Tuesday, November 11

• Finally arrived in Madrid.
• We were excited to find a “Dunkin’ Coffee” and even more excited when we realized that it really was a Dunkin’ Donuts and not just a blatant copyright infringement like we originally thought.
• Had our first tapas “meal” full of rich (and salty) flavors.
• Marveled at the size of our large Cokes from Burger King (necessitated by the salty tapas). “I haven’t had a drink this big since the last time I was in the US!”

Wednesday, November 12

• Visited the Prado Museum and decided El Greco is our favorite Spanish artist.
• Found lunch off the beaten path - 2 two-course meals and a bottle of wine for only 20 Euros! “I think I could live with eating Spanish food all the time.”
• Highlights of our visit to the Royal Palace - for Shawn: armor, horses, and armor for horses; for me: a room made entirely of ceramic.

• Took the high speed train to Sevilla.
• Visited the largest cathedral in Europe and saw Christopher Columbus’ tomb. (And the woman selling the entrance tickets asked if I was a student. Whoo hoo!)

Friday, November 14

• Had our first paella at a restaurant called “Boston Burguer.”
• Sevilla is the most bicycle-friendly city I’ve ever seen. (And we lived in Portland, Oregon, so that’s saying something.) There are dedicated bike lanes everywhere and even a grab-and-go bicycle rental program.
• Attended a flamenco performance and found myself in awe of the artists’ intensity.

Saturday, November 15

• Local train from Sevilla to Grenada - olive trees as far as you can see.
• First sign that it actually is winter: snow capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.
• We notice that the dreadlock to non-dreadlock ratio is rather high in Grenada. Perhaps it is part of the European backpacker trail? The number of incense sellers, hookah bars, and availability of cheap baggy pants also give it away.

Sunday, November 16

• Exhausted ourselves touring the Alhambra. It didn’t help that we got lost on the way there and walked about twice as far as we needed to.
• Took advantage of the Spanish custom of “siesta.”

Monday, November 17

• Finally saw the giant bull billboards on our bus ride from Grenada to Madrid.
• We came full circle by having our last meal in Spain at the same restaurant as our first meal. (And basically the same meal itself - toasts with various cheese, meats, and veggies piled on top.)

It all started innocently enough - we needed a vacation and the cheapest flights were to Madrid via Rome. Off to Madrid we went. However, when we got to Rome, we needed boarding passes for our second leg of the journey to get through security. Oddly enough, there was no one from Alitalia to be found at any of their desks. Then we heard the announcement: Alitalia was in union meetings from 8am to 1pm and 3pm to 8pm and we should “expect delays.” Not a good sign. We parked ourselves by one of their desks and waited to get our passes. Eventually succeeding, we headed to our gate. That’s when the cancellations started. And we sat there until 2 hours past our departure time with absolutely no information (but a very sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach). Then our flight was cancelled. I won’t detail the craziness that ensued as we joined thousands of passengers trying to find luggage and the correct line to stand in to rebook. (We mistakently stood in the lost luggage line for about 20 minutes at one point. It was total chaos.)

We finally found one of three lines that had formed for the rebooking of flights. Then began the longest 6 hours of my life. That’s right - six hours of standing, occassionally broken up by watching fellow line-members being interviewed by the press (that started about an hour in) as well as the fights that started breaking out after we passed the 3-hour mark.

By the time we made it to the front, we could get a flight for the next day (on a different airline), but there were no free hotel rooms left. So we were on our own to find a place to stay and we were not staying at the airport. That was when the following conversation took place, exhibiting just how delirious I was:

Me: Okay. We just need to sit down and look for a place in our guidebook.

Shawn (sitting down and opening his bag): Wait. What guidebook?

Me (with disgust): Our Spain guidebook.

Shawn: (pointed stare)

Me: (blank stare back)

Shawn: Jennifer, we’re in Rome.

Me: Oh. Yeah.

Hilarious after the fact, but at that point it was after 11pm and we had gotten up at 4:30am that morning. So cut me some slack. We did eventually make it to Spain. Photos and details will be forthcoming.

But within hours, I was in love with the city. Tallinn has officially been entered on my list of favorite places that I’ve visited. Here’s why:

It’s not too big. I hadn’t realized how much the hugeness of Kyiv has been bothering me until I got to someplace smaller. You can get around easily and the traffic’s not insane. In fact, Shawn and I almost had heart attacks on the spot when cars stopped for us to cross the street. Common courtesy and a respect for traffic laws - you have to love it.

It’s beautiful. We visited a couple different parts of the city and it was all lovely. Old Town is amazing and has one of the best preserved medieval walls in Europe. It was fun just to wander the streets, get completely lost, and then find that we knew where we were all along. The second day we headed a little further from the city center, saw some great parks and beaches, and wandered through the ruins of a 15th century convent. Very cool and not quite like anything I’ve seen before.

It feels like a hidden treasure. With the exception of the cruise ship crowd that took over Old Town on Monday, there were very few tourists. We went in two different museums and found that we were the only people there. When we got to the above mentioned convent ruins, there was only one other couple exploring it. Burma is the only other place where I have felt like I was seeing something really interesting and wasn’t completely annoyed by all the other tourists there with me.

It’s in the EU. So a lot of the people speak English (although we did switch to Russian once or twice) and there are modern amenities. Our hotel was great - it had a nature theme, which I loved. And we got to see two movies - in English!

Yeah. It’s love.

Bangkok:

The main point of spending time in Bangkok was to take advantage of some Western amenities. That’s right - Bangkok is more Western than Kyiv. Anyway, we saw a couple movies: “Sweeney Todd” (mildly censored and in the swankiest movie theater ever) and “No Country For Old Men.” Yeah, we like to keep things light while on vacation. We also found a great English language bookstore and managed to spend 3-4 hours browsing. And we brought home about 30 new DVDs, purchased for approximately $3 each.

At dinner at Tony Roma’s late in the trip, we were disappointed to find that we have lost some of our American-ness and were unable to finish our plates full of meat after consuming only half of an onion loaf. I mean, there’s nothing more American than following up a deep-fried onion with half a chicken in sweet barbeque sauce and a loaded baked potato. Sadly, most of our food had to be sent back. I did manage to score two (FREE!) refills on my Coke, though. I haven’t completely lost my status as an American yet.

Our one “tourist” activity in Bangkok (well, actually right outside of Bangkok) was to go to the Floating Market. You may have seen this on various travel shows, but it is pretty much what it sounds like. You’re on a boat, vendors are on boats, and you all go about your business. Of course, it turns out to be fairly expensive even if you don’t actually buy anything at the market. (But how can you turn down the endless cries of “Hey, Lady, you buy!”?) And I think Shawn was embarrassed by my insistence that we purchase the souvenir plate at the end of our tour. But they had taken our photo at the beginning of the trip and put it on a plate all roller-coaster style. How awesome is that? So now we own a Thailand Floating Market plate with our picture pasted in the middle. Sweet.

Ko Chang:

The majority of our time (9 days to be exact) was spent on the island of Ko Chang, near the Cambodian border. We had been to Ko Chang almost 4 years ago and loved it, so we actually booked a room in the same resort we stayed in last time. Of course, after we booked the room, we started to worry about returning to a place we loved with high expectations. Maybe it wouldn’t be as quiet as last time… What if the only reason we loved it was because it was so much better than China (which we visited on the same trip)?… What if the weather wasn’t as perfect?… Luckily, it turned out that all those worries were unfounded. Yes, it was different from last time and definitely busier, but it was still great. And the weather - upper 80s and sun every day - paradise.

While on the island, we did manage to fit a couple activities into our busy schedule of sitting in the sun and reading. One evening we took a taxi (as in, truck with bench seat installed in the back) to the fishing town of Bang Bao. Pretty to look at and good seafood to eat, but that was about it. Our other adventure was elephant trekking! Again, pretty much just what it sounds like - you sit on an elephant and head into the jungle. (Supervised of course.) It was pretty fun, although elephants don’t make for the smoothest ride. The best part was at the end when we got to feed them and take a look at them up close. They’re such amazing creatures.

I’ll start with the unpleasant part of the trip: trying to get out of this country. Delta is the only US carrier that flies directly between the States and Kyiv and they just have one flight every other day. There is also a Ukrainian airline that flies between New York and here, but I’m not sure how often that flight goes. As you can see, the options for getting out of Ukraine and to the States are extremely limited. Anyway, we were on the Delta flight when we left for our trip. Things started out normal enough, but quickly went south. There was a mechanical problem with the plane. We ended up sitting on the plane on a tarmac about a mile away from civilization for 6 hours the first day (yes, I said the first day). I actually watched the sun set out the plane window. It was eventually decided that we weren’t going anywhere, so they loaded us off the plane onto busses, drove us back to the airport, and we stood around and waited for what felt like forever. Eventually, they told us to come back to the airport at 8am the next morning and they would get us on our merry way. Now fast forward to the next day at 5pm. We’ve been sitting around the airport all day (I cannot put into words how much I hated Kyiv’s airport before this misadventure. Imagine how I feel now.), with our flight’s departure being pushed back every few hours. Finally, at 7:30pm, they loaded us back onto busses to take us back out to the plane. And after sitting on the tarmac for two more hours, we finally took off - exactly 36 hours after we arrived at the airport in the first place.

Okay, so I’m trying to let go of my anger over that, so I’ll move on to the trip itself. We got to spend Thanksgiving in the US! We had a good time with our families, although it didn’t feel quite as much like a “vacation” as I would have liked. We’ll have to save that for later this winter when we take our R&R. We did a lot of shopping - Shawn got some super Christmas presents, thanks to my new job. And I got to spend all of 30 minutes in a JoAnn’s. I really need to plan a shopping trip of my own… We visited our alma mater and had lunch with our former theatre professor. And we toured the campus to see all the improvements they’ve made in the 7 years since we were there. (Has it really been that long?)

In all, it was a good, relaxing time. We played with our niece and nephew. I got to look at wedding magazines with my brother’s fiance. We did catch one movie. And we drank in the Americana. (Although the Christmas decorations were a shock to me when we first arrived - I had forgotten it was that time of year somehow. And exactly how decorated it would be.)

So now it’s back to the sub-zero temperatures and work. Ah…regular life must go on.

Before I go further, I will state that I am fine. Honestly. I know that the word “evacuation” causes all sorts of images of me on a stretcher being taken out of Ukraine by Marine helicopter (at least it does in my head), but it was nothing like that. My medical condition was not life-threatening, or even really an emergency. It was just something that needed to be checked out before April 2009, so medevac was the way to go. And for the sake of not sharing too much personal information online, that’s all I’m going to say about my health.

But I will share more details about the experience itself. It was probably one of the craziest weeks of my life. I left Kyiv Monday morning, landed in DC Monday evening, and hit the ground running. I had appointments and testing all day Tuesday and part of the day Wednesday, results were determined by the end of the day Thursday, and I was “cleared” to return to post on Friday (although my return flight was on Monday morning). It was a confusing time of explaining and re-explaining my situation. I had never had an experience with a teaching hospital before, so since all my appointments were at The George Washington University, I got to see the whole intern system in action.

I think my favorite (and I’m laughing only after the fact) intern experience was the one I had at my ophthalmologist appointment. She was very thorough, yet somehow completely lacking in bedside manner. Things came to a head when she was checking the pressure in my eyes. In the past, I’ve always had that done with the weird puff-of-air machine. But in this case, she numbed my eyes and then moved an apparatus in to actually touch my eye. Gross, I know. However, Intern didn’t mention what she was doing in advance and suddenly I realized that my eyes were feeling really funny and something is moving toward them…and getting too close. So I start blinking like crazy - she starts yelling at me that I’m “only going to make it hurt worse” (clearly indicating to me that she plans on causing me pain) - and I finally hear myself shout “What is that thing and what are you doing?!” After Intern took all of 30 seconds to explain what was going on, I was fine, of course. For the sake of her future patients, I hope she learned a small lesson. Oh, and when the real doctor came in the room, she rattled off about 5 things she had found wrong with my eyes. It took the doctor about 2 minutes to determine that there wasn’t anything wrong with them and I stumbled out into the sun, traumatized and with dilated pupils.

So between all the appointments and general craziness of the week, I soaked up some serious American culture. My mom came to spend a few days with me and, let’s say, “over-encouraged” my shopping habit. I was like one of those people on StyleTV that they give the credit card to and tell them to buy a new wardrobe. Unfortunately, unlike the show, I have to pay off my credit card. In my defense, I was in need to new clothes and I now know how lacking my options are in Kyiv. (I prefer to be able to sit down in my skirts.) Additionally, I got to eat at several of my favorite restaurants and saw 4 movies (Harry Potter, Superbad, Nanny Diaries, and Stardust).

So after a week’s diversion, and over 5,000 frequent flier miles, it’s back to real life - loads of laundry and walking a dog that seemed to get a little wilder in my absence. Only 5 more months until our R and R vacation….

Our neighborhood has lots of cathedrals, as you can see, and we’re not too far from the river.

Our trip to Budapest:

And our newest addition, that I have not yet found time to write about. Probably because no one warned me exactly how hard it is to house-train a puppy. That’s right, about a week and a half ago, Shawn decided we needed to take another trip to the pet market “just to look.” And we came home with a 2-month-old Doberman, who we promptly named Laika.

Viewpoint 1: Last weekend we took a quick trip to Budapest, Hungary. It was wonderful…the sights, the amazing hotel we stayed in, the food, and American movies in English. (Pirates of the Caribbean wasn’t all that great, but did I mention it was in English?) About an hour after arriving, I found myself saying, “now this is Europe.” It’s amazing how different a place can be only an hour and a half away by air. So I worked really hard to savor our time there. But a few hours before our flight back, I started feeling…let’s say “uneasy” about the fact that we were returning to Ukraine. I was thinking about the fact that we were probably going to have to attempt to bargain with a cab driver at the airport in Russian; that I needed to buy groceries, which would include not only a metro ride, but also a trip through the MegaMarket being pushed and shoved by people in a much bigger hurry than me (because I budget about 3 hours for an average grocery store trip here); and just the general isolation that one feels when living in a place where you are not fluent in the native language.

Viewpoint 2: We have friends from our Russian class at FSI that arrived here this week. They are posted to Moscow, but have come to Kyiv as a temporary assignment to help out with visa interviews. They are so excited to be here. I don’t know how many times they have commented on the friendliness of the people here and the fact that you can actually walk down the street without being trampled by crowds. Just today, my friend actually commented on how European the buildings look compared to the Soviet blocks in Moscow.

So my conclusion is that Ukraine, Kyiv at least, is somewhere in the middle of being European or Russian. My secondary conclusion is thank god we’re not in Moscow. And finally, I think our friends arrived at the perfect time to allow me to hold on to whatever bit of sanity I have left. Thanks, guys.

I spent most of the past week in Indiana with my family. It was a good, relaxing time, but a little disappointing that it snowed every day I was there! I started my trip by spending a couple days with my brother. I got to see his new house and he got to drag me all around downtown Indianapolis in the freezing weather. We also got in quite a few hours of Lego Star Wars II on the Playstation. It’s easier for me to play with him than with Shawn - I think it’s because I get some respect for being the big sister.

Then my mom and I spent a few days in Brown County, Indiana. When I was younger, we made a yearly trip there, but it had been several years since we’d been able to do that. So it was nice to visit some of the shops we have always loved. (My personal favorite is For Bare Feet, but I have a serious sock obsession.)

And today was back to the reality of moving overseas. I feel like I spent most of the day on the phone canceling utilities and making other arrangements. There will be another big shopping trip (or two) this week, we’ll sell the car, and then the movers will come to take our stuff away on Monday!