Last night was the Marine Ball here in Kyiv. Every year, Marines around the world celebrate the birthday of the corp in November and this means a ball at most Embassies. And, yes, this is the event that the dress was for. Here are a couple shots from the evening:
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We survived last night’s Halloween party at the Marine House unscathed. Mostly by leaving at midnight when the party was just really getting started. (Our excuse was the fact that Shawn had to be at work this morning at 8am.) Being the brave souls that we are, we actually walked the 15 minutes from our apartment to the Marine House in our costumes. The shocked looks we received were much more amusing than the usual scowls.
Here I am all by my lonesome on the 4th of July again. Last year I requested that someone have a Dairy Queen ice cream cone in my honor, and this year I’m craving a bowl of Hard Times chili and an ice cold Blue Moon. So if there’s anyone in the DC area reading this, indulge for me, okay? Particularly since I’m currently eating what passes for microwave lasagna here in Ukraine. (I know it says “lasagna” on the box and has a picture of a piece of lasagna, but what is this?)
I have an on-going discussion with Shawn and other friends here as to how exactly devushky become babushky. For those of you not intimately familiar with post-Soviet life, a little explanation is in order. Directly translated, “devushka” means “girl” and “babushka” means “grandmother,” however, the everyday meanings of the words are much deeper than that. On the street, devushky are the young women wearing stiletto heels, unimaginably short skirts, and walking with an air of overconfidence. To the untrained American eye, they can appear to be “ladies of the night,” however this is not so — at least in the conventional sense. On the other end of the spectrum are babushky who usually appear to be older than time itself, dressed in the most awfully mismatched outfits, and can be found selling things on the street that they themselves have obtained for free (such as rotten apples or last week’s newspaper). Because of these extremes and the generalizations that go along with them, women in the middle of these groups age-wise tend to blend into the scenery until you find yourself pushing into one on the bus. And so it appears that women here must quickly fall from devushka-hood to babushka-hood.
So I was kind of surprised that I didn’t get any questions about why all the protests and demonstrations yesterday. Perhaps you’re all smarter than I give you credit for. Or perhaps no one besides my mother even read my entry and she already knew the reason. (By the way, if you want to see some video of one of the protests in front of the Embassy, CNN has a video here.) Anyway, the reason was this:
On Thursday, Colin Powell was in town for some meetings. He was nice enough to stop by the Embassy just to say hello to the staff. After saying a few words, he actually took the time to pose for photos with all of us before heading off to the airport. Kyiv was his fourth stop in as many days - I can’t imagine having a life like that.
Yesterday was Shawn’s official Swearing-In Ceremony at the Department of State. Not only was it held in the most impressive looking room I’ve ever seen, but the key-note speaker was none other than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Tuesday was Flag Day, which is the day that all the members of the current A-100 class find out their first overseas assignment. It took place in the Field House on the campus of the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington at 3pm. The employees had been forced to sit through normal classes all day, but were released early to meet the throngs of family and friends that descended upon FSI to show their support (and in the case of the spouses, find out their own fate as well).