MoldovAnn

The old man turns 65 today. He’s throwing himself a heck of a party – now if only the rain would stop so the fun can really start!

Wish Mom was here to celebrate with us.

We’re having a great time being here. Niagara Falls was truly spectacular. On Tuesday we rode the Maid of the Mist and did the Caves of the Wind walk under the falls. It was so fun to see the look on Igor’s face – so thrilled to be there, so in awe.

Wednesday we took my nieces to Ohio State and walked around campus, visiting friends in different buildings. Thursday we drove to Ft. Wayne to visit Tanya, and we came back to Columbus on Friday in time for an evening at Club Diversity with chocolate martinis. Saturday was another Eddie Bauer Warehouse excursion, followed by a fabulous cook-out at Scott and Carina’s house. Even a thunderstorm couldn’t stop us from having a great time!

Food fantasies indulged:
Igor – steak, steak and more steak. He bought the biggest hunks of meat I have ever seen. One guy at the cook-out stopped dead in his tracks by the grill and said “What is that? Is that meat?”
Ann – chocolate martinis (Igor loved them too), Mike’s Hard Pomegranate Lemonade, more chips and salsa and various yummy dips.

We had brought a bottle of balsam from Crimea to share at the cookout. It’s a kind of liquor, made from something like 27 different herbs, and is supposed to be good for your health. You can put it in tea, or mix it with vodka. Igor was a hit at the cookout making cocktails for everyone to try the balsam and vodka. After one small drink, my 6′6″ brother stood up and said “Holy cow, I’ve got a buzz! What the heck is in that?” Somehow in our explanations of how great it is for you, we must have forgotten to point out it’s 80 proof, so mixed with vodka it’s a damn strong drink! Lots of people asked where they could buy it, but I doubt it’s sold here.

Igor’s playing Wii with the twins now. So funny.

We had a FANTASTIC time at Niagara Falls. We rode the Maid of the Mist, did the Cave of the Winds tour, and filled the camera memory card in less than 4 hours. I’ll post more photos later. We also drove up to Lake Ontario to Fort Niagara, which was really cool.

More food fantasies were indulged.
Igor: steak, yam (first one in his life), more Guinness beer, bacon.
Ann: Ceasar salads (2), pomegranate martini, tiny little burrito-like things that were fried (brilliant!), salt water taffy (bought it, haven’t eaten it yet), Morningstar soy-sausage breakfast patties, English muffins (about 8), more chips and salsa.

After looking at me in my cute new Eddie Bauer clothes for 3 days, Igor admitted he’s ready to go back to the warehouse store and actually look for himself now. I’ve converted him!

Some photos from the weekend cook-outs.

Igor admiring Dad’s grilling technique.

Scott and Igor

Tyler – what a cutie!

Igor the Master Chef

The shaskliki were a big hit

Birdnest in Dad’s backyard

Nothing like being the only boy at a party full of girls

As we were nearing the Niagara Falls area, Igor pointed to a place ahead of us and asked “What is all the smoke from?”
“It’s not smoke,” I told him, “it’s mist from the Falls.” Awe and wonder began to set in.

In addition to getting my Eddie Bauer fix, I have also been indulging in all my favorite and sorely-missed foods. I was in Columbus barely 12 hours before I asked Dad to take us to Graeter’s for THE best ice cream in the world – and not a prune or raisin anywhere near! (I’ll never understand why Ukrainians think prunes go well with ice cream.) I had a giant scoop of delicious cookies ‘n cream – now there’s a great combination that desperately needs to be introduced to Ukrainian ice cream makers!

I’ve also had lots of chips and salsa, baba ganoush, hummus (multiple varieties), Starbucks mocha frappuccino, and blueberry pancakes.

We had a great cook-out on Sunday at my Dad’s house. Several friends who came to Ukraine in December for our wedding joined us, and it was nice for Igor to have some familiar friends to talk to. He was busy most of the time, though, cooking shashliki – pork, beef and vegetable varieties on an open wood fire. Everybody raved about how great they were, but I think he won’t do that again during this trip. He was way too occupied with the slow and tedious process, and didn’t get to socialize with folks much.

Today we drove to Niagara Falls. It’s a pity we didn’t plan better and apply for a Canadian visa for Igor so we could enjoy the amazing view from the other side. But the American side is pretty damn impressive too. We arrived too late today to do the boat or cave excursions, but we’ll do them tomorrow morning. We got lots of fantastic photos, plus a couple cool videos.

We hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast at Bob Evan’s, so by 7:30 pm we were damn ready for some dinner. We had wanted to eat at the Top of the Falls restaurant, but we were quite disappointed to find out it closed at 6. We ended up at Hard Rock Cafe, which was great. If I’ve been talking for months about clothes shopping, Igor has been talking for months about getting “real American steak.” Poor guy, it took three days to finally get one! He had the same look on his face after inhaling his New York Prime Steak as I think I had after my shopping spree at Eddie Bauer warehouse – a much needed and totally satisfying fix.

I’m too tired now to wait for all the photos to upload. I’ll write more later, and will post some photos here too.

We are in Ohio! After nearly 24 hours of travel time, numerous delays, and some tense moments in JFK airport, we made it to Columbus late Friday evening, with everything except one suitcase. Fortunately the bag with most of our clothes made it to Columbus, but the bag with most of the presents spent the night in New York and was delivered to us on Saturday afternoon.

Igor was really impressed with Dad’s backyard – it really is a beautiful place full of blooming flowers, shady trees, a little fish pond, and lots and lots of birds. By Saturday afternoon, Igor had announced that he will move to America if he can live in Dad’s backyard.

Shopping was first on the To Do list, as we had brought very little with us (on purpose!). A quick trip to Target for some toiletries ended up being an hour, but Igor got a bathing suit and looked through jeans. He told us how in Soviet times there were three brands of jeans that everyone knew and wanted – Lee, Levi’s and Wrangler. When he saw Wrangler’s on sale for $15, he was thrilled. I suspect we’ll be taking several pairs back to Ukraine with us.

We then went to a local market and got some pork and other cook-out essentials. Igor is going to cook shashliki for our cookout on Sunday, kind of like ke-bobs. Our last shopping adventure for the day was the best shop on earth, the Eddie Bauer Warehouse. I was not disappointed! We spent about an hour there, which was pushing Igor to his limits for shopping for one day. The men’s clothes weren’t on such a great sale, but the women’s summer shirts, skirts and dresses were fantastic. When we finally dragged our haul out to the car and were ready to head back home, Igor asked me if I was satisfied. I look at him with a huge smile and said it felt like I’d just shot up with the best dope around – man, did I ever need an Eddie Bauer fix!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at my brother’s birthday cook-out. He and his family moved into our grandma’s house last summer, and it was the first time I’d seen the place since Grandma died. They’ve done a fantastic job sprucing the place up, and yet have kept a lot of Grandma’s things and it all looks great together. The yard is also beautiful, and Scott told us his plans for the backyard that sound really awesome.

Most of the people at the cookout were Scott and Carina’s friends, of course, but Clintonville is small and our lives and friends overlap in many ways here. My classmate Bob lives a couple houses down from Scott, and I was really happy to see him, his wife Jane and their 5 kids when they mosey over. Bob and I went to school together from 1st to 12th grades, and he grew up across the street from Grandma’s house. We don’t know if we knew each other before 1st grade, but it’s very likely we did.

By 7:30 Igor and I were both ready to fall asleep in our beers, so we decided to walk home. We laid in bed for a bit, listening to the birds sing and really enjoying the peace and quiet. Igor said he’d never imagined it could be so lovely in a city. I’m so glad we came in the summer. I’m so glad we are here. I’m so glad Igor is here with me and that he likes it!

We’re sitting in Kyiv airport waiting for our flight to the US! The plane arrived late this morning, so our departure is delayed by 4 hours. I knew I booked a long layover in JFK for a good reason! The airline folks assure us 2 hours will be enough to get through customs and make our flight to Columbus. Let’s hope so!

The other reason I booked a long layover was to have a quick visit with my Peace Corps/Moldova friend Joanna. She lives in New York City now, and was going to come hang out with us at the airport for a few hours. I’m really, really sad I won’t be able to see her today.

On another note, Boryspil airport has radically changed in just the past 3 weeks since I flew to Georgia. The security and passport control have been totally rearranged, and now you can’t bring a bottle of water in the waiting lounge with you anymore. Of course, as soon as I don’t have a bottle of water handy, I instantly am parched and can think of nothing else except a drink of water.

After almost 3 hours waiting in various lines, we are finally sitting by the gate. Only 2 more hours to go until take-off!

I gave blood today! In honor of World Blood Donor Day (June 14), the United Nations in Ukraine organized a blood drive at a Kyiv hospital.

I love giving blood. It’s such a simple thing to do, and yet is so important and valuable. In the U.S., I gave blood fairly regularly, 2-3 times a year. I have an America Red Cross Volunteer Blood Donor Card, which documents my donations in 2003 and 2004. I still carry the card with me, mostly because it lists my blood type on it, and I was excited to get to add another date today. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the last time I gave blood in Columbus was June 5, 2004 – so it’s been exactly 4 years since my last donation! The nurses were really impressed with my “fancy” blood donor card, which I guess they don’t have here in Ukraine. They proudly told me about the special recognition given to people who donate 40 times, though.

The whole experience was pretty much like in the US, although a lot faster. Some questionnaires and numerous forms to be signed, as in the US. I was surprised only by the question of how much blood I wanted to donate – 250 milliliters, 350 ml, or 450 ml. I don’t remember what the standard donation is in the US, but I opted for 350 ml today. The nurse pricked my finger and did a blood type test (they had to confirm it themselves). Then I had a cup of juice and a roll before giving blood – in the US we always got our snack only after giving blood.

Finally I was ready to start bleeding. I was led into a small room with two tables arranged end to end along a glass wall with small open windows mid-way up. I laid down on one table and stuck my arm through the window, and the nurse on the other side of the wall began to prep my arm. Kind of a strange arrangement, it seemed to me. I always liked to watch the progress of the bag filling up with blood, but with this set-up I couldn’t see the bag at all so had no sense of my progress. I was quite surprised when the nurse announced I was done after about 5 or 7 minutes. My blood had always flowed slowly when I gave in the US and it always seemed to take me a long time to fill my bag. Maybe they took a larger amount in the US? Or maybe my blood was just being speedy today.

A nurse tied a hell of a tourniquet/bandage on my arm, and held on to me as I sat up and then stood up to make sure I wasn’t faint. I felt fine, and she led me back out to the reception area, where another nurse gave me a bag of “souvenirs”, as she called it. A box of juice and a chocolate bar!

My Ukrainian colleagues were very interested to know how this experience compared to giving blood in the US. Several of them were first time blood donors, and we talked about how it’s not so common to do in Ukraine as in the US. I was impressed to learn that Ukrainian legislation allows for a person to take 2 days off from work after giving blood, as a measure to encourage more blood donation. 2 days seems a bit excessive to me, but it’s a great idea to give someone a half- for full day off as an incentive. I was skeptical whether bosses and companies would really follow the policy, though, but my colleagues said they know companies that really do give the 2 days off. Pretty cool.

It’s so easy to give blood. I encourage everyone to check with their local Red Cross or hospital to find out where they can donate.

Here’s me and my colleague Anna, 350 ml of blood lighter.

Check out the UN photo gallery and photos, and more photos here.

We are going to Korosten for the weekend to visit Igor’s family – last chance before we head to the States next Friday.

I always enjoy visiting them, and I’ve missed them since the last time we were there. But man am I tired. I was trying to remember last night when was the last weekend I was just plain at home, and I don’t know. Igor couldn’t remember either. And I don’t know when will be the next weekend when we will just lounge around and be couch potatoes together. I know I do it to myself – I can’t sit still for long!

In other news, Igor shaved the cat again. Not as bad as the first time we did, but still lightyears away from the beautiful sleek creature that the salon would return to us. She seems happy enough with either style – elegant “booties” on her feet and a poof on her tail or bits and patches of fur here and there. He did a good job around her face, I give him credit for that, so if you can manage to just look at her adorable face and ignore the rather pathetic body, she’s lovely. Otherwise, you can’t help but laugh. And now that she’s not roasting in her fur coat, she’s all lovey-dovey again, sleeping under the covers with us, constantly on my lap snuggling. She’s purring up a storm at the moment. Oh how I love it.

The road trip to Crimea was an awesome whirlwind. We left Kyiv around 9pm Wednesday evening. San (short for Aleksander) took the first long stretch of driving. We stopped about 3am for a short break, and the first streaks of light were just breaking through the darkness of night. Oh how I love the long summer days in Ukraine! I took the wheel at 5 am, and it was full sunshine already.

I love the steppe – “the amber waves of grain” couldn’t be more breathtaking than in the Crimean steppe. A photo just can’t quite capture the real beauty, but we certainly tried! There were these lovely strips of blue, yellow, white and red in the fields – huge patches of blooming wild flowers, lavender, chamomile and poppies.

So many poppies! It was like a red sea. That red strip beyond the town is just one of dozens of poppy fields we saw in full bloom.

No, they’re not “those kinds” of poppies. You can’t make from heroin from these, despite the fact that Igor looks like he just got a good dose of something. Wishful thinking, maybe.

We hit Simferopol, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, about 9am, just in time for morning rush hour. Simferopol is pretty much a nasty dump plunked down in the middle of the lovely penisula. We passed through as quickly as possible.

On the other side of Sim, we passed out of the steppe and into the mountains.

We stopped several times throughout the day to just enjoy the lush scenery.

I have no idea what I’m so excited about in this photo, but something seems to have caught my attention.

Maybe it was this cherry tree.

We all ate our weight in cherries over the course of those three days. We stopped at nearly every roadside stand and bought fresh-picked cherries 2-3 kilograms at a time. Yum!

We enjoyed the wildlife, too. Saw lots of geikos

one adorable hedgehog that I followed into a field

some crazy bugs

and one red fox (roadkill, unfortunately).

We found this gorgeous place about a kilometer from the main road.

Just one little village nestled in a valley, and this beautiful lake surrounded by forest. The villagers told us there are some cabins in the woods, and people go camping there, but otherwise it’s a protected area. It was quite possibly the cleanest area I’ve ever seen in Ukraine – not a lick of trash in the water or along the banks, and in the kilometer or so that we walked around the lake, I saw only one or two discarded vodka bottles. I was really impressed.

Day 1 ended about 60 hours after it started (at least it felt that long), with this beautiful sunset.

We spent the night in Bakhchisarai, in a nice little dump of a hotel.

Friday morning we got up early and headed to the Cave Monastery and Cave City on the edge of Bakhchisarai. After about a 30-minute hike up the hill, we were at the cave city and fortress.

Gotta love my cave man.

The surrounding view is the best part, and worth the huff and puff to get up to the fortress.

We stopped for a quick bite at a dumpy shop/cafe, and the guys decided to try the house wine.
San had me the car keys, and they had another glass. And then they ordered a bottle. At some point they noticed the weird display of military hats on sale. That’s when the fun started.

This helmet reminds me of the martian in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

I especially like the “50 hrivna” sticker.

After that liquid lunch, I drove the drunks northwest, past Evpatoria. We stumbled on some kind of space observation station in north-western Crimea, with 6 or 7 massive antenna dishes all pointing straight up.


We asked about the place in the neighboring village and learned that it used to be a military base. Now it’s a civil space observation station. I would have loved to see if we could get in and be allowed to tour the grounds, but I was voted down.

It was unfortunately too cold to go swimming, but how can you go to the sea and not at least get your feet wet?

And you have to play in the sand.

We had originally planned to drive down to the south coast for the night, but it was getting late and we were all too tired for a 2-3 hour drive, so we decided on a lark to see if we could get a couple rooms at Uglovoye, the seaside village where Igor and I have visited the past 2 years. Although officially not open for the season yet, the administrator took pity on us and let us stay the night. We had a fantastic and huge meal in the village cafe, and rushed back to the hotel just in time to get a shower with hot water – my first in 2 days! Nothing feels quite as good as a good scrub and a clean head.

Saturday morning we took a leisurely drive south, to Ai Petri, the famous mountain towering over Yalta. You can ride a suspended cable car up the 1500-meter high mountain from the Yalta-side, but we drove up from the other side. It was a beautiful drive, albeit slow. It took nearly an hour to cover the 10-15 kilometers of serpentine road. The views were fantastic. We stopped for lunch about half way up at a cafe with tables out over the mountain river. Pretty cool, I thought.

They had the music blaring, though, which sort of took away from the beauty and peacefulness of relaxing along the river. Thankfully, they turned it off without a fuss when we asked them to.

Ai Petri is breathtaking (I’m running out of ways to describe all the beautiful places we saw!).

The only minus is the assault you have to endure when arriving by car. Between the parking lot and the lookout point you have to run through a gauntlet of obnoxious and aggressive vendors, restauranteurs, and camels. Yes, camels. You can take a camel ride at the top of a mountain in Crimea. The vendors and camel-ride hawkers (all men) reminded us immediately of the obnoxious vendors in Egypt. We hurried past as quick as we could.

Here’s that cable car

We drove back all night Saturday. I had the late shift, from about 2:30 until we finally arrived at our apartment in Kyiv, about 6:30. We hauled ourselves up the four flights and collapsed into bed. Exhausted, but what a great trip!

All the photos are here.

In a week we’ll be in Columbus! I can hardly believe it’s been a year and a half since I’ve set foot in the good ole U.S. of A. I can’t wait to see family and friends, to show Igor the places I love, my hangouts from childhood and college.

Most of all, I can’t wait to go to Graeter’s ice cream, eat Mexican food (tragedy! My beloved Casa Fiesta has closed; thank god El Vaquero is still open), and dine at Aladdin’s. I want greasy Chinese food, especially egg rolls, and I can’t wait to eat so much salsa that I turn into a sombrero. I’m also desperate to get to Eddie Bauer Warehouse and re-stock my wardrobe and buy great presents for family and friends in Ukraine.

Igor told me that of all the places he’d like to visit in the US, Niagara Falls is at the top. Fortunately, it’s an easy drive from Columbus and we can make a nice overnight trip out of it. We’ve got reservations at a hotel right by the Falls, which Igor was most excited about when I told him breakfast was included – “Full American breakfast?” he asked. Oh hell ya!

Igor’s reading over my shoulder as I write and is concerned that all my food fantasies are because I don’t like his cooking. So, for the record, my husband is a fantastic cook and I am extremely lucky to be so well fed. If he picks up some new ideas and tastes in the US, all the better!

Cookout at Dad’s house June 15, at Scott and Carina’s house June 21, and various Happy Hours (mostly at Mexican restaurants – are you picking up on the theme here?) throughout the two weeks we’ll be in Columbus. It’s much too short of time, I know, but I am grateful for every minute. We hope to see as many people as we can.

So I was home just a few days, didn’t have time to finish my posts about Georgia, and we were off to Crimea. I was in Georgia just 10 days ago and already it seems ages ago – so many impressions from the car trip in Crimea!

But a few more quick things about Georiga. Did I mention it’s beautiful? Did I mention it’s clean? Those are my two biggest impressions. Oh, and EVERYONE smokes. I never imagined I would utter the following statement: “I can’t wait to get back to Ukraine to get away from all this smoking.” While there is a law requiring non-smoking sections in restaurants in Ukraine, most establishments seem to treat it as a suggestion at best, and if there is a non-smoking section it’s usually one table in the corner with a little non-smoking sign, surrounded by smokers. But there are a few places that do make a decent gesture to make a non-smoking section, and I even know one or two places that are completely smoke-free.

In Georgia, when I asked for a non-smoking table, they looked at me like I’d asked them for a turnip table – complete non-understanding. To my horror, I learned they also smoke everywhere and all the time. One guy in our group told me there were people smoking in a public bus. I was stuck in a library all night during vote counting where the local election commission members smoked so much – in the library! – that I thought I was going to die. On the day after elections, when we were observing at the district election commission (where they receive the precinct ballots, summarize the tallies for the whole district, and deal with any problems or discrepancies from the precincts), one poor man suffered some kind of a seizure and collapsed in the room where we were. I don’t know if it was an epipleptic or diabetic seizure or something else, but it was really scary and seemed quite serious. Fortunately, there was a doctor in the room at the time and she took charge right away and managed his treatment until the paramedics arrived. And what were the other people doing during all of this? SMOKING! I couldn’t believe it, hoving over an unconscious man and dragging on a cigarette.

Aside from the national obsession with a disgusting habit, I have to say I really liked Georgia alot. I’m looking forward to visiting again, enjoying the baths some more, and exploring the other regions. My photos are here.