Bill and Eilene had noticed a big security detail at the complex on their way to flower festival, and we figured the President must have been there for an official opening. When we walked by after leaving the Lavra territory, I asked if we could pop in to check it out. I don’t know if there will be an entrance fee eventually, but that day it was free.

The space is amazing.

Three wide tall lanes with arched ceilings, like in an Orthodox church, but with unpainted stone and white columns. And huge windows let in tons of natural light. The wide center aisle was open, with a display of Trypillian culture artifacts along the left aisle and modern Ukrainian art along the right aisle.

The displays were spread, seeming almost sparse due to vastness of the museum space itself, but it was nice to not have everything crammed together like in so many museums.

At the far end of the building, in a kind of alcove, chairs were arranged around a piano for a concert later in the evening. I can only imagine how incredible the acoustics are in there. Very exciting the center is finally open!

Last weekend was great. Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day and we went for a long stroll with friends Bill and Eilene, starting at the Lavra and then on to the new Holodomor (famine) monument. I had only seen it from afar, so walking up close and around the plaza I had mixed feelings. There was some controversy last year about the huge amount of money spent to build yet monument to the 1930’s famine. It wasn’t really clear why anothe rmonument was needed not very far from the simple yet elegant monument at St. Michael’s Cathedral. The new one certainly doesn’t touch me the same way. They did a really fantastic job landscaping the hill below the monument, though, with stairs and paths down connecting to the paths all along the hillside. The, honestly, impressed me much more. There are several sets of stairs going down below the monument plaza, which were roped off. We looked over the side of the plaza, down one level to kind of courtyard, where old tools and canoes and other items were strewn about. A man was working on some of them, and we went down to check it out. He snapped at us that the museum wasn’t open, the courtyard was off limits still. I translated for Bill and Eilene, and when the man heard us speaking a foreign language, he seemed to warm up a bit, or at least he stopped yelling. I asked him if the things were old, as we all looked at them closely and admired them. This really won his favor, and he got interested in telling us a bit more. He showed us the flour mill he was working on, and demonstrated how it worked by cranking the handle, which turned the millstone, and he pointed to where you would pour in the grain and where the flour would come out. He invited us to come back on opening day, August 24 (Indepedence Day), and we promised we would be there.

We continued on with our stroll, with a quick stop in the underground shopping mall at Ploschad’ Slava (Glory Square). Eilene and I found a huge box of Ukrainian motif cross-stitch patterns at the Ukrainian book store and we just went nuts! We both bought enough patterns to keep us busy for the next couple of years, I suspect, while still drolling over the beautiful patterns for shirts (which are far beyond my skills, that’s for sure). The walked continued through Marinsky Park, to European Square, past Indepedence Square, and down Khreshatyk. We ended up – tired, hungry and thirsty – at a cafe where we relaxed and did some people watching. We were looking forward to quiet evening at home.

As we were heading home later, a friend of Igor’s from Korosten called to ask where the Fortress is. Turned out he was in town for the weekend with his new girlfriend and wanted to see the place Igor has raved about so much. He tried to explain how to get there, but when Vlad called back about 10 minutes later, we realized it would be easier to just take them there ourselves. Many native Kyivans don’t even know there is a fortress right smack in the middle of the city, so we weren’t surprised when Vlad said he kept asking people where it was and no one could tell him. So we met up with them and took them to the fortress. The main exhibition hall, which has an incredibly impressive collection of Trypillian artifacts was closed for an exhibit change. We were afraid the fabulous collection would be taken away, but the ladies assured us a different exhibit was changing and the Trypillian items would still be on display. We’re curious to see what will be there next! So we suggested Vlad and friend check out the smaller exhibit hall, in a different building. We went to the little building near the exhibit halls where we’ve always bought tickets before, but were re-directed to the actual ticket booth at the entrance to the grounds. Looks like they’re getting kinda fancy, maybe even professional! So Igor and I walked over to the booth and checked out the schedule and prices. We asked for two tickets.

“No,” said the lady in the booth. “It’s too late, we’re closing.”
I paused, checked the sign again, checked my watch.
“It says the museum is open until 6. It’s only 5:10 now.”
“No, it’s too late. You won’t have time for a tour.”
“But we just want to look on our own, we don’t need a guide.”
“There’s not enough time.”
Finally Igor chimed in, tired and grumpy after our long day.
“We can manage it. We’ll be OK. Two tickets please.”

I was getting a bit slap-happy, started laughing and asked the lady if the museum doesn’t need to earn any money? There budget is OK these days? On pretty much every of the numerous occassions Igor and I have been to the fortress, we always get a lecture from the ladies about the poor state of the museum’s finances, so it just seemed utterly ridiculous that they would be turning away 2 paying customers. Then again, I’m sure she was at least partially concerned for us, that we wouldn’t get our money’s worth out of a 45-minute visit (I’ve run into this before, especially from older women,). It’s sweet that she was concerned, especially since the tickets cost 7 UAH each, less than $1. But it still makes me chuckle that the employees of a cash-strapped museum would refuse to sell someone an entrance ticket!

So we passed the tickets on, walked Vlad and friend to the door and headed again for home. His phone rings; another friend from Korosten is in town for a seminar and wants to meet. Igor (much to my guilty relief) sends me on home while he goes to meet Olga. He calls soon after and asks if it’s OK for her to come to our place, she doesn’t have a place to stay the night. Of course! So I whipped together some dinner, and having company was the perfect excuse to bake a chocolate chip cake. It was a fun evening, but man were we ever exhausted when we finally collapsed into bed!

Sunday was brunch at Arizona BBQ, always a pleasure, followed by a quick stop at a arts & crafts booth I like in the underground shopping mall at Bessarabska Square (such a great use of space in a densely packed city – go underground! Wish they’d make some parking garages that way, too). Eilene and I got some fabric and thread for our new cross-stitch patterns, and she loaded up on yarn for the hats she’s knitting for cancer patients. We finally ended up at home, blissfully vegging on the couch until bedtime. Whew!

The week has been equally busy, although with fun social stuff. Saw “District 9″ one evening – a lot more gore than I care for, but a good story line. Looking forward to the sequel (will it take 3 years to make?). Also went on a “Caribbean Cruise”, organized by the American Chamber of Commerce, along the Dnipro River. It was OK; the best part was hanging out with Igor and friends Bill and Eilene. Igor commented that there were a lot of “huntresses” on board, or “working devushkas”, as Bill put it. Dad hooked up with a couple pretty quickly and disappeared for the rest of the evening.

Igor and I are in week 2 of a “drying out” phase. We decided it was time to take a break from alcohol – too much of in the past few months, and way too many of the corresponding calories. Considering the main selling point of the Caribbean Cruise was the free “tropical” cocktails, we weren’t sure how our resolve would hold up. But we stuck to our non-alcoholic beer (which was surprisingly thoughtful of the organizers to have available!). When we got home, Igor commented, “Well, we made it through our first event without booze. Kinda boring, but we did it.” I don’t think it would have been more exciting or entertaining if we had been drinking, though. But it was a pleasant evening, something different to do.

The coming weekend will be chock full of fun stuff – Sunday is Flag Day, Monday is Independence Day, so lots of events planned throughout the long weekend. Saturday is the flower festival at the park by Rodina Mat’. Sunday is a flag-raising ceremony at Marinsky Palace. And after the parade on Monday morning, we are looking forward to checking out the new museum at the Holodomor monument.

One of my favorite things in the new apartment is this:

That’s the view from our bedroom window, a gorgeous apricot tree dripping with fruit.

I got home really late Thursday night from Russia, it was already practically Friday. At the stroke of midnight Igor produced a lovely bouquet of roses for me. So sweet! At the office my colleagues also surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, bright violet, but I don’t know what they are called. Really pretty.

The tradition here is that the birthday girl or boy prepares the party for colleagues and friends. Igor helped me out, ever the wonderful husband that he is, and brought a cake and 2 bottles of champagne to the office for me. We enjoyed relaxing and laughing for a bit, a nice break at the end of the week and worth doing no matter what the occasion! Several people had just returned from vacations and other trips, so there were plenty of hilarious travel stories to go around.

After work, Igor and I went to look at a couple of apartments. The real estate market has dropped so much that even apartments in Pechersk, where we desperately want to live again, have come into a more-or-less reasonable range. The first place had plenty of pluses, a few minuses, but the owners were pretty determined to stick to the inflated price they had in mind. It never fails to amaze me how many property owners here prefer to receive nothing instead of accepting a lower offer – as I understood it, the place had been empty for several months with no one willing to pay the price they wanted, but I guess they don’t need the money.

The second place we saw was a second visit for Igor. He had told me the day he first saw it “I found our apartment.” It just resonated with him, he felt at home there right away. I can’t say I had the same immediate feeling, but I definitely understood why he liked it. And he’s been so unhappy in the place that I picked last year, I want to make sure this time that we choose an apartment that he feels good about. Three big rooms, a nice size kitchen with gas stove, water heater, tall ceilings, brick building, in a courtyard so low street noise, enclosed balcony, well-insulated windows, second floor, in Pechersk, and a short walk from the metro – basically all we were hoping for! The previous tenants had kids who clearly put some wear on the place, though – spots from markers and stickers on the walls, furniture is “well used”, I would say. But that’s stuff we can fix or work around and generally deal with.

After a little bargaining, we closed the deal and will move in next week! The best part is that it is $450/month LESS than we are paying now, and our quality of life will be so much improved.

The great birthday wrapped up with a quiet dinner on the balcony with my wonderful husband, a delicious bottle of Georgian wine we bought in Tbilisi, and fireworks in three parts of the city that we could see. What else could you ask for?

Security noticed my little non-pointy scissors for my cross-stitch (which have gone on something like 10 or 12 flights with me) and said they weren’t allowed, but didn’t take them away. Just told me to leave them in the terminal (which, of course, I did not).

Passport control went smoothly, we breezed through. Igor noticed two men being deported. I overhead a man ask that his passport NOT be stamped. What was that about, I wonder? I’ve heard of Americans doing that in Cuba, or someone who travels between Armenia and Azerbaijan not wanting a stamp, but no stamp in Ukraine was a new one for me.

I checked the screen, Gate 1. By the time we got there, our gate had changed. The ladies at Gate 1 told us to go to Gate 4. We stood in line but something didn’t look right. I went to check the screen again, and now we were changed to Gate 5. I stared to wonder if they really knew where our plane was.

We finally boarded, then spent an entire hour on the tarmack, suffocating in the stifling hot air of the cabin. Babies screeching, everyone melting. When we finally did take off (and the air conditioning kicked on, thank god!), the pilot came on the intercom to apologize for the delay, which was due “to lack of services at Boryspil airport”. Wow. And they want to host Euro 2012 here? They’ve got a LONG way to go.

On the plus side, the new entrance to the terminal is spiffy (although the improvement over the previous entrances is questionable). And the barricades were arranged in one of the most logical ways I’ve ever seen in the parking lot at Boryspil (the traffic pattern is arranged differently every single time I go there).

We had a great evening in Tbilisi. We’re staying in a kind of bed-and-breakfast right in the center of town. A character of an old lady has almost an entire floor of an old historical building, and she rents out five or six rooms. At some point in time, the large rooms were renovated to each include a bathroom. The walls are covered with her own paintings (“I’m no artist, it’s just my hobby”). You could probably get a second floor in here, the ceilings are so high. When I called to make the reservation, she told me “У вас входит бракфаст”, which cracked me up (4 words in Russia, 1 in heavily-accented English, translation: breakfast (the word she said in English) is included).

We were both a bit irritable after the flight (and a loooonnngg wait for luggage in Tbilisi), but some wine and hatchipuri improved moods pretty quickly. Then a wonderful meal with friends at a cool outdoor restaurant along the river. So much for losing those American pounds!

The vegetable soup on the stove also smells delicious. We seem to have gone overboard at the market this past weekend, all the gorgeous fresh veggies were just too irresistible! But it turns out there is a limit to how much salad even I can eat, and I couldn’t bare to think of all that food going to waste. So I’m making veggie soup, which seems like a winter dish to me, so maybe I’ll freeze it and save it until January when I’ll be dreaming of fresh veggies.

Good news of the day: Delta gave me unexpected bonus miles and now it’s quite possible I’ll achieve Gold Medallion status this year. Not really sure what that will get me – bragging rights at the least, I guess.

I finished watching the series Arrested Development. Lord, what a hilarious show. Such a pity it only had 3 seasons! I’m watching Monk now. Also great, but in a different way. I’m reading pulp fiction and watching less-than-intellectual American TV programs. Man, this is not like me at all! I usually love to read and watch something educational (yes, I’m a dork), but lately I just want to veg in the evenings.

We’re going to Tbilisi this weekend. I’ve got a workshop next week in Georgia, and I talked Igor into going a few days early with me since he’s never been to Tbilisi. Yeah!

A walk in the Botanical Garden

Igor got new glasses, which he actually likes (and so do I!), despite the grumpy look he’s giving me.

Most of the country celebrated Victory Day. Igor and I celebrated two years of life together in Kyiv. Although the wedding anniversary is in December, we made our commitments to each other when he moved to Kyiv in May.

Two weeks until our great Wild West adventure. Oh man, do we ever need a vacation! The plans are coming together really nicely. We bought some guide books in Russian last week, as well as Bill Bryson book which is titled in Russian “Uncle Sam’s Country”. I thought he must have published a new book and I was a bit jealous that Igor would get to read it first (a whole book in Russian is still more than I am up to). Turns out it’s Notes from a Big Country, just titled differently in Russian. I’m excited for Igor to read it, I hope the humor translates well. He was chuckling a bit last night, so something got through OK.

We weren’t very happy with the guide books, though. They are mostly hotel and restaurant listings, with just a page or two of history, facts, etc. Anyone know where we can get good guide books in Russian or Ukrainian? I tried to search on line, found a couple bookstores in Russia, but we need something in Kyiv.

I slept for something like 14 hours Tuesday night, and enjoyed a quiet day with Igor on Wednesday. He took me to the fitness club he joined recently, and signed me up as well. It felt great to have a good workout, and I’m looking forward to us getting in shape together. There are saunas in both the men’s and women’s locker rooms, which of course was the big selling point for Igor. I was kind of bummed we couldn’t use the sauna together, but as I was in mine I heard sounds on the other side of the wall and started to wonder… “Igor, is that you?” Sure enough! So we sat in our respective saunas and chatted through the wall, being the only people in either one. It was cute.

I’m back to the office today, which will be great. I miss my colleagues!

We spent both New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas with Igor’s family, as we usually do. It was the usual festival of gluttony and sloth, ending with several doses of something to calm the stomach. Fun was had by all. Igor’s father fulfilled his life-long dream and, in the year of the Cow (as it is called in Ukrainian), he bought himself a cow. (It wasn’t actually his life-long dream to buy the cow in the year of the cow, it just worked out that way.) So, his farmstead is now complete – pigs, sheep (his second lamb was born last month, almost one-year to the day from the first one, which was born on the morning of our wedding), a goat, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and a cow. He’s convinced he’s going to keep us all alive during this economic crisis with the products of his farm – let’s hope things don’t get that desperate.

They slaughtered one of the pigs in the last few days of 2008, so the big excitement for everyone during the holidays (except, of course, us vegetarians) was the homegrown pork, salo, and other various pork products. I’m sure it’s all quite tasty.

Since our trip to someplace (anyplace) warm and sunny didn’t pan out, Igor and I decided to spend a night at a spa center just outside Kyiv, creatively called Spa-Center. Since we sold our car not long ago, we headed to the bus station where various buses depart in a northwestern direction from Kyiv to find something that could drop us in the vicinity of the hotel. Lo and behold, right as we came out of the metro, the Korosten bus was pulling out directly in front of us. The driver slowed down, opened the door and yelled out a greeting to Igor – an old acquaintance! Although his bus was full, he let us stand in the aisle for the 15 minute ride to Vorzel. As we walked up the long driveway to the spa, we both laughed that we were probably the first people to arrive at this up-scale spa by foot.

We checked in, changed to our bathing suits, donned the hotel robes and headed to reception to get set-up with access to the spa center. And boom, the lights go out. It was still early afternoon, so there was plenty of natural light, but then the smell hit us. Something was definitely burning. As we descended the stairs we quickly realized the problem – the door to the utilities room was wide open and the stench was coming from the electrical panel. That was more than a blown fuse. After about an hour or so, Igor asked at reception if we should pack up and head home. No, they assured us, the power will be back within the hour. To their credit, it was back on in about 30 minutes. Of course, it went again several hours later, but by that time we had already thoroughly enjoyed the spa facilities.

We enjoyed the novelty of sitting in the steaming outdoor jaccuzi while snow fell around us, then took a quick dip in one of the pools. Igor was anxious to get to the highlight of the experience for him, the various saunas. They have a steam room, a Finnish (dry) sauna and a Russian banya. You can get a “treatment” with a venik by one the spa workers, or you can buy your own birch or oak branch and go to work on yourself with the leaves. Igor opted for this, and pretty much got the full experience – getting on a good sweat in the banya, swatting himself with the birch branch, and then stepping out of the banya and dumping a bucket of cold water over his head. That whole process is too extreme for me, but he did convince me to let him do a gentle “massage” with the birch branch a couple of times. Not bad.

After a couple of hours, we were thoroughly relaxed. The transformer blew again just as we were leaving the spa, and the electricity was out for another hour or so. I was a bit afraid to actually stay the whole night there, not feeling particularly confident that the place wouldn’t catch on fire at some point, but thankfully no more transformer problems.

We easily caught a bus back to Kyiv the next day, and decided to check out an appliance store before heading home. We’ve been talking about getting a juicer, and I did some investigating a few days earlier. I had found that for a little bit more, we could get a food processor that includes a juicer, instead of just a juicer. Well, one thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were lugging home a small space ship, I mean large kitchen “combine” (as they are called here), that does everything except wash the dishes. Oh wait, it has some self-cleaning mode too. We tested the juicing function first thing, and Igor got a little carried away. Next thing I knew, we had several liters of juice from all kinds of things – beets, carrots, parsley, cabbage (that’s particularly disgusting, I might add), apples and I don’t even know what else. The machine works great, and we found some combinations with beet juice that aren’t too bad actually.

Once these holidays are over, we are going on a mostly-juice diet for a while – we both feel fat and out of shape. There’s not much we can do for more physical exercise at the moment, since it’s damn cold with plenty of snow, but we can work on our eating habits and get back on track with eating healthier. I love the holidays, I enjoy the time with family and friends, but I’m ready to get back to work, to a schedule and a routine. One more trip to Korosten this weekend for an early celebration of Old New Year with friends, then the holiday season officially ends and we’re back to normal.