Life with a Russian woman is full of little surprises. Things that we take for granted often seem big to them.
The other day my wife came home home from her ESL class with a cut-away diagram of a house showing various appliances, furniture and other features. She had written the English names for various things on the diagram. The bouse had a basement and in the basement was a hot water heater.
She asked me to pronounce "hot water heater" for her and then she asked if we had one. Well, we don't have a basement, but we have a hot water heater in a closet next to the kitchen. So, I opened up the closet and showed it to her.
Then, I asked her what the Russian word for "hot water heater" was.
She replied that she didn't know. She said that they don't have very many of those things in Russia. Usually, the water is heated in a central plant and piped into the houses. However, the pipes often break. Then, workmen have to dig up the pipes to fix them and there is mud everywhere.
She added that she thought the American way of having hot water heaters in every house was much better than the way things are done in Russia.
