Happy Thanksgiving!

С днём благодарения!

Today is a working day for us here in Kyiv, even at a place called American Councils for International Education (we are taking Friday off, though). We’ll spend this evening with at the Campsey’s, with dad and some other Americans. This will actually be my first Thanksgiving dinner with Americans since I’ve lived in Ukraine, and it will be Igor’s first “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner – turkey and all!

I am very thankful for so many people and things. First and foremost for my wonderful husband; I couldn’t ask for a better partner in my life. I am thankful for my family – parents and siblings both by blood and by marriage. I’ve been thinking about mom a lot lately, and I am especially thankful for the last conversation I had with her 2 days before she passed away. It was an “unscheduled” phone call, I’d had an “unknown” caller on my cell phone and thought I’d better check with my parents if it had been them calling on a Thursday about something important. Nothing had happened, thank goodness, and it was a really nice conversation with just my mom. I am thankful that my last memories of her are so warm. It’s hard to believe that it’s been over three years now since I last saw her and hugged her.

I am thankful for my wonderful friends, all over the world. I am thankful for my great colleagues and a job that I love.

I am thankful for ice cube trays and tomatoes picked from the vine and homemade wine and the internet and public transportation and warm clothes and sunny beaches and my iPod (OK, my dad’s iPod until I replace the one I killed) and decaf coffee and my cat and warm fresh bread and blue cheese and podiobooks and chocolate-covered halva and so very much more.

Crimea

I’m in Crimea this week, visiting partners and promoting EducationUSA. It’s warmer here than in Kyiv- won’t need the long johns that I packed, yeah! I’m in Sevastopol today, a navy port still home mostly to Russian sailors. I always find it strange in Crimea to be surrounded by Russian. Yes, I hear Russian on the streets in Kyiv more than Ukrainain, but all the signs are in Ukrainian there, whereas all the ads, street signs, and pretty much everything else is all in Russian in Crimea. In Sevastopol they even manage to get around the national law requiring all movies to be dubbed into Ukrainian, and instead show movies in Russian (“no one would go if they were in Ukrainian” was the response I got today when I asked about it).

Walking around the town this evening, obliviously speaking English with 2 colleagues, I realized we were being followed by a drunken man complaining extensively about us. He seemed to know exactly 2 English words – “America no!”. He bitched that we should be speaking Russian, to which I very much wanted to respond, in Ukrainian, that in fact we ought to be speaking Ukrainian! Oh my, how my wonderful husband has turned me into a Ukrainian nationalist! 🙂 The drunk eventually seemed to get bored of failing to get a rise out of us, and went on his way. It made me sad, though, especially after a few weeks of being so proud and excited about America right now. I know I shouldn’t pay attention to the ramblings of an old drunk man, but still, it’s hard to not want to respond, or to try to talk him about why he feels as he does.

The hotel has BBC and CNN, and I thought it would be fun to indulge in English-language TV. Wow, if this is indicative of what is usually on, I sure ain’t missing much. Booorrrinnng! I can’t believe how long they just discussed the new Guns ‘n Roses album. Is there really nothing else going on in the world?

Moving

Igor and I are both stunned by how much stuff we have. To think that three years ago I moved into this apartment with two suitcases – everything I had in Ukraine fit into two suitcases. This weekend we moved four carloads of stuff to our new apartment, and there’s still at least one more car load to go. Wow.

I enjoyed unpacking most of it today – I love getting re-acquainted with my things! And it’s fun to organize and arrange our things in a new way, in a new place. I am soooo in love with “my room” (at least I’ve dubbed it “my room”!) – a small room with a fabulous huge new wardrobe and a reall dresser! I haven’t had a dresser or a nice wardrobe in 4 years, and I’m so excited to have enough space to arrange my clothes the way I like to.

We also are now the proud owners for our first set of living room furniture. Igor had heard about a good deal on a 3-piece cream and brown living room set. He went to check it out, brought me some pictures of it (since I couldn’t get out to see it myself), and when we decided to purchase it, he arranged for the delivery straight to our new place. So I actually hadn’t seen the new furniture until Friday, when we got the apartment keys. I was excited to finally see it, as Igor had been very enthusiastic about it – and it is, after all, our first major household purchase together. Imagine my surprise when I unpacked the loveseat and saw not cream, but GREEN! I would call it “lettuce green”, a soft green, kind of like key lime pie, maybe. It’s not bad, it’s just very much not what I expected. And somehow Igor was equally surprised. My first thought was that the shop pulled a fast one on him, delivering green furniture instead of cream, but Igor was standing there, helping actually, when they packed it up and loaded it all on the truck. How he could have ever thought this furniture was cream is beyond me. They must have had some funky lights in that shop. So we’re trying to get used to our lettuce green furniture, which doesn’t in the least bit go with the rug that came with the apartment. Looks like our next household purchase will be a new rug.

By the way, the rug that Dad brought us from Armenia goes absolutely perfectly in “my room” – yeah!

We’re going to stay one more week in the old place, and officially start living in the new place next weekend. I can’t wait! I’m glad we got so much done this weekend. I have business trips each of the next three weeks, so won’t actually have much time in our new place for nearly a month – just in time for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, Eilene and I went on a tour Saturday of a small factory outside of Kyiv that does hand-made glass Christmas-tree decorations. It was really cool to see the whole process – blowing the glass, applying the real silver plating and glazes, and the hand-painted details. The highlight, of course, was the opportunity purchase ornaments for absurd prices – none of them cost more than $4. I’ll write more and post photos as soon as I find the camera cable in a box somewhere.

We had our first real snow yesterday, and quite a bit overnight. The car was actually frozen shut! Igor finally brought out a kettle full of boiling water, which we poured over all the door locks. What a sight we were this morning, with stacks of suitcases on the sidewalk, trying to get into our car. The city was quite pretty today, all covered in white.

Time for bed. A busy week ahead.

More internet challenges

So now we don’t have internet at work! Yikes! There apparently was some kind of humongous electrical surge in the office neighborhood over the weekend, and something in our server fried. Apparently it was on the news, although Igor and I missed it completely, with reports of people’s computers literally melting. I’m glad I brought my work laptop home over the weekend! But wow, it’s quite a challenge to work as a regional coordinator, with responsibilities to people in 7 countries on 2 continents, with no internet access. And after a full day in the office, the last thing I want to do is sacrifice my evening time with my wonderful husband so I can catch up on emails. Well, tonight had to be an exception. I hope we can get back online soon.

This is International Education Week, with lots of exciting things happening all over the world. Open Doors, a report on international educational exchange, was released today. Most of the detailed statistics are available to members only, but there is still a lot of fascinating information available.

Boxes, boxes, boxes

We spent most of the weekend packing. Good grief, we have a lot more stuff than I realized. Amazing how much one can accumulate in 3 years time, especially when I was supposed to be here just temporarily! Our kitchen is back to state it was in when I first moved in – 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 knives, 2 plates, no glasses, a few mugs, a couple pots. And to think – that was sufficient back then! As much as I hate packing, I LOVE unpacking. It’s like Christmas, only I get to relive the wonderful memories of each item as I unwrap it. Next weekend the fun part will begin!

The excitement of the weekend was when we discovered that someone had hacked into our wireless network and used up our internet limit for the month in the span of 3 days. Thank goodness we noticed the lights on the router going crazy late Friday night (or was it early Saturday morning) when neither of us was using the internet – we pulled the plug right away and cut the bandit off. We popped over to the internet company’s nearby office on Saturday, and they gave us a print-out of how to change the password for our wireless router. When we got home, we discovered that the screenshots they gave us do not in the least bit resemble the website, and after horsing around for an hour, we finally gave up and decided to go without wifi for the next week until we move.

I took a break from packing and internet fiascos yesterday to go to a huge mall with some American friends. Wow, I didn’t realize we had those kinds of places here! It’s huge, with an indoor ice-skating rink, bowling alley, movie theatre, gigantic grocery store, and a ton of over-priced speciality shops and boutiques. We did some window shopping, had a coffee, and decided to head home. Then the fun began. I swear, only Ukrainian drivers can manage to create a traffic jam in a freakin’ parking lot. Which reminds me, I saw a complete and total disaster of a traffic jam at a McDonald’s drive-through window the other day. How on earth? Only in Ukraine… I can hardly begin to describe the chaos of our particular traffic jam – it was utterly ridiculous. I finally ended up squeezing around a bus that just wasn’t going to move, and got out through the entrance. But we eventually made it home – after spending about twice as much time in the car as we had spent in the mall itself. Not a trip I plan to be repeating.

Tonight we are pooped from all the packing, the cat is busily inspecting all boxes and bags, and I’m looking forward to the week. How wonderful to look forward to going to work!

Life is good

I made my first University presentation last night, about applying to MBA and PhD programs in the U.S. Wow, did I ever feel in my element! I surprised myself how much information I still have at my fingertips, but then again, I guess working for ten years at Ohio State ought to have left some remnants in my creaky ole brain. I had been thinking that I wouldn’t do so many outreach activities myself, since we have advisers and advising centers who are supposed to do that, but wow, I love being with a group of students again, talking with ease about a subject I know and love. I think I will join in on a couple presentations a month, if I can – especially if I can get away with doing them in English! We started our presentation in Russian last night (I was with one of our Kyiv advisers, Tanya, and my new assistant Ella -who, by the way, is absolutely fabulous), and one of the students called out “In English, please!” So we tag-teamed in two languages, since Tanya is more comfortable presenting in Russian (actually, she’s most comfortable in Ukrainian, but for some reason decided to present in Russian). I had a good chuckle after our presentation when a student came up and said that he was very impressed with my Russian – he said he hadn’t realized at first that I was American! I think he was putting into practice some of the advice from my presentation about the power of flattery – how a little flattery can go a long way if you are trying to get a professor to notice your application. 🙂

I’ve been back to the Middle Eastern restaurant 2 more times (and also have realized that they call it an Arab restaurant). On Sunday I got lunch to go, and while I waited I chatted with the young man working the cash register, Mohammed. Really nice young man, married to a Ukrainian woman. He introduced me to the new manager, Abrahim, who doesn’t speak English or Russian but who has a lovely smile and gives a good sales pitch in Arabic (at least he delivered it well, even if I didn’t understand the content). I was there again Tuesday night with Igor and some friends, and both Mohammed and Abrahim remembered me, greeting me with big smiles and a wave from across the restaurant. We had the same waitress as the first time we were there a couple weeks ago, and she also remembered us. I love this place!

We have just over a week until we can move to our new apartment – yeah! The coming weekend will be consumed with packing – yuck! I am so excited that we can finally consider ourselves “settled”. Granted, we’ll still be renting, but mentally I am finally ready to make some purchases that up until now seemed like splurging, not mention a pain the butt to haul around if we had to move to another country – my own set of stainless steel cookware, a food processor, a toaster (actually, Dad promised the toaster as a house-warming gift when we move), and a few other things that will just make life easier. Yeah!

I got a massage last weekend from a masseuse recommended by a colleague. He’s a medical student, and is putting his way through university working as a massage therapist. He comes to your place and does massages on the floor. It was a good massage, and much needed, but what I found most interesting was that he is from Turkmenistan. He’s been living and studying in Kyiv for about 5 years. I was a little embarrassed to admit to him that I know very very little about Turkmenistan, but he took advantage of my undivided attention to tell me a long and detailed history of the country. I didn’t catch all of it (it’s hard to concentrate on a history lesson in Russian when you are trying to relax and enjoy your massage!), but I enjoyed listening to him. Even though he dislikes the current regime, he clearly has a lot of pride in his people and heritage.

The sad news of the week is that I accidentally killed my ipod. It fell in a pot of water, and my attempts to dry it out with a hairdryer turned out to be not such a good idea – I think I fried it, literally. I am really missing my daily news dose on my commute to and from work. Electronics are so freaking expensive here, I hate to think of buying a new ipod here. But I don’t know if I can wait until my next trip to the States….

Here’s a really great article on the impact of the US elections on us Americans living abroad. I am happy to say that I have not experienced such serious anti-American sentiment myself, but I have certainly been called out on what my country has been doing the last 8 years. I’ve lost count of how many people have congratulated me in the last week on our new president, with such big beautiful smiles. One of Igor’s friends remembered that I once said I would not live in the US as long as there was a Bush in the White House – and asked if we are going to move back now!

Pride

I woke up really early this morning, tried to go back to sleep, and finally gave in – got up, turned on the computer, went to NPR.org, but paused before reading the headlines. My stomach in knots, my hands shaking. My country has confused me and even disappointed me so much in recent years…

When I saw the headline “Obama Sails To A Sweeping Victory”, my eyes filled with tears and I felt relieved. I am so proud of my country right now. I am so proud.

I’m listening to President-Elect Obama making his victory speech. Never been happier that I couldn’t sleep!

Metro madness

I remembered I had to do something today that required my physical presence in the office, so I waited an extra hour this morning before venturing to the metro. The line was about 30 deep, and within a minute of me queuing up, another 30-40 people appeared behind me. People were patient but some clearly irritated. The automated machines weren’t working properly, so the only way to get the new tokens was to stand in line at one of two windows and get your tokens from a live person. Still no monthly passes (Igor was told they won’t be available until December).

I started chatting with the guy in front of me, and another lady joined in. I made a comment about it being a bit ridiculous that they didn’t start selling the new tokens a few days ago, and the lady chuckled and said (ironically) “But then people wouldn’t have to wait in line!”

You can see the Soviet legacy so clearly in certain aspects of Ukrainian society, and the ability and tolerance to stay in endless lines is certainly one of those legacies.

Better in degrees

So the price of the metro (subway) goes up by 4 times starting tomorrow, from 50 kopeks to 2 hrivna. Can you imagine the public outrage of an increase from 50 cents to 2 bucks in, say, New York City? Granted, the price of the metro hasn’t increased in something like 8 years, and given inflation rates of 24% this year alone, clearly a rate increase is in order. But man does it suck to be your average Kyiv worker with a monthly income of about $200 – your monthly commute now costs not $5 (24UAH), but starting tomorrow will cost $20 (96UAH) – that’s an increase from 2.5% of your monthly income to 10%, would you be a little upset?

Frankly, I think Americans would be pitching fits in the streets, if an American public transit system would even dare such a move. In Ukraine, they deflect hysteria by not making available the new passes and tokens – a completely different kind of infuriation (is that even a word?).

Prices of public transportation change tomorrow, 4 November. I tried to buy a new monthly pass last Friday and today – nichevo – they don’t have any. So instead I tried to buy the new 2 hrivna tokens today – nichevo – nada – dream on.

Four million people will need to buy new tokens tomorrow – is this good planning? I am sure I was not alone in wanting to buy a new pass and/or tokens in advance so as to avoid the lines on 4 November. Hah!

The bagel I had for lunch today will NOT make up for the frustration I will face tomorrow morning, standing in line with 4 million commuters to buy the new tokens. I think I’ll work from home, just to avoid the chaos. It’s the whimp’s way out, but wow am I ever grateful that I have the flexibility to do it!

Dems Abroad – Get out the vote!

I called 125 Ohio voters today to encourage them to vote on Tuesday. Have you voted? Are you encouraging your family and friends to vote? Do you know why Senator Barack Obama will be the best president for you? You can learn all about the issues that matter most to you on his website.

Vote! Vote! Vote!