Older Now...

It seems less exciting to blog about Seattle than it did about Athens or Corinth or Chernigov, (not that Seattle isn't amazing, it is) but I miss writing (in a non-work sort of way) and this might quell my literary urges.

To catch everyone up on my life... Alex and I moved to Seattle. We love it here. We even love the rainy days. Strange coming from the mouth (fingers?) of a born (okay not really)-and-raised country gal (but not raised BY country parents, maybe that's the difference) but I love love LOVE the city. As I was walking to my internship (I'm doing some part-time marketing interning at Grist.org in downtown Seattle) yesterday I was writing the pros and cons of Seattle/city living. Oddly, in the middle of my thought process someone came up to me (one of my favorite things about this city/cities but I'll get to that soon) and asked where he could get a good breakfast burrito. I had no idea, but pointed him towards a crepes place. He was from SoCal and really missed burritos. Anyway, we got to chatting about the pros and cons of Seattle. He mentioned the cold. I mentioned I was from New Hampshire. (45 degrees is NOT COLD PEOPLE.) He also brought up a point I hear a lot, Seattlites are "cold" in the unfriendly sense. I don't really agree with this (after all, aren't New Englanders the iciest of them all?) but I liked his quote (which I think he stole from his friend), "Seattle is the only place where "let's meet up soon" means "let's never talk to each other again." Ha!

Back to my list.

Pros:

-Capitol Hill is more of a community than I've ever seen in the country. We know our banker, our grocer, our 681 local baristas... even the "Spare Change" newspaper sellers all down Broadway.

-When there is a nice day in Seattle it beats the hell out of a nice day most other places. Or maybe you just appreciate sun more here.

-Three words: Grocery store nearby. In fact, EVERYTHING nearby, from mouth-watering Italian food to at least 5 coffee shops only steps away.

-No driving. Now that Seattle parking is the most expensive in the whole bloody country, I never drive in the city and I sort of love it.

-People living in cities (generally) have a lower carbon footprint. Take the suburbanites.

-People are friendly. On the same breakfast-burrito conversation walk to Grist two random people complimented me on my jacket. Just strangers. What?

Cons:

-I am allergic to Seattle. Seriously.

-I don't really love all the crazy people and all the drunk people. It can be scary being a girl in a city. Less so when I have my Ukrainian body guard with me.

-We could use an extra few rooms... Alex decided to take a nap (it is 7:30 on a Friday) and I can't leave the computer without risking waking him up.

All for now.

Cross-Country Trip

June 7th, 2010 and tomorrow we begin adventures again. Thank God. Life was becoming stagnant. We need this. A new start somewhere different. Good time to start blogging again. Perhaps it isn't as interesting as my last two adventures... but I'm sure I'll have something to say. (Don't I always?)

We are packing my little VW with all our worldly possessions... which really isn't much. The important stuff and the stuff that can't fit will be mailed. Once you realize you can live forever off the contents of two suitcases you don't need so much anymore. The car seems to be mostly filled with shoes and misc. kitchen supplies. We still don't have silverware. Alex has a beautiful set that he was worried about bringing on the plane from Ukraine (passed down from his mommy... don't trust airline workers) and still sits in storage there. He doesn't want to buy new silverware because we have that, but I refuse to use plastic forks for the next year or two.

Tomorrow we drive to Buffalo. I keep wanting to say we shuffle off to Buffalo but I'm resisting. We're camping by Niagra Falls which is kind of exciting. Alex is dying to see it. I've seen it about 35 times, American and Canadian sides, so I'm not so enthusiastic. I want to get the first leg of the trip over with... the east I've done... and get right to that section in the middle of the country where people vote Red (Alex commented the other day when someone mentioned a Red State that it sounds to him like they're voting communist. Ah the irony.)!

I have internet in some of the campgrounds we're staying in (Did I mention we're camping?) so I can blog from there if I feel so inclined. Which I very well may not. Depends on how long are days are.

Check back... Gotta go finish packing that car.

A New Beginning

On June 1st, if all goes well, Alex and I will be moving from New Hampshire to Seattle, Washington. We really have no reason to go there, other than to get away... but I figure it is a good excuse to start blogging again... although Washington isn't as far away as Greece or Ukraine...

Update!

On June 10th, 2009 Alexander and I received our K1 VISA! He arrives in the United States on July 22nd, 2009. A whole new adventure to come...

<3

Kiev Pictures!

Sideways Sasha and Lena.

This is in the middle of Kiev. I want a house here almost as much as I want one in Corsica and on a Greek Island. 

I <3 Kiev, Ukraine

In my experience up until two days ago, although I like Ukraine, I didn't think I'd ever want to move here permanently. Exploring Kiev in the daytime changed that. I absolutely LOVED Kiev. It was beautiful, the buildings were mostly pre-Soviet or new, and it felt... cosmopolitan. I even heard English spoken on the streets several times. Whoa baby. English! Alex and I rode into the city with Oleg and Nastya and Angelina because it just so happened Nasya was going to meet some friends in the city. We parted ways at the end of the metro and Alex and I went to see where he went to university. It was a beautiful part of the city with artsy looking students and big buildings. Very chic. After we walked around for a bit we went to get dinner in the center of the city (really the only place I'd been). Stupidly, we chose an Applebees (seriously!) because I was feeling sentimental and Alex wanted nachos. The food was awful. After, we went to Alex's uncle and aunts place. We spent the night there and had a lovely time. They were doting and sweet and tried so hard to make me feel at home. I kept thinking, "wow... these people will be FAMILY soon." Good thing I like them. We talked and ate more and I tried home-made vodka. Then Alex and I slept on a wildly uncomfortable pull out couch. The change of pace was so nice... funny how something as simple as sleeping in a new place can remind you how much you adore someone. There was one point at about 5 am when Alex sat up and I woke up and said, "what are you doing?" "I just realized you're probably thirsty." he said. Yeah, he's amazing. Have I said that before? In the morning we had mini pancakes and then headed off to find the U.S. embassy. It ended up taking about 4 hours of us walking around Kiev, but that was okay because it was beautiful and I really love exploring cities. Except maybe wearing 4 inch heels was a bad idea because my bad ankle was not okay. At all. After we finally found the embassy and then realized it was the wrong place and found the consulate (not next to each other, of course) my ankle was killing me so I sat for a minute and Alex scoped out a place for lunch. He came back and said, "I found a place. It looks out." Turns out, it was SUSHI. I was totally excited. Alex wanted to make me happy, but he doesn't like sushi. Or should I say DIDN'T. I assumed, and was correct, that the reason he didn't like sushi was because he'd never had good sushi and omg this place had good sushi. Alex loved it. I loved it. And we spent a whopping $20 on the whole meal. Yess. After sushi we walked around the city again. There was this one place... the place that made me realize I could totally live in Kiev... that overlooked a sort of mini-canyon (Kiev is very hilly) and inside were all these beautiful old houses painted these brilliant colors. It was gorgeous. 

And then we went home. But I want to go back. Now. 

All The Good News

On Sunday night, or rather early Monday morning, I checked my email right before we headed to bed. There was one from my mom telling us a certain paper had arrived in the mail- our APPROVED I-129. For those of you who don't spend your time researching visas, the I-129 is the first step of Alex and my K1 visa. It is the step that takes the longest time and we really didn't expect it to be accepted until around June. This is very very very exciting news except now we're scrambling to get everything else together before our interview at the embassy... which we could have in 4 weeks if we're lucky! That means Alex could be in America in 5, theoretically... which is just insane to think about. It was starting to feel so unreal... so far away... and now, here we are, and it is REALLY happening. Yay! Eeek! 

The second good news I have is that Alex stopped smoking. It was a Valentines Day present to me and he's been SO good! I'm very proud of him, although he's been unusually moody today. I guess I should expect that, though. 

This morning we went for a walk and visited Oleg at his jewelry-making-place. It was this big room in an industrial building with a bunch of guys working at little desks covered in tools and metals and liquids and torches. It was pretty cool, and nice to see jewelry made by hand. In fact, I don't think I want to buy non-hand-made jewelry again. There is so much love put into the handcrafted stuff! Wouldn't it be nice to get a ring from there? :)

Anyway... wish me luck on this visa crap. It is so much work, seriously. And I'm terrified of making one little mistake that will cost us 10 months of wait time.

Oh, and I'm going to be home alone for three days. Alex's grandmother is dying and he needs to go see her in West Ukraine. He hates to do it, but I can certainly survive on my own and I'll probably spend a lot of time with Nastya so I don't go insane. Alex keeps saying that I should make dates with a lot of people-- but no one except Nastya do I feel seriously close with and it would be weird trying to speak Russian without Alex around to bail me out. Poor dear. His grandmother is very important to him-- she's the one who taught him Ukrainian when he spent summers with her. Alex's mom is also really upset that she can't be here to say goodbye to her mother... which reminds me, Happy Birthday Luda! 

Time for some visa research. Woo. Hoo.