Yes, we are alive

Yes, we’re alive and well. We’ve been back in Kyiv just over a week and already are swamped – work, apartment purchase, and lots of little things to be taken care of after a one month+ absence. Plus, it’s been one of the hardest time transitions for me in a long time – I’m still not entirely acclimated, which is rather frustrating.

If all goes according to plan, we’ll close on the apartment next week! I had to get a Ukrainian tax ID number before we could finalize the purchase. It’s the one government process that everyone agrees is the simplest – you submit a short form, no fee, and in 1-2 weeks you can go pick up your number. I’ll pick mine up on Monday, and we’re scheduled to close on Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed!

It will still be several months before we can actually live in the apartment. It needs total renovation- I’m talking we need to strip it down to the studs. The lovely elderly woman we are buying it from has lived there for going on 56 years, and although she’s done some updating over the decades, we’ll need to start from scratch. It’s kind of exciting to get to plan everything, to design our own living space (within the existing structure, of course). There will be lots of photos along the way, don’t worry!

What else is going on with us? Let’s see, we popped into Kraina Mriy (Country of Dreams) festival last weekend, but the crazy weather kept us away for most of it. We tried to go Saturday night to see Skripka perform, but got trapped in a passageway when a hurricane-like storm came out of nowhere. When it finally let up, we decided sitting in the muddy park was not exactly how we wanted to spend the evening, so opted for dinner at our favorite Georgian restaurant with Bill & Eilene instead. Yum!

Yesterday at 9:30 am, the outside temperature was 33C (91F), and at 9:30 pm it was 29C (84F). Igor had no objections when I said I wanted to buy a fan, and much to my delight he even let it run in the bedroom last night (folks in this part of the world tend to hate having air blow on them, including air conditioners, open car windows, drafts, breezes, etc.). He also announced he wants to get air conditioners in every room on the new apartment, not just the kitchen, which I thought was pretty awesome. Why not central air?, my American readers are asking. Heating and cooling is done differently here. We don’t have hot-air-blowing furnances, rather most apartments are heated by radiators. Thus, no air ducts, and thus no central aid. Instead, you can get these really cool and compact wall-mounted air conditioners, which are conveniently mounted up high on the interior wall, out of the way and, best of all, not taking up your window.

Dad gave me an iPod Touch for my birthday, which is helping me to waste enormous amounts of time. I love it. (Yes, Jenny, you recommended this to me more than a year ago and I finally took the plunge and can’t figure out why I waited so long! It’s fabulous!)  We saw our first iPad while in the US last month. It’s pretty snazzy, and there was some debate whether I should get the iPod Touch or the iPad, but in the end I decided the Touch fit my needs better. Plus I’m not crazy about buying the first generation of anything; I’d rather wait until the bugs are more-or-less worked out and the price comes down. I would, though, definitely buy an iPhone if they were legally on the market in Ukraine. Plenty of folks have brought them from Europe and cracked them, but I’m not crazy about doing that. It’s kind of ridiculous that the iPhone is legally available in many of the countries surrounding Ukraine (including Moldova, for pete’s sake!), but not on the market here. I can only imagine why.

Ziggy lost some weight and learned how to jump up on the kitchen counter while we were gone, which is good and bad, in that order. Our friend Natasha stayed with him and seems to have mostly broke his habit of waiting someone to get up and feed him at 5, 6 and 7 am. He waits semi-patiently until as late as 9 am now, before jumping in my face, whining and generally making a nuisance of himself. Thank you Natasha!

Well, as a friend mused, life is just life now, it doesn’t seem so much like an adventure anymore, which makes blogging about it seem kind of lame. But if you’re interested in my occassional ramblings and updates about our plain old life in Kyiv, I guess I’ll keep writing about it now and then.