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. 

Valentine's Day

As with all holidays around here, Valentines Day was a little different than I expected. Alex and I had planned on a lazy day... going out for coffee in the morning and making dinner in the evening. Perhaps with a bit of champagne thrown in there. That wasn't how it happened, though. Roman called us in the morning and said, "Be ready in half an hour to go down to the airport and have shashlik." Alex and I discussed it and negotiated the time and we decided to go for it. I wasn't really looking forward to spending my Valentine's Day watching Alex be the little socialite he is... but it seemed like it might be an interesting experience. Roman picked us up in his sleek white Honda and we headed out of town to the airport where he spends most of his time jumping out of airplanes. Now, instead of just parachuting, he has recently purchased a "jump suit" that makes him look like a bat. I couldn't understand how it worked when he first showed it to us (and demanded he try to jump off his kitchen counter) but apparently you just jump out of a plane wearing this suit and you turn into a bird. And then when you land you pull your parachute. The landing is what I'm unclear on. Check out YouTube for some jumpsuit videos. It's pretty crazy. Anyway, we got the airport and apparently Roman has his own little trailer set up there... with a bed and a kitchen and even a little TV. If it isn't clear, Roman has a little bit of money... which is a sharp contrast to almost everyone else I've met here. When we arrived there was already a couple (okay, I admit it, for the four thousandth time since being abroad, I thought the guy was the girl's father for a good half hour) there with a fire going. I pretended I spoke Russia for a few minutes and then admitted that beyond introductions I'm pretty useless. Fortunately, everyone spoke English. I hate to say this, but it seems as though the more money people have, the better their English. Of course, that doesn't mean they'll talk to you in English. Even Roman, when we first met, pretended he couldn't speak English at all. It was pretty cold there and we started cooking and hanging out around the fire (you should smell our clothes now...). Shashlik, for those who don't know, is basically Russian kabobs or souvlakia or whatever you call it in other countries. Except it tends to be much bigger and they marinate it in a mayonnaise sauce. It isn't bad, though. We cooked potatoes and shashlik and ate and then someone I got convinced to take sots of honeypepper (Joanna's fav) vodka. And not just shots. HUGE shots. I even said "choot choot" meaning "little bit" and this guy poured me enormous shot after enormous shot. Long story short, I was wasted in 15 minutes. We did have a lovely time, though. They tried to convince me to jump out of a plane, I refused. Alex was excited because this spring Roman is giving him a "jump". It was his birthday present. Alex has jumped out of planes a few times before, but not in years. He says it is important in case he's "in a situation where I [he] need[s] to jump out of a plane." I can't think of a situation where I would ever need to know how to parachute, but, okay... if it makes him happy. And is free. When it got dark we headed home. I fell asleep in the car. We spent the rest of the day half-drunk and he gave me flowers and champagne and we ate chocolate for dinner. He also gave me the best gift, ever... he's quitting smoking. So far it has been a day and I'm quite impressed with how good he looks. I sort of expected to see him writhing on the floor coughing up black stuff. Wish him luck, he will need it. Fortunately, though, when Alex decides to do something... he comes through. 

Off to the store now, I'm making burritos. Lucky boy. 

xo

COuNtDoWn

Arg. I feel like I'm leaving Alex already... even though we have a good three weeks left together. How could time pass so quickly? It looks like I'll only be back in America for about 2 months though, so that time will pass quickly too... just enough time to make some money and hop back to Ukraine for a lovely summer. I'm really looking forward to summer. Hopefully I'll make some hops to Western Europe and Egypt and I'm looking forward to Chernigov in the summer. When it isn't perpetually grey. There's a chance we might spend the summer at the Black Sea instead, but part of me wants to stay here where I'm starting to make friends. This week has been a little strange. Tuesday was the anniversary of the day, 5(?) years ago that Alex's best friend died. He left for the cemetery in the morning and Nasya came over for tea and some girl time (which oh my God I need). We hadn't even finished a cup when the boys came trudging back. They had planned to go drink vodka (no way!) at someone's house but it fell through so they ended up here. Nastya and I took on the wifey roles (she is much better at that than I) and cut up fish and vegetables and bread and poured the boys vodka. We ended up sitting around with them toasting and drinking all day. It was fun, but it was sad to see Alex in so much pain. And I know him well enough to recognize pain... Anyway, we ended up staying up half the night that night which has thrown us off as far as sleep and now Alex and I both seem to be insomniacs. Which sucks. Even getting up early, we cannot seem to get to bed before 4 or 5. And not being able to sleep is one of my least favorite things on earth. 

Off for now... need to study Russian and, er, watch Gossip Girl... my new obsession.