Pay your damn bills

So I've been without internet for about 2 days since my land lady didn't pay the internet bill. Seriously!? Yeah, well I ended up getting two days of work off since I wasn't able to do much without having access to the web. How did people get work done before the internet anyways?

I made a new friend the other day. I think I've mentioned the elderly couple that seemed to always be at the door when I first moved in. Yesterday I was coming home from somewhere and the old guy was at the door. I let him in and he got in the elevator with me. I don't exactly know how to ask 'what floor are you going to?', so I just said '5', which is my floor. He said something back that sounded like 8 or 9. I went ahead and hit my button first (you can only push one button at a time on this elevator since it's old). I got out, and he got out and followed me to my door. He clearly wanted to come in, started saying something in Russian/Ukrainian, and I had no idea what he said. Using my fairly limited language skills I basically said 'Me' and pointed to my door and then said 'You, No'. He didn't move, so I went ahead and used my key to open my door to go in, but not leave him any room to get in. He ended up standing outside my door for about 2 minutes before giving up and going upstairs. (I was able to see since I have a camera outside my door.) I haven't seen him again since then.

My ear popped the other night while watching a movie, and started to hurt like hell. About an hour later it still hadn't 'unpopped', hurt even more, and was really not helping the whole 'get to sleep' thing. Eventually I fell asleep, and when I woke up - ear still wasn't unpopped. Two days later, it doesn't hurt anymore, but it hasn't unpopped itself. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it sounds like my right ear is underwater. I can hear out of it, but when I talk it sounds like I'm on an airplane. Jabbing a q-tip in there hasn't fixed it either.

I'm poor again! The exchange rate has gone from 9.5 to 8 in the last few days. Fortunately I exchanged $200 when it was at 9.5 - unfortunately I didn't exchange even more.

I woke up this morning planning to make meatballs and sauce. I went out earlier in the week and got everything I needed. What I didn't realize I didn't have - until this morning - was a can opener. Oops. On Saturday most things around here don't open until 10, so I had to sit around and wait for the stores to open to even try to find a can opener. I walked 2.5 miles for a stupid 5 dollar can opener... Eventually I got home and got things going. While making the meatballs I realized after the first batch was in the oven, that I didn't put any cheese in them. Oops again. I've also been cleaning and ironing clothes all day. So to summarize my Saturday so far, I've cooked, cleaned, and ironed. This only further serves as proof that I need to find a mail order wife/domestic house servant. Plus, it would probably be cheaper than shipping a grocery cart here.

I have a cellphone with a signal here now. Took a bit of work but we got it done. Basically I figured out that the SIM cards here come programed to have a security lock on them - that my phone doesn't recognize. Had to find someones phone with the ability to turn that off, and then things worked fine. The 3G network here is crap though. It works great outside, but if you go into a building or underground it disconnects.

As for work - yes I have been doing some. My new and improved statement of work came in and some of the verbiage was changed. So now I'm doing feasibility studies on the 14 centers for as they go forward without the funding they had been receiving. I also found out that I'm responsible for getting my visas. Would have been nice to know that while I was sitting on my ass for the last two weeks. I will go on Monday to drop of my passport to the US embassy to get more pages put in it, and then I need to find the emabssies for Armenia and Azerbaijan. Natually you can't do more than one at a time though. Also, I have a 3 day conference to attend this coming week regarding one of the projects I am working on. From there I should be meeting people that I have to help with business plans, presentations, or who knows what else.

Finally, as for the comments:
Mo: Send money instead of food, it doesn't weigh as much. Although peanutbutter would be okay. Also milk. The milk here is crap and just tastes different. Perhaps the cows just aren't happy - hell hopefully it's just cows they are milking.
Bobby: I think moving the capitol to New Mexico is a great idea. It should make the transition easier for when Mexico invades. As for the new currency - are you telling me that Italy is now the richest country in the world?
Mom: You're old. Hell you're twice my age.
Sara: Let your brother know I found him a girlfriend.

Holding Pattern

Some of the similarities of what is going on here, and what was going on in the States a year ago are fairly amusing.

The current President has historically low approval ratings
People are asking said president to step down and start elections early
Economic Crisis
Talks of Impeachment
Parliament divided so evenly that nothing is getting done (Think senate and house)
Young rising star politician who people think may be the next President

Sounds like a blast from the past right?

Also, I'm sitting here waiting for someone that was supposed to call me 45 minutes ago. He isn't answering his phone, so I'm just waiting here until he gets back.

Mama Mia!

First an update: As of right now the exchange rate is up to 9.25. I'm going to go exchange another 100 bucks into local currency on my way to the coffee shop.

Also, it seems as though the great spaghetti sauce crusade has ended. While I was in the grocery store last week (the one that's 1.25 miles away) I figured I would take another stab at finding some tomato sauce. I found a can and then a jar of stuff that stood out on the shelves. The reason it stood out was because the label wasn't written in Cyrillic. Instead, it was written in Italian. How could I go wrong trying a jar of stuff that is so Italian it comes from Italy and has an export tag that translates some of the Italian into Ukrainian so people can read what the label says?

I used the sauce with my beef/deer/rabbit meat last night to make a meat sauce and it was pleasantly good. The same brand sells what appeared to be cans of tomatoes. Perhaps I've even found what I need to make my own sauce.

I'm Rich!

Well, not really. I'm still technically a volunteer. But, the local currency has taken such a beating recently, and the US Dollar has stopped taking one. This means that the exchange rate is up to 8.9 UAH per USD. It was 8 when I got here. I'm 12.5% richer. Every time it goes up I keep exchanging some more of the cash I came over here with - a way to hedge my currency. But each time it goes up and I exchange it, it goes up more. I thought I got a great deal a few days ago when I got 850 UAH for $100, and now I would be getting nearly 900! That's essentially like being given 10 liters of Stella for free - about 2.5 gallons for you non-metric folk. I'm sure part of this spike is due to the fact that the IMF was fairly stern with Ukraine today and threatened them. Even with that, I see it as a great opportunity to get some free beer/money/beer money and I'll probably go exchange another $100 at the bank tomorrow. The money is going to be spent at some point, and if I can get a good deal for it now there's no reason why I shouldn't take it.

Mystery Meat

So I'm officially working today. A typical Ukrainian work day is from 9 - 6, and I can proudly say that I made it to work by 9. What that means is I woke up at 7:30 and used that information to justify sleeping for another hour and not getting out of bed until nearly 9.

Yesterday I spent about 2.5 hours studying Russian - specifically vocab. I have a general understanding of how present tense Russian verbs work, but couldn't tell you a single Russian verb other than 'to speak'. Because of this I figured it would be a good idea to start working on my vocab. I started last week with useful words related to food. I've already started applying and understanding some of the things I've been beating into my head. A good example of this is in relation to juice.

I bought some orange juice last week. Besides the naturally wholesome qualities it has, I figured it would help dilute the nail polish flavored $3 bottle of vodka I have. I tried some and it was crap. Not only was it not juice, but it just seemed like orange colored water - I figured maybe it was a concentrate of some sort. I dumped the crap in the sink but saved the container so I could try to figure out what it was some other time. Now that I know the word for juice - COK (CIK in Ukrainian) - I can confirm that it wasn't juice. Apparently having pictures of oranges on the packaging doesn't mean anything. So it turns out that what I had was orange 'nectar'. I'm not exactly sure what the hell 'nectar' is in relation to juice, and google has failed to yield any type of scale that places it with on any type of 'juice scale'.

Not all nectar is bad though, on a different quest to find a juice for my vodka I purchased something that had a picture of pineapples, oranges, and some other fruit on the packaging. Since I had no idea what it was I decided to give it a try. It tasted much better, but after learning the difference between juice and nectar (COK vs. HEKTAP) I realized that this is some sort of 'Multi-vitamin Nectar'. Either way it was good, but I still haven't found orange juice.

Armed with my newfound vocabulary I went back to the store by my apartment this past Saturday and found something that genuinely claimed to be orange juice. I purchased a smaller container since I've been through a few craptastic orange juices allready and didn't want to throw out another containers worth of random juice. I also picked up a can of Redbull, which is a segway to the second part of this post.

Not only was the orange juice for the vodka, but my backup plan was a can of redbull. I was planning on going out Saturday night and wanted to have a few drinks before I went. Not only is this a cheaper alternative to buying drinks at the club, but when its snowing, 25 outside, and you need to walk almost a mile to the club it's a good way to stay warm. The place I was going was supposed to open at 11 so I decided to get there early. I got there too early and nobody was even in the line. I made a loop and walked around on the main square for a little bit and then headed back - this time to find a small line. Eventually I got in, checked my coat, paid, and got to the bar/dancefloor. Here are some notes that I took on my phone that sum up the night:

• There was an older guy on the dance floor - probably 45 - with his sweater tied around his waist who was just dancing away and creeping out all of the girls around him.
• I had a seat next to the bar. The guy sitting next to me was a crazy chain smoker and I left the place smelling like an ashtry.
• There were dancers on a podium type area in the middle of the club - both male and female. One of the guy dancers in particular though had a tattoo of wings on his back. I found this to be very strange.
• The club shot off confetti every ten minutes. Every ten minutes I had to cover my drink and pick the stuff off of my clothes.
• The club doesn't open until 11 and it's lit only with strobe lights, black lights, and some lights around the bar. Sunglasses are NOT needed. There is no way so many people were out all day and came straight to the club and just happened to not drop off their glasses at home. Not only that, but it's not like the sun comes out here anyways.
• There were lots of photographers at the club. One in particular had to shake his camera after every picture he took. I suppose the shutter was stuck on his camera.
• Some things are universal regardless of language- when another guy accidentally steps on your foot he'll give you a hand gesture of 'sorry' and you are expected to return it.
• At 4:30 in the morning there was still a line of people waiting to come in. (I said I would stay until 5 when I got there.)
• One of the last DJ's was wearing an Xfiles shirt of the 'I want to believe' poster.
• Sweat on your forehead quickly becomes ice when you walk outside and its around 25 outside.
• On going to bed at 6AM - I'm going to need to get better drapes if this becomes a common thing.

A few other things that I'll explain a little more about. I've noticed a few trends here that I, as a westerner, find strange. The first of these is the mullet. It appears Billy Ray's achy breaky heart has come here to die. While I wouldn't categorize the style as popular, or even a full mullet - its more of just making a concious decision to not cut the back of your hair -but it is common enough that I keep noticing it. In particular, I noticed it very often on all of the best dressed guys. Actually, just about all of the guys who were dressed similarly to me - a sweater with a button up shirt underneath it. Who knew I would give away my cover as a foreigner from my lack of a mullet.

The other thing I've noticed fairly often is this countries incredible taste for awful sweaters. I'm fully convinced that if Ukraine invaded the USA one of the first places they would hit would be Goodwill and other consignment shops. As next Christmas rolls around I'll be interested in seeing if they have ugly sweater parties here, and if so, how ugly they get.

Finally, with regard to the shopping cart idea: I approve. However I think that a radio flyer might be better for two reasons. First, I won't look as homeless. Second, I could probably manage to steer a little red wagon down the hills around my apartment. While I won't deny the fact that it's completely possible to sit in a shopping cart, typically a second person is required for steering.

Anyways, I have more reading to do for work. Dinner tonight should be interesting. I have what I think could be beef in my fridge. I know the first word on the lable is 'minced' but I can't make out the second. The second word is Ukrainian and not Russian so I can't find a translation (technically both are Ukrainian but some words are the same). Typically any meat that is minced means its a blend of a few things, so I'm just going to assume its beef and rabbit but hope for the best. All I know is that the other packaged meats that could have been beef had waaay too high of a fat concentration for me to even consider taking home. Just on account of being mostly red and having minimal specs of white in the package I picked this stuff.

New Weight Loss Plan

If you are still trying to work off those winter pounds you put on to keep yourself warm, then I have a workout plan for you. I've modeled it off of my daily routine here.

First, when you get up. Don't eat anything. Or if you must, have a piece of bread with some butter on it. When you get hungry again around lunch time, have more bread and butter. This time though, since it's lunch, treat yourself to some pretzels. You may feel the need to snack during the day. Don't. The easiest way to achieve this is to not have any other food in your house besides bread, butter, and pretzels. When dinner time comes around, go out to your favorite restaurant. But wait there's a catch, you have to walk there. How bad do you really want to go to that Italian place downtown?

You could make your own dinner - it might even be cheaper. But don't think you'll get out of walking anywhere. The closest grocery store is 3/4ths of a mile away, meaning you need to walk 1.5 miles - half of it uphill - to get food. Oh, and the uphill part is when you are carrying the groceries back. Unfortunately, the selection at this grocery store is quite lacking, and chicken is the only meat they carry. (They do have a wonderful selection of cakes, but this is a diet plan.)

There is another option. There is another grocery store in town...and it's only an extra half mile from the grocery store you are already at. It's only a 30 minute walk, and the exercise is good for you. Once you've walked 1.25 miles to get to the store you can pick out anything you want from a much wider selection of food - this store is easily twice the size as the other one. Don't buy too much though since anything you buy is going to need to get carried back - another 1.25 miles, half of it is up hill. This adds an interesting dilemma to the situation. You can buy everything you need at one place and suffer through carrying too much stuff back home, or you can make two trips. Two trips will result in twice as much walking though.


This is clearly the best option for losing weight. Not only will you have worked up a voracious appetite by the time dinner rolls around, but you'll have burned enough calories to eat as much as you can.

Pros: Fitting into that new bikini; impressing all of your friends with your svelte figure
Cons: Stomach pains; Lack of energy

Don't forget! Spring break is just around the corner.

The real Ukraine

If you are curious about all the crap going on in this country - and this city especially since it's the capital - one of the best sources of information I've found (in English) is here: http://blog.kievukraine.info/

You can read about all of the reasons the local currency is worth next to nothing, how messed up the political system here is, and generally feel better about the fact that things could be a whole lot worse in the USA.

Example: Think the banking crisis is bad in America? In Ukraine the banks are freezing accounts to prevent a run on the banks. This means that you can't take your money out of your bank account.

I'm running out of clean clothes

So it is about 28 here, has been for probably a week. There is snow on the ground, and the sun went on vacation to somewhere like Spain. So what does this have to do with clothes? I have to dry my clothes outside on a drying rack. Think about how fast your jeans will dry when they are wet and sitting outside when its 28. I have come up with somewhat of a solution. I have 3 old style heating units in my apartment - one for each room. I've set up my clothes on chairs or a drying rack in front of the heating units (which don't really do anything but radiate heat) and rotate them occasionally. I haven't figured out if they dry faster than mold grows yet, but we'll know soon enough.

Can I come back when the sun is out?

Yeah, so it's pretty boring around here. Between the fact that it's never a good day to actually go outside and really walk around, and that I don't know enough of the language to talk to anybody - I'm quite bored around here.

I tried getting a SIM card for my phone today and for some reason they are all acting up. I need to try to use one that I know worked again - hopefully tomorrow. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the update that I accidentally let install on my phone. Supposedly it has nothing to do with the firmware of the phone, but I don't know. Keeps saying that SIMs are locked and won't accept the correct codes.

Hi it's FedEx. Would you mind waiting around all day for us?

FedEx called me today. Technically they were calling me back since they called yesterday and the conversation didn't go anywhere since the only Russian I can speak is, "Do you speak English?" (Actually I know more than that, but that's not the point of this story.) It was about 11 AM. The lady asked my address to double check, and then asked if I could be there until 5 PM to wait for my package.

!!

So much for all of the things I planned on doing during the day like ...buying food. Fortunately I realized that I didn't give them the information they needed to get into the apartment - they can't without an RFID chip. I had Oleksiy call them and let them know that they would have to call me when they were here. He called back a little bit later saying they would be there within 2 hours.

About an hour later they showed up. So now, after I started working on other things thinking I would be here all day, I'm going to go try to do the things I originally wanted to do today.

Apparently the Sputnik is in the process of being fixed too. I got a call telling me to put the TV on channel 46 and wait 20 minutes. It's been about an hour, so maybe by the time I get back it'll be working. Who knows...

Mail Order Success

A few points of interest today. Apparently my dishwasher wasn't plugged in. Now it is. Sputnik is apparently not working properly and that is why I can't get it on the TV. I can now get to the menu though. I got the key to my mailbox today. This is important because now I can order a bride and not worry about not being able to get her out of my mailbox. Lastly, apparently sometime this week I'm going to get the wifi put in so I can move my laptop somewhere other than my bedroom.

I was going to work today but that didn't work out. Tomorrow I am going to head to the embassy and then do some work. Wednesday I am going into the CRDF office here for a short period of time just to introduce myself.

I'm off to get some dinner. I didn't go to the grocery like I wanted today since I was waiting around for the landlady to come today. I don't have much food in the house besides pretzels and some bread at the moment, and I really don't feel like going to get whatever was left over from the day. Since stuff is delivered in small portions and fresh (from the gulags) every day it's definitely important to go early if you want to get what you are looking for.

10/10

I'll keep this fairly PG. I went out tonight to try to go to a club. I got lost, walked all the way back home to look for the address, went back there and found a line that was crazy. I knew I wasn't going to wait for the 1-in 1-out to get short enough that I could figure out what was going on. However, I waited 15 minutes before I left because I couldn't stop looking around at the girls.

I've gotten a lot of questions about the women of Kiev, and I've had a fairly good idea of my thoughts up to this point. Nobody is really overweight, and anywhere you go you are bound to find a beauty. Tonight at the club was different though. I felt like I was in some sort of Hollywood movie or at some Italian fashion show. The concentration of insanely hot girls here is unfair to the rest of the countries in the world.

On a rather unrelated note, I went to the local Irish Pub/gringo bar and met some interesting people. One in particular is a teacher at a school for children of ambassadors and diplomats. She's been here for a while. This conversation is worth mentioning because I asked her if she spoke the local language and it turns out she knows exactly what I'm going through with not being able to find a private tutor. She asked for my email address and was going to forward me the info of the person she's been taking lessons from. Apparently she 'only' has time during the middle of the day. That's fine with me so if things work out I'll be okay. She said its 35 for 1.5 hours, so I can probably afford to take two lessons a week.

Where's your fanny?

So I saw a guy wearing a fanny pack today and it got me thinking. First I was thinking that if you are wearing a fanny pack you are definitely a local. As a tourist it would be a huge target, but as a local it's almost a "don't even try anything" sign. Then I started thinking about the fanny pack itself. As far as I know, your 'fanny' is somewhere around your ass region. However, the fanny pack is not actually worn around this area. Instead, it's more of a 'stomach pack', or in an effort to use as silly a word as 'fanny', perhaps you could call it a 'tummy pack'. Regardless, I demand that people either start wearing their fanny packs in the right place or we rename the thing completely.

Gather 'round now

There are many different reasons that we get into groups and congregate around something. Sometimes we gather because there is strength in numbers, sometimes we like to share an experience with other people, and other times we have no idea why we get into groups with other people.

Recently the government has increased the tax on a few things related to transportation here. Besides raising the cost of parking to what I've heard is an obscene amount of money, they've also almost doubled the cost of using the public bus system. Today there was a protest in town about this. (Or atleast, I think it was about this. Maybe the bus drivers just decided they collectively wanted to stop right in front of the protest because they knew everyone would have to leave at some point?) The police were lined up around the front of the building as people waved flags and chanted. Later I passed through again and there was a band playing - they eventually stopped as someone did something that elicited a lot of cheering.

I also came across another group of people gathered around. There were just as many people taking pictures, news crews, and people pointing and looking. This time it wasn't for any type of social cause, but for a piece of art. Perhaps over night, or just while nobody was looking in the middle of the day, someone came and installed a statue of sorts on a bench at the central square in town. It looked like it was the offspring of a streetlight and a lamp post. You can see it partially behind the reporter on the left.



Tomorrow I'll be gathering with some people I've never met, and yet it is a gathering of comfort. I'll be meeting with some alums of the MBAEC program that I am currently in. Hopefully I'll be able to see a little more of the Kiev nightlife than I have seen already, and I won't have to worry about the fact that I don't speak Russian either.

Another area of gathering that occurs all throughout the city is on the sidewalks. I'll write more about this later when I take some pictures, but needless to say, if you don't pay attention you will get run over by a car when walking on the sidewalks. They double as parking lots, and most of the people here seem to have an attitude that because they are driving a Mercedes or Porsche you should get the heck out of their way as they try to park or get back to the street. This goes back to the increases in taxes and parking fees related to road transportation. Apparently if you can get 2 wheels on the sidewalk you are legally parked.

Double Coffee bad, Coffee House good

Not much has happened over the last few days - I've mainly been settling in.

I finally managed to find the effort to unpack my clothes, although my electronics are still just sitting on the dresser as I figure out where to put them.

I went to the Wal-Mart equivalent here in town with the CRDF guy who has been helping me get oriented. Spent some money there on a new pan, 10 liters of water, some spices, and other things I needed to get.

Yesterday I spent a few hours with Tim - an MBAEC alum who lives in Kiev. He showed me around town and pointed out some places that I didn't know what they were. A few important ones being a department store/mall type shopping center, a few good bars where xpats will usually go, and a supermarket type grocery store that's relatively close to me.

I went out last night to study and decided to go to a different coffee shop than I'd gone to in the past. That quickly became a bad idea. The booths at this place were too deep to be able to functionally write in a notebook or stare at a book and be comfortable. Besides that, they were playing music in there that was quite loud. Not that I don't like music when I study, but I like my music, and I like it pumped directly into my ears and not being blasted at me. And finally, it was slightly distracting that this coffee shop is apparently the place to take your girlfriend to get some coffee or icecream and make out in the booths.

So whats a guy to do? I got my check after drinking a rather large 'small' expresso, and went to the Coffee House right by my apartment. Certainly I wasn't going to drink more coffee, so I had a chocolate milkshake instead that was awesome.

I still haven't figured out exactly what the settings on my washing machine are. There is a dial that goes from A to M. I've picked up that A,B,& C are small medium and large sizes. After that, its a combination of spinning, rinsing, and rinsing and spinning. I've rinsed my clothes a few times extra when picking a random setting hoping it will spin them and dry them a little more.

Last night was the first night I went to bed at a reasonable time here - and more importantly it was the first time where I was able to fall asleep at a reasonable time. I'm planning on going to the department store this afternoon because I was told that there is an office supply store there. I want to find a sharpie and blank white paper, maybe some flip chart size stuff, and just label the hell out of everything in my apartment.

The tomato sauce I used last night for dinner - my ketchup chicken curry - was good enough to do the job. It's clearly just a sauce and has nothing else in it. I have no idea what the other jar I got is, but I'm starting to think it's tomato paste. If not, there is a large conspiracy going on where the entire world sends its 5 year old ketchup in bottles to Ukraine and passes it off as sauce.

I'm also hoping that today I can find something to use to dry my clothes - a rack of some sort, and possibly something to make my shower a little more showerlike. I'm still holding the shower attachment in one hand while I use the other for washing.

кетчуп

Last night I met someone who told me that there was a supermarket type grocery store down the main street of Kiev. Supposedly if I walked to the end I would find a big shopping area and if I went all the way around it just on the other side would be this grocery store. Today I went looking for it. As it turns out, it isn't around the back at all, nor is it in the underground shopping area that is some how not connected to the shopping center directly above it, but it is actually IN the big shopping area. Of course, there are no pictures of fruit or food on the doors, so I had no idea. In my defense, not only do you need to walk into the doors of what seems like a mall, but you need to then find the escalators that go downstairs to the grocery store.

Once I got in though, things were good. I found some things I recognized like Pringles (only a dollar), and Barilla Pasta (...only 3 dollars...). I purchased the cheaper local spaghetti. I looked all over for tomato sauce to make a curry base and eventually found something. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I have a very large packet of ketchup instead of tomato sauce. Sure, they're the same things kinda, but I'm not sure exactly how that's gonna taste. I'm going to just make the chicken I got tonight instead and find some tomato sauce tomorrow. Irony is that had I just even tried to read the label, I would have realized that the letters on the front make out the word 'ketchyup'. However, the large tomatoes all over the bag are rather deceiving.

There are a few things I've yet to do since arriving. One is study Russian and another is unpack. Now, technically I've been studying everytime I go outside since I am constantly trying to read the signs all over the place. I'm almost an expert at butchering the language now. And for the unpacking, well, seriously, who likes to do that? I plan on unpacking at some point when I can find no other way to put it off, but for now, I'm going to go change some money, see if the corner store by my place has any real tomato sauce (and then point and grunt at it), and possibly go sit down in the coffee house and try to order something. I know the word for coffee is кафе (pronounced 'ca-fe') and we'll just see what happens.

Also, here are some pictures from yesterday. I still haven't taken the time to figure out how to do this better, so for now you can just look at the bucket.
http://s595.photobucket.com/albums/tt33/mmmba08/

When am I?

So I slept, ...for about 2.5 to 3 hours. So, by EST standards it 5:30 right now, and by Ukraine time its 12:30 AM. At the moment though, I really have no idea as to what time my body feels like it is. Certainly I am wide awake right now, but it does not feel like the morning. With all of the lights out and the whole pitch black outside thing it certainly looks like night, but not 12:30. Maybe I think it's around 9 or 10 at night.

Kiev is a city on a hill. This means a few things.

First, you are, for the most part, always walking either up or down. The CRDF offices here in Kiev are all the way down one big hill and then up another. Supposedly about a 20 minute walk. Also, I live about 10 minutes from the nearest metro station and its down the hill too.

Second, if you are on top of the hill there are a lot of things to look at. Fortunately, my apartment is pretty much on the top of the hill. If I go out back behind my building there is some greenspace, and a really big slope down. Not too far away in the distance I can see a bunch of colored houses that remind me of the Boca district in Buenos Aires.

Third, if you are at the top of the hill, you are in the center of the city. The location here is really something. There are two large (and old - one is around 900 years old) cathedrals in Kiev that are basically just to my left and right.

When the morning comes, and weather permitting, I plan on doing an intensive hike around the city with my camera to take some pictures. I also need to find out where the local supermarket is since it took forever to get basic things today at the fresh market type setting I went to with the CRDF program director here. I also need to make a list of all the things I plan on buying, figuring out what their name is in both Ukrainian and Russian, and start learning them. Some things I've found are similar between the languages, and others are not.

Since I can't seem to get google to recognize my street, you can click here to see generally where I am living. I am in one of the 4 buildings in the middle between the two red buildings. You can zoom out accordingly and see that just to the north are some colored houses.

Finally, my office will be somewhere. I have a computer desk in here that is right next to the internet router, but I am going to get wifi in the next week. After that I may choose to work from the kitchen, living room, bathtub, or local coffee shop. As for the outside, I'll take some pictures tomorrow, but I've got some buildings equally as grey as mine across the street. And for extra information, the original apartment was situated just across the street from the Louis Vuitton store in the really expensive part of town.

In Soviet Russia, blog writes you

Wow, so much to cover since I got here and I'm not really sure where to start. Some key bullet points:

Stood in line for about an hour at immigration
Lied to the customs agent about what was in my personal bag (he was asking if I had another laptop) since he asked me for a bribe as soon as I walked up.
Satellite TV (which I have) is called ....Sputnik
Just had some borscht
My IP address is in Ukraine, so everything I go to defaults to the Ukrainian version of the site

Also, I don't like how this thing lays out the pictures, but I can't figure out how to get it any better right now... And yes, I know the formatting is all screwed up. I just dont feel like trying to fix it when I could try to sleep for the first time in a while.

McPizza

So after eating only breakfast all day I arrived in jfk for my flight to Kiev. Jfk is essentially the airport that most visitors to the USA fly through. Considering this, I figured I would be able to find something decent to eat at the terminal.

After just four places to eat before security I asked someone from tsa if there was more food past security and he told me there wasn't. So, to all of the people who visit our great land and then leave, we offer them the following choices of food:

McDonalds
Sabarro
A coffee shop/deli
A bar

I ended up eating the exact same two slices of pizza I got in charlotte. Nothing like NY pizza.

...And away we go...

.......weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...............

11 hours to go

I leave in 11 hours. There is a long list of things I should be doing right now, and laying in bed isn't one of them.

I had a rather long day - especially considering I didn't plan on doing much more than laundry and taking a long nap to try to start messing with my body clock. I spent probably 4 hours at the CDC office today dealing with some paperwork, contracts, debriefings, and other stuff. By the time I got home I took a short nap and then started getting ready to go to dinner. Alma and I went out and got some food at a restaurant that thought it was fancier than it was. Clearly I wasn't the only one who thought this since Alma even said the food wasn't that great.

After getting home, I downloaded lost, started my laundry, watched lost, folded my clothes, and am now in bed. My shuttle for the airport comes at 11:38 so I will plan on being downstairs and ready to checkout by 11:15. Between now and then I need to repack my 3 suitcases and carry on. Also, I need to figure out where I plan on hiding all of my cash. Due to having some things that need to be paid for upfront, I will be traveling with a rather sizable stack of greenbacks tomorrow. However, I'm not entirely worried about that. The fact that I will have 2 computers with me has me slightly worried since I think if someone feels the need to go through my stuff they may give me a problem.

Something else I was supposed to do today (but didn't) was learn some simple (but important) Russian vocab. Mainly essential things like: Do you speak English, where is the bathroom, and would you like fries with that? I also need to find my ticket in my email and print it off.

At the moment I'm not sure when I'm going to do any of these things. Part of me wants to stay up considerably late and deprive myself of sleep so that I can start adjusting to the 7 hour time difference ahead. Another part just wants to go to sleep and get up really early for a similar effect. Oh yeah, there's also the part that wants to just sleep until 8 and do everything in the morning. If I packed up everything I had in Knoxville to my car in 3 hours, certainly I should be able to do everything in 2 here.

I wish I had taken more time to see some of DC, but quite frankly the only free time I had was at night. I did take one run around town and run a circle around the White House. I've also gotten a fairly good look around the metro system here.

You should save sick days until atleast your second week

After eating my dinner i went to a coffee shop and studied Russian for a few hours. Afterwards I went home and watched Heroes and 24 before going to bed. I woke up a few times during the night (not uncommon considering these beds) and didn't feel great. In the morning when I got up to shower I knew something was wrong. Apparently my body didn't agree with my food, or something else was going on.

I fought through it and tried to go to my meetings today. Between the cold sweats in the metro, going to the bathroom about 5 times in a 2 hour period, and the fact that I looked pretty pale - one of the ladies I was meeting with told me that it would be better if we wrap things up and I get home. I felt bad about it and wanted to keep going, but I really couldn't argue with her. So, I took a taxi home and basically slept all day today. I feel better but have a terrible headache. Finally, as a result of the sleeping and laying around all day - it's not 10:35 and I'm not tired at all.

Dinner

So I'm at an Indian restaraunt for dinner. It was the first thing that looked good that was close to the coffee shop I'm going to tonight. My meetings today ran about two hours over so I'm more worn out than I expected. Somehow I'm going to find the energy to study russian and look more into the work I am doing. I need to do some research on methods to determine sustainability and come up with a plan to measure and evaluate it. I will probably watch heroes at the coffee shop , but if I don't I will download it before I leave.

Needed some spice in my life

Spices to be exact. Made chili and some nachos tonight but both were pretty bland since the only seasoning I had was the pepper I stole from a restaurant earlier in the day. I didn't take the entire pepper shaker, just a napkins worth that I put in my back pocket. Game was pretty bland too with every call going against the Cardinals.

I have my first day of big-kid work in the morning. I have to go meet with my 'client' at 930 in the morning. I'm a little worried about the fact that I am meeting one of the MBAEC people at their office at 9, and then taking the metro to CRDF. Seems like 30 minutes will only be enough time if he's on time. I have possible sets of clothing laid out and will pick one in the morning.

Aus and Jessica took off today, leaving me the only one left in DC. I walked around town a ton today between meeting a few people, watching a rather short parade, and then walking back home. My guess is that I went atleast 5 miles today. Normally not a problem, but between being in new jeans that needed to be broken in, and having sore legs/feet from running the day before, it wasn't as pleasant as it should have been.

Did somebody call for a plumber?

It really doesn't matter what city or country you are in - when
somebody has their asscrack showing you have to take a picture ...or
atleast look.