An open letter to you open-letter writers

Dear Dan:

Thanks for forever besmirching my good name in future google searches. Only 14-year-old-girls smile blissfully when reading this book. I am, in fact, smirking at the sappy romanticism and neediness, and grade 7-level writing used throughout the book.

Besides, you should talk, after acquiring an inanimate mistress you treat with even more giddiness than I do the book. You should have heard your voice when you called me from the store… so breathless and excited. At least I didn’t spend half an hour enlightening you on the finer points of the book. Also, yours cost orders of magnitude more than mine (which was free to borrow).

P.S. I’m just kidding about the time you spent talking about the bike. I don’t mind – I’m glad you’re so excited. Just don’t bring Sentiero on our next date.

Dear Charissa:

Thanks for standing up for me. In a way. I guess. I’m sad to think you would break up with me over this – I thought I had you bought with baked goods long ago.

Don’t worry, I’m not even toeing the line to Camp Vampire. If I ever feel the need for something with catlike eyes and clingy and needy to the extreme, I already have two choices right here at home. At least neither of them will send me into hypothermia when they want to cuddle.

Dan’s got the shirtless part down already, and the teenage part comes out more often than may be prudent. Don’t know how I’d feel about him being an actual werewolf, though. Two out of 3 ain’t bad, right?

Love,

Maria

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Projects for the (somewhat) near future

I wouldn’t consider these new year’s resolutions – I was thinking about all the things I would like to do, and it just happens to be close to the new year now.

Now that I’ve played around a bit with photo editing, I’d like to finally make coffee table photobooks of all my trips (and other important events). So far, my wishlist of books to create contains:

• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Cambodia
• Nepal
• Hiking around Vancouver
• Wedding
• Canoeing (although I don’t think I have enough pictures just yet)

I’ve started on Nepal. I’d like to create a few practice ones before getting started on the wedding one, because I’m sure there is plenty of room for improvement in the first few rounds. At the rate I’m going, I figure it will take me at least 3 weeks per topic to sort out the best pictures and edit them. Yikes. And that’s even before spending hours trying to figure out how they best fit together to tell a story.

Sadly, I think the number and quality of pictures from the Europe and Egypt trip just don’t live up to photobook quality.

Other (mostly crafty) things that I would like to do:

• Make a cover for Dan’s compressor – I already bought boy-approved fabric, I just need to sew it; and yes, Dan approved (and even asked for this cover).
• Make a board for all the lovely postcards which are currently gathering dust in boxes or hiding behind flyers on the fridge.
• Finish the christmas tree skirt, since I miserably failed in doing that before christmas (2009, that is). I’ve actually gotten a start by sewing the strips together – the holdup now is in cutting them into wedges, and unfortunately I don’t have a surface big enough on which I can do it (and not worry about cutting said surface).
• Try winter sowing – although I’m probably too late for this year.
• Continue to bake something once a week. I was doing so well before christmas! Do you think my coworkers and volleyball team will mind being the guinea pigs?
• Include at least one photo in each blog post. Even if it’s not completely relevant.  In this case, because it’s fun to embarrass friends. Like Hubert, who tried on the Snuggie at the christmas party.

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Kiev – Part 2

Halfway through my stay, we finally visited the book market. It used to be this fantastic, half-underground place to get a large variety of books as well as (of course pirated) software. In recent years, it’s gotten a bit of a facelift with real bookstores popping up, in addition to the specialized stalls, but it’s still a little bit overwhelming. Alas, there are not nearly as many books that I’m interested in as there used to be.

Later that day, I finally managed to meet up with a friend that was my own, not my parents’. We had a lovely time walking around and then catching up some more over sushi. Great times! But overall, I’ve been surprised at how few people I was able to get in touch with from back in my schoolgirl days. Maybe I’m just weird in loving reunions and wanting to know about how life is going for people, even if they’re not someone I keep in regular touch with.

On Friday, my last day, I took a taxi to the airport at 4 a.m. and arrived just over two hours early – normal time for an international flight, right? I was surprised to find that registration for the flight hadn’t opened yet. Sat around for a while, and then went and lined up for half an hour waiting for registration to open. See, normally I wouldn’t care too much when I register or get on a plane. The problem this time was that I couldn’t register online, and due to the short connection time in Munich, wanted to get a seat as close to the front of the plane so I could sprint out and try to make the connection. The other problem is that, when congregated in crowds, orderliness and politeness are markedly absent in the psyche of this nation, so in order to get all that done I had to get as close as I could to the front of the line and avoid getting pushed back whenever people started jockeying for position. Ah well.

Registration opened, I got a seat in the first row after first class, and then we even boarded the plane.

…

And then we spent an hour just waiting on the tarmac. Apparently airports in Europe are not capable of dealing with this little winter event called snow. I chatted with the stewardess, and she said that all the airports they went to the day before, including Munich and London both of which I was going to, were a mess. Surprisingly, I missed my connection in Munich due to the inbound flight arriving 30 minutes after it was supposed to. The surprising part is not this, but rather that the outbound flight appears to have left on time.

Unfortunately I don’t get an opportunity to explore Munich, which I kept hoping would be the outcome of this delay. Booo. I was rerouted through Toronto instead. Arriving much later in the evening, but this also meant that Dan picked me up. Took them a long time to find a flight that didn’t go through the States (I really, REALLY don’t like american airports nowadays), and they were not 100% sure my luggage would accompany me on this route, but hey, Toronto was about the best place for me to end up, short of getting to Ottawa itself.

Also, I really like the Munich airport way better than the Frankfurt one. It’s much calmer, much less cramped, and just has a much nicer vibe, in general. It will definitely be on my list of top places to transfer through when I have a choice.

All the Lufthansa staff also acted like they actually cared about me, and they even took my quirks into account (like not wanting to deal with US airports and Air Canada in wake of their post-christmas-bomb-plot insanity), even if it created more work for them to find a flight that I was happy with. Two thumbs up for Lufthansa and all the staff I had to deal with today.

Since I had an hour and a bit to waste before boarding, I decided to stop at a little restaurant and grab a bite to eat. Since a cappuccino was about the same price as beer, and I was in Germany, I opted for the beer, but stuck with my original choice of kuchen for the snack. After the guy behind me in line jokingly made fun of me for this combination (and took me for an american, gah – it this combination really so uncouth?!), I got to thinking – and there are quite a few similarities between the two. They’re practically the same food! Ok, obviously I exaggerate, but still. They both have wheat, sugar and yeast… and the kuchen even had apricots, which my favourite beer (McAuslan Apricot Wheat) also has. See?! My seemingly choices actually have logic behind them! Also, once again I was tricked by the exchange rate – my little snack ended up costing me $15USD. Damn you, Europe!

The last few days in Kiev went pretty well. I finally got to see a bunch of my own friends. Visited with 4 old classmates, as well as two of the girls I used to play tennis with. We spent lovely afternoons drinking coffee and talking about… well, just about everything. It’s immensely heartening to meet with people so many years later, and still have such a great time. And to have them change so little from the people you remember. It’s also a great feeling to know that most of these people are doing well in their lives. Now that I have their email addresses I hope I can stay in touch a little bit better, since it turns out none of us are that great at Facebook et al.

One thing I’ve noticed is that of the old friends I’ve seen men have changed a lot more than women have – to the point that I would have had a hard time recognizing some of them if I passed by them on the street. I guess there’s some payoff after all to women putting so much time into looking after themselves?

I also got to spend a lot more time with my grandfather. When caught one-on-one, he actually likes to talk a fair bit, and his stories offer a fascinating glance at someone I’ve never known that well. We also went to visit my grandmother’s grave at the cemetery, on a beautifully snowy and peaceful day. Hearing him talk about my grandmother, though, evokes sadness of the kind that brings almost physical pain. It’s a good example of special relationships that exist in the world, but also a jarring reminder that the loss of such a long-time and close partner is a hard one to get over.

I’m glad I visited when I did, but I also wish I’d come at a different time, since the weather was horrible for pictures, and many people were away or busy with family stuff since the period between New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas (7th) is vacation and family time. I’ve already had a few offers from people willing to show us around to see other cities/areas of the country, and Dan may be able to convince me to take them up on that in a few years’ time. It’s the random little things like the murals on these buildings that I’m sure he’s dying to see.

The trip has been a bit of a soul-searching opportunity, and also a reminder of the differences between the environment I left and the one I live in now. I now know that I retain enough of the habits and skills to be able to live there. But I also know that I have enough expectations and knowledge about how some things could and should be to not really want to live there.

Prices are one thing that continues to surprise. They’re atrociously high for the level of prosperity (or lack thereof) enjoyed by the people living there. In fact, they’re very similar to prices in Canada, and for some things even higher. For example, prices on electronics are close – but here, sales on such “prestige” items are unheard of. If I wait 3-4 months back home, I’m pretty much guaranteed to get an item on sale for cheaper than I could find it here (black or grey market excluded, I assume). The sushi I enjoyed the other day is on par with prices at home. Hotels are probably more. Groceries are similar, with some products costing more than at home (you’d think Perrier, for example, would be cheaper since France is so much closer). Even a friend I spoke with says that in London or Paris you could find better deals on certain items of clothing than in Kiev. Anyone else find this shocking? But trips to Egypt or Turkey are surprisingly cheap – $400-500 for 7 or 10 days. Some differences and dichotomies that I find particularly striking:

• public transit costs about $0.25, which is a lot more in line with the average salary, while decent leather boots still cost $200 and gas $1/litre
• parking (and driving) on the sidewalk, to the point of blocking and playing chicken with pedestrians, is the accepted norm (and, in fact, is pretty much the only way to find parking downtown)
• clearing snow off sidewalks is considered highly optional
• bribery rules – from $3 or so slipped to the parking attendant of a posh store’s “parking lot” to let you park on “their” sidewalk, to Ikea giving up on building a store in Kiev because of their corporate policy prohibiting the payment of bribes
• fur is not optional for someone who wants to be considered even moderately genteel – a strange step for a country that tries to follow the “western world” so much (where wearing fur nets you a free gallon of red paint splattered all over yourself)

Oh, and I have to apologize for the occasional incongruences in verb tenses I’m sure I missed. The problem is that a lot of this stuff was written while I was there with the hope of posting right away, but I never found my way to a reliable internet connection with enough time to spare and the netbook with me. So then I had to spend a lot of time converting everything to the past tense – I’m sure I missed a few. Ah well.

Overall, a very good trip for something planned at the last minute. I’m happy over all the meetings I had, and the wonderful opportunity to reminisce which had presented itself so suddenly. I expect it’s not my last visit, but hopefully I’ll pick a better time to visit next time. I leave you with some adorable matrioshka dolls (the kind that fit inside each other). The 5 on the left are all part of one set, that I took apart for demonstration purposes. The tiniest one (the chicklet) is about as big as the last joint on my pinkie.

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Kiev – Part 1

So much has happened recently, with so little time to write, that I’ll definitely have to spend quite a bit of time catching up. Lucky for me, I had one week of vacation where free time should be a lot more available and chores almost nonexistent. Internet access was a problem, but that didn’t prevent me from writing – just from posting the updates in a timely manner. As some of you know, from December 30th to January 1st I travelled down memory lane to visit my grandfather in Kiev. And there are even pictures!

The trip began very uneventfully at the Ottawa airport, which amazes me every time with its calm and quiet. I was through security in about 5 minutes, despite all the recent panic about security lineups due to the ridiculous US restrictions. Lucky for me, this is also the first trip in a while where I was not flying through the States.

I have to say I wasn’t incredibly impressed with the Frankfurt airport. It seems small and cramped, and while not crowded now (at 8 a.m.), I can see it being a lot more packed during more regular hours. While taxiing, though, we went around a large chunk of the airport, and it’s absolutely huge. Very brightly lit from the outside, too. Not sure if the fog is a permanent fixture in this area or just a special for today, but the runways and landing planes looked very pretty in the morning fog. It seems as though physical gates are at a high premium at this airport – we were let off infield and boarded buses which took us to the terminals, and I saw plenty of other planes in the same situation. Not sure how they make decisions about whether a plane gets gate access or unloads infield – but if the same thing happens on my flight back, I’m screwed, since my transfer here is about an hour. Almost as soon as I stepped into the terminal, I got an olfactory reminder that Europe’s approach to smoking is a lot more relaxed than in North America. Smoking seems to be forbidden inside the terminal itself, but either the ventilation in the smoking rooms, or the ventilation from outside smoking areas, are not adequate.

I bought a morning coffee at the McCafe, which happened to have a cappuccino machine. I guess the Europeans really like their coffee this much, for which I am grateful.

My opinion of the airport just dipped again when I ended up in a waiting room for gates that was

• on the ground level (so has no view),
• requires taking another bus (which isn’t that big of a deal), and
• is past another mini-security checkpoint
• does not have a washroom (WTF?)

This last two points combined to be particularly annoying, since they meant that I didn’t have any water, since I couldn’t bring any through security, and the was nowhere to fill up my now-empty waterbottle since there’s no washroom. Gah!

The flight from Ottawa to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful, and the two mini-bottles of wine kept me nicely sedated for most of it. The movie selection was sub-par, unfortunately. The one drawback came early in the trip – in fact, as soon as I got on the plane. Guess what happened to me – AGAIN? (This already happened on the flight from Lima to Miami, but looking through older posts I can’t believe I didn’t write about it earlier). So, what was so horrifying? Well, you see, this is now the second time that I ended up in a window seat that didn’t actually have a window. Me, who will stay awake through 12-hour flights just so I could keep looking out the window. Yup.

I really hope whoever designed that plane was demoted to no longer being allowed to design planes. I have a suspicion that this was actually the same airplane model, since row 13 rings a faint bell. Luckily for me, I was travelling on my own this time, so after I expressed my confusion over the missing window to a stewardess, she was able to find me a seat (the only remaining free seat on the plane) next to someone with a window (it was an aisle seat, but since the seat configuration was 2-3-2, I got the best of both worlds by getting to peek a bit through the window AND stretch my legs into the aisle). Woot.

The flight and customs were uneventful, although we had to sit on the tarmac for 10 minutes waiting for other planes to land in the for (it was actually kind of cool – on approach, as I was trying to figure out how far we were from the airport, we finally broke through the clouds/fog, and I realized that we were not even 50 m above the runway), and then for another while while we got bussed from the plane to the terminal. Really, this has been a tarmac-ful trip. Came out some hour after the scheduled landing, so not too bad by local standards – and turns out even better by last week’s standards, since my dad was stuck in Amsterdam for 2 days, as the Borispol airport was closed due to snow. Yikes. Walking around the city is still a bit treacherous, since sidewalks aren’t really cleaned, so you better watch your step.

True to form, I forced myself to stay up the first day I was here (hell, it was New Year’s Eve!) going to bed around 11. Shamefully, I then proceeded to sleep for 14 hours, getting up after noon the next day. Oops. But at least now I was fully on local time.

The first afternoon we wandered around the center of the city, going to see the main square and the large shopping mall underneath it, as well as the large christmas tree and lots of Mr. & Ms. Santa Claus equivalents. Walked along the central street, past many places which have remained largely the same. One thing that bugs me a bit is that everyone we know (including my parents) seems to assume that I remember virtually nothing about Kiev. I do remember a lot, although I’m limited by the fact that even when I lived here, I was restricted to a fairly small slice of the city, and didn’t really know about the other neighbourhoods. But the places that I knew, I can still get around fairly well now. Subconscious memories come back pretty quickly as well, like what’s the best spot along a metro train to get in/out of at a particular station. A few days into my visit, I even blended in enough for two women to come up and ask me for directions – and even better yet, I could provide them!

The next day, we left late in the morning and walked another route filled with historical monuments, including the Golden Gates (the main point of entry into the city-fortress back in the day), some generally nice-looking old buildings, and a few cathedrals. A bit chillier than the day before, but luckily I had my cozy neck-warmer (thanks Jess!).

We walked to the main souvenir area, and I stocked up on gifts for people. We even ducked into a local coffee chain to warm up, and were pleased with the quality. I think a certain someone really loves me now. Another evening visit, another traditional holiday table loaded with goodies. That free bootcamp class come end of January will be really handy!

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Christmas

I know it’s been a looooong while since I’ve posted, so I sheepishly sneak back into the blogging world. My excuse is that I’ve actually been writing, I just haven’t gotten around to posting anything due to delays in sorting pictures. Mostly sorted out now, though, so hopefully lots and lots of stuff going up in the next week or so – and I even have pictures!

So much has happened recently, with so little time to write, that I’ll definitely have to spend quite a bit of time catching up. So, the first fun topic – Christmas and presents! Possibly even more apropos now that everyone’s getting those credit card bills!

This year, we had Dan’s family over to our house for Christmas. So that’s my excuse #1 (out of 2, 853) for not posting  in a while. While we had my parents over for Christmas at our house last year, this year was the first time that I fully presided over a christmas meal (last year my mom did a lot of the cooking). Turns out these preparations take up lots and lots of time.

I have to admit there was quite a while during the afternoon when I was in panic mode, afraid that nothing would be ready in time for a dinner at a reasonable time, but it worked out in the end. Everyone kept saying they were impressed with all the food, so I’ll take their word for it. There are definitely organizational changes I would make for next time I do this (like starting to cook earlier in the day, or getting even more prep done in the few days before, and turning the cold/salad course into the lunch meal instead of the first course of the christmas dinner itself), but overall I was at least happy with the dish choices that I made.

I have to admit that christmas dinner is a lot of work. I spent Wednesday afternoon running around picking up the groceries from the various stores, and making the christmas log in the evening. Most of Thursday was spent preparing the vegetables for all the salads, and getting the requisite ingredients together and chopped for some of the dishes. I’m very glad I got Christmas Eve day off work, because getting EVERYTHING together on christmas day would’ve been an incredible amount of work.

I’ve had this discussion before, but I’m curious about the traditions of a wider range of people than just those I’ve already spoken to about this – is your christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day?

The cats took the invasion fairly well, with the exception of Sophie. Her fascination with “kitties” meant that poor BB avoided the main floor for most of the holidays, and skidded off, terrified, whenever Sophie toddled towards her with the intention of petting. She was quite gentle whenever she actually got her hands near a cat, though, so Shakey was rewarded with some loving pats for his bravery.

Christmas present opening quite literally lasted from morning until evening on christmas day (with a large break for cooking and eating, shhhhh), and the outcome was amazing. Lots of gifts that were wished for, and some that were unexpected but very pleasant surprises. Among the favourites:

• I got Dan an OBD reader so he can figure out what’s wrong with the truck and fix it
• I got a giant fish-tank, and actually spent the first part of the flight reading a few of the tropical fish-tending sites I had bookmarked
• Dan got a large selection of tools
• I got a super-awesome TV which will go in the kitchen, so I can watch all sorts of shows while I’m cooking

In addition, the other recent addition to our technological stash is a GPS my parents got me for my birthday. It’s a TomTom, so I’ve named it Tommy until we can come up with a better name. It’s a little bit weird calling the GPS “Tommy” since (a) I actually know two people called Tommy, and (b) I seem to have a preference for female voices on the GPS. It had a few hiccups on our trip to Montreal last week (like telling us to go the wrong way down a one-way street, or having us  turn off one street, drive parallel to it for 3 blocks, and then turn back onto it, going in the same direction), but otherwise performed really well. I think it’ll be a great thing on any drive which takes us out of our comfort zone, i.e. Ottawa.

Just before we left for Montreal, I looked outside to see that the fences were steaming. An interesting combination of the previous day’s freezing rain and that day’s blinding sunshine.

Next up in post order – my trip to Kiev.

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