Happy Birthday darling!

Igor's Birthday Extravaganza continues… he "discovered" his present on Friday because I did a pretty bad job of hiding it. Probably sounds weird that I bought my husband a heavy-duty blender for his birthday, but his reputation as Bar Man Extraordinaire was in jeopardy when our crappy blender during our last party.

Yesterday's part of the b-day celebrations was an afternoon at the banya, with a massage. We tried a place that a friend recommended, and it was actually a "hamman", or Turkish sauna, which means steam bath instead of the dry Russian or Finnish-style. Hit the spot!

Today is his actual birthday, with special treats to be revealed later. His one request was for "chocolate death", aka Chocolate Mousse Tort. It is definitely _to_die_for, and all his today!

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In other news, the visa situation is still a confusing mess. We decided to go a different route, and I submitted my application for permanent residency on Thursday! It took awhile to get all the necessary documents, and translations, and certificates and more documents, and all the required stamps, collected, but we finally did it. The inspector at the registration office tried hard to find something wrong with our stack of papers, and even looked slightly disappointed that we had it all in order. But, she took my application and in 2.5-3 months we can call to check the status, and if all goes well, I may be a permanent resident of Ukraine by the end of the year! It's actually a much simpler process than obtaining American permanent residency, much to my surprise. And the best part is that I won't ever have to deal visas here again. So, cross your fingers for us that it all goes through smoothly!