaxed paddle on the Chirchiq River, near the Charvok Dam. It was a reconnaissance trip to see conditions for kayaking in the section of the river next to the dam. As you can see on the map below, we paddled under two bridges pretty far down the river and came back up towards the dam. We were stopped by a soldier in a lookout above the river as we approached the Soviet-era monument below the dam. No boats are allowed close to the dam for security reasons. The 168 meter-high dam was built in 1970 and captured the flow of three mountain rivers. Today the Charvak Reservoir is a place of recreation for many Uzbeks. One surprise as we approached the dam was the statue on the far right. I think it is Tork the Ugly, an Armenian diety known for his great strength, size, and ugly appearance. One of his tactics was to hurl huge boulders at enemies. In 1970, Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union and Armenia was one of the Soviet Socialist Republics. The dam builders probably had to move a lot of rock, hence the statue.

It was a refreshing paddle, and I hope to explore other waterways of Uzbekistan. I bought a roof rack for my car and learned how to secure a kayak.

The highlight for me at the resort we stayed at on Koh Samui was a small island just off the hotel beach. Mad Lang Island (Google Maps below) was about 400 meters off the coast, and during low tide, you could walk to it. Ocean and I paddled our kayaks over the island a couple of times. The beach was full of plastic garbage and with rocks and thick vegetation, it seemed to be impossible to explore the interior of the island. I finally climbed a large boulder that led to a trail on the backside of the rock. I followed the trail to the other side of the island, and it led to an abandoned Buddhist Shrine (below). The shrine is located on the highest part of the island and offers some beautiful views. Nāgas are associated with water deities and protect sailors and fishermen from storms, so it is appropriate to find this shrine on a small island in the Gulf of Thailand. The trail continued around the island coming back to beach. I am surprised that it is unmarked and not kept up by the resort. It would be a fun project to improve the trail, add directional signs and provide information at the shrine.

The statue depicts a seven-headed serpent protecting a reclining Buddha. In Buddhist theology, “Mucilinda” is a “nāga” (half-serpent/half-human divine being) King Mucalinda provided shelter to the Buddha from a storm by covering the Buddha’s head with his seven snake heads.

We had a fun day exploring the city of Bangkok. We started with a spectacular breakfast at the hotel. It was an amazing production, and we couldn’t believe they put this on daily for 500+ people. The clientele at the hotel was mostly Indian and Chinese, two large countries nearby. We walked over the BTS station, which was also the main ferry port. We took the classic boat (above) upriver to visit the Reclining Buddha, a giant statue in the Wat Pho Temple complex. It was crowded and extremely hot, and not that peaceful. I am really interested in Buddhism, not the religious aspects of ancient India and the far east, but the idea of slowing down your mind and accepting life as it comes. I am doing a bit of this through my yoga practice and it is helping me enjoy my life more and accept my aging.

We finally got tired of the heat, crowds, and odors of the city and spent the afternoon in the IconSiam Mall, across the river from the mall. I was surprised to see the large number of Japanese stores (ex, Nitori, the IKEA of Japan). I introduced Nadia to one of my favorite clothing stores, Jim Thompson. The American expatriate was an expert in Thai silks, and this company and tourist complex is his legacy.

Rarely do I need to update a blog post before I upload it, but with the 7.7 earthquake in neighboring Myanmar at 12:50 PM local time yesterday, I wanted to update everyone regarding our experience. Fortunately, we missed the first shaking and then the 6.2 aftershock because our Uzbekistan Airlines flight departed four hours earlier 08:30 AM. We were lucky to get out when we did. All trains and flights were cancelled for the day, and I can imagine the chaos that was caused at the airport and in hotels with the most international visitors (32.7 million annually). Because Bangkok lies on a flood plain with shifty soils, they are susceptible to earthquakes with epicenters outside of the city. One skyscraper under construction collapsed, and rooftop pools were spilling over. 32 people died in Thailand, with hundreds reported missing. We were staying at the Shangri-La Hotel and our room was on the 19th floor, so we probably would have felt it. We toured a temple the day before and spent the afternoon in the IconSiam shopping mall.

We had a relaxing evening in the hotel. Nadia and I worked out in the hotel’s gym and had a famous, couples massage at the spa. We then ordered room service and enjoyed the views of the Chao Phraya River from our room. I went for a short walk and took a few photos of the city blocks near the hotel.

The flight was uneventful, and we were fortunate to have many empty seats in the back of the plane. All three of us were able to sleep for most of the 6 hours. We rested at home yesterday and got used to the cooler temperatures.