Overland with Kids

Jessica says: “What is a steppe?”
Mum says: “It is a very large, dry, cold grass covered plain without trees - much like what you’ve been seeing throughout our trip in  the lonely, huge landscapes of Kazakhstan” (Anne looked it up on Google).
Jessica says: “Yes, but the nature around it is very interesting. I really like [...]

Jessica: “What is a trillion?”
Dad: “We have been on the road for 1 million seconds which comes out to about 117 days. Mum and dad have been alive for alot longer than a billion seconds. A billion seconds is 32 years. A trillion seconds is 32,000 years.” (dad found this information in The Almaty Herald [...]

Initial conversations had en-route from the Russian border to Kostanai city:
 

Mum “Love your style Jessica!” (about her now expert way of wee’ing by the roadside unseen)
Jessica “First class and for free……I wonder what God would think about me wee’ing on his garden?”
Mum “I don’t think he’d mind”
Mum “What do you think of Kazakhstan so far?”
Jessica [...]

It was dawning on us that other than a Kazakhstan map in Russian that we’d bought on our way out of Moscow, we had no further information except a tiny bit of text cobbled together quickly from the internet. We didn’t have much to help us with the next part of our journey and would [...]

Andrew says
“I look back at my history and can’t understand how there could have been a wheat shortage - it’s everywhere” (describing landscape from Kazan to Ufa)
Having managed to order tea, fried eggs and 3 slices of bread with ham and cheese for breakfast with success in Russian the day before at the hotel in [...]

(Photos not previously loaded for last 3 posts - have now been updated)
Anne says:
“Alright mush” (the word for husband is pronounced mush - love it!)
AJ says:
“How many more days till my birthday?” (AJ will be 6 years old in a few days time)
Jessica says
“We’ve become experts at wee’ing by the road side”
Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan - [...]

By AJ:
Sing the Bling
“Sing, sing with the bling
Keep your hair on
Sing the bling
The sun is shining so sing the bling
Now you know that the sun is shining
Sing and sing.”
By Jessica:
One Life, Live It
“The earth goes round the sun
And the moon goes round the earth
Whilst we living things enjoy our lives
So…….get up, get out
Enjoy your life [...]

Expensive treats well and truly over between St Petersburg and Moscow - we were ready to hit the road again. We’d had no real problems in St Petersburg or Moscow with language barriers as we managed to get by on having to use very little of our very basic pigeon Russian. Jessica and AJ meantime [...]

Jessica says:
“We’re in Moscow, we’re in a hotel and we’re watching the World Cup!”
AJ says:
“We went to Gorky Park and mum and dad bought me a dog”. (The dog is big helium balloon in the shape of a huge Dalmation - but AJ finally got his wish to have a 4-legged friend!)
Dad says:
This trip is [...]

AJ says:
“Who is Lenin anyway?”
Mum says:
“He was a very important and clever man who played an important part in Russian history”.
AJ says:
“What? Is he famous like Jackie Chan?”
(……….The mind boggles!!!!………………………)
If we had our time again we would have crossed the sea from Estonia to Finland and then entered Russia from there to visit the famous [...]