Just Another Day In Kharkiv
Friday, June 23
The frantic pace is definitely slowing. Now that I basically have most things that I need, and know where to find the things I might need, life is more routine and much more settled. So I spent the entire morning listening to yesterday's All Things Considered while I bought tickets for the Bolshoi Ballet (Don Quixote) in Moscow on line, called my credit card company on it's 800 number on Skype to find out why the charge had been denied, repurchased the tickets, called my credit card company again to find out why the charge was denied a second time, and finally was able to get the purchase to go through. We got the last two first row seats (on the extreme left aisle) for me and Ed and three seats on the same left side in the fourth row for the Smiths - as far as I can tell (the charge was in rubles) their tickets are about $120 a ticket and ours are about $150 each. A far cry from the $4 in Kharkiv, but it is after all the Bolshoi, in the Bolshoi Theater.
I then called the Marriott hotel in Moscow, where we made reservations a few months ago, to find out whether we could cancel those reservations and get new reservations at another Marriott (in the center of the city, AND cheaper, it turns out) without having to pay a penalty because this Marriott had already provided the paperwork necessary for our visas and without having any problem with the validity of the visas. They said NYET - they would charge us and we would have to get new visas with "invitations" from the other Marriott!! Well, I really couldn't believe that this was the case, so I called the center city Marriott and explained that we REALLY wanted to stay at their hotel, but didn't want to have to pay a penalty to the first Marriott - could they help us? NYET again. Okay - we'll stay at the hotel originally booked, it's just not worth the hassle. Of course, now I had to cancel the reservations I had made for us and for the Smiths at the center city hotel, but that only took about 30 seconds on line.
I then called Mir Travel Agency to see if we could keep all the travel reservations they had made, EXCEPT the flight from Kharkiv to Moscow since we had just purchased train tickets for that part of the trip (but only because the travel agency is not permitted to book the train tickets for non-Ukrainian citizens). My old pal Ana at the agency said that this would be okay and that she would recompute the total cost so I would know how many Hryvnas to bring with me when I go to buy the tickets on Saturday or Monday.
It's a new experience for us to be living in a 60 square meter space, especially with Ed spending much more time than we're used to at home during the day (after all, the project doesn't even have office space yet!). We're doing pretty well, but we do manage to get on each other's nerves more frequently than we used to. But we talk about it, and we're really trying to deal with it. In the end, I think this will actually improve our relationship (if that's possible - I think it's damn good already!) because we are forced to examine these issues. At home, these "tiffs" occurred much more infrequently and we could sweep them under the rug and forget about them. But now we really have to face the music and try very hard to do what we can to manage our irritation and frustration levels. We'll just have to wait and see how successful we are at doing this.
Ed told me this morning that one of the speakers at the judges forum that he addressed yesterday was a very attractive woman (by our standards - not overly made up, well groomed and nicely dressed), who is a very important figure in the human rights community and a special adviser to the Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament). I immediately asked him to find out where she gets her hair cut. He couldn't believe it - he said, "You mean that the first question I should ask this very important lawyer - a leader in the human rights community - is where she gets her hair cut?" I said it didn't have to be the FIRST question, but I sure would like to know - I've got about two more weeks, max, before I'll have to get a cut and color done!
By now, incredibly, it was already 12:30. Ed had to leave to meet his translator so that she could read him the Criminal Procedure Code. I had my usual list of errands (marketing), and some new ones too - Ed had torn the seat of the pants of his Zegna blue suit and we had to find someplace to mend them. I knew it wouldn't look very good - there was no way to really fix the pants so that it wouldn't show, but we both agreed that a moderately okay patch job would do for Kharkiv, and that we would just have to consider this suit a casualty of the adventure. Well, he has owned the suit for 6 years, and he has worn it an average of 2 or 3 times a week since then, so I guess we can't really complain!! The dress shirt that he had worn to a couple of meetings was ready for the dry cleaners, as were the khakis he had been wearing every day, and the blue suit jacket had gotten crushed in the trip over from the States and badly needed pressing. I stuffed everything into a plastic carry bag and took a sample legal size file folder, a small loose leaf notebook, one of Ed's legal pads that he likes to use, and his black and white school boy composition book, to see if I could find similar things for him in Kharkiv.
I knew where the dry cleaner was located, so that was my first stop. I already had my pantomime for "wash" and "iron" and "don't wash, just iron" worked out. The first thing I did was show her the pants, and she made it clear that she didn't do that kind of work, but she wrote down the name of a tailor, and I got the impression it was on Pushkinskaya Street, a few blocks further on. Everything else went very smoothly - she understood that the suit jacket should be pressed, not cleaned, and that the shirt and khakis should be washed and ironed. I understood that everything would be ready on Wednesday, June 28, after 2 p.m. and that the cost would be 57 HVA (about $11.50), payable in advance. I paid, got my receipt, and went off to the stationery store.
There I managed to get a loose leaf notebook and numbered dividers for Ed - but no luck on the file folders, legal pads or composition books. I may have to have Fern FedEx these to me!!! But come to think of it, after my experience with the FedEx package sent to me by Goldman Sachs on June 13 (I still don't have the package, and I still get calls from someone at the Fed Ex office in Kyiv - I think it's Kyiv anyway - SCREAMING at me in Russian and completely ignoring my repeated "neh rosamiyous"), this might have to wait until we get to Kyiv.
After making my purchases at the stationery store, I showed the paper with the tailor's name written on it and asked "deh?". They seemed to recognize the name and just pointed up Pushkinskaya Street. I stopped and got a refill black ink cartridge for my HP printer/fax/scanner ($20!!) and asked there as well. They also seemed to recognize the name and pointed in the same direction. I kept walking and periodically I would go into a store and ask - with the same result. Finally, one woman escorted me out the door, and walked about half a block with me to show me exactly where it is - I recognized the sign before we got there and thanked her profusely. I went to the door and saw that it was closed until 1:55 p.m. (it was now 1:40), so I walked a little further and went in to the Parisian pastry shop. I would have bought pain au chocolat for tomorrow's breakfast, but it's so hot, I was afraid they would melt all over everything if I bought them before I finished my errands. I came back to the tailor, walked down to where I thought the sign pointed, and went into a tiny battery store!!! A woman who was talking to the man there led me out to the building next door and brought me to the tailor. The tailor's shop consisted of a very big room with sewing machines, fabric and irons, and about 25 people working away. A man came and looked at Ed's pants, and basically said no way. There was a really nice young woman waiting while her male friend or husband was getting his pants fixed. She spoke English and offered to help me. I asked her to explain to the tailor that I knew the pants would not look good after he mended them, but I wanted him to do it anyway - that he should just do the best he could. He agreed, and I was asked to wait. I had a great conversation with the girl (she was also waiting for the job to be done on the spot) who, it turns out, is a law student in Kharkiv. She comes from Lviv, wants to be a prosecutor, but is worried that they are not favorably disposed to hiring women. I told her how I believed things would change here, that my husband was here to help reform the legal system, and that in my lifetime I had seen a revolution in the rights of women in the U.S. I hope I'm right about the future prospects for this country.
After about 15 minutes the tailor came back with Ed's pants - not bad. He had also mended the pocket, which had a hole in it (and which we had asked Browns Fancy Schmancy Cleaners to fix at least three times - but they charge $80 to dry clean the suit, so why should they bother to fix the pocket!!). Total cost - 8 HVA, or $1.50.
I stopped at Beatric to take a look at the gym - lots of weight lifting equipment, but I'm not really interested in that, and no pilates machines. The only trainer seemed to be a man who speaks only Russian. The cost is $80 per month if you want to go every day, and $60 a month if you only want to go twice a week. I looked at the manicure and hair salon (manicures and pedicures would run about $12 total, and a haircut and color with highlights would cost about $50). I'm still hoping I see someone whose haircut I like, and someone whose color I like, so that I can ask them where they go to get their hair done, but if all else fails I guess I'll give it a try.
I decided to get a bite at the Beatric cafe - they have wonderful coffee (Illy) and I really wanted some. I decided to order a salad that I thought was cabbage and something else and some black bread and butter. I got it right!!! A cabbage salad with a few very sour red berries, black bread and butter, all arrived at my table. But this place is pretty expensive - this all cost me $3.50 (with the tip)!!!!
I did a little marketing on the way home (scored two more boxes of Nestle Fitness without fruits or sugar!) and got home just in time to take Belle for a walk before the rain (blessed rain - the clouds really cool things off) came down.
The frantic pace is definitely slowing. Now that I basically have most things that I need, and know where to find the things I might need, life is more routine and much more settled. So I spent the entire morning listening to yesterday's All Things Considered while I bought tickets for the Bolshoi Ballet (Don Quixote) in Moscow on line, called my credit card company on it's 800 number on Skype to find out why the charge had been denied, repurchased the tickets, called my credit card company again to find out why the charge was denied a second time, and finally was able to get the purchase to go through. We got the last two first row seats (on the extreme left aisle) for me and Ed and three seats on the same left side in the fourth row for the Smiths - as far as I can tell (the charge was in rubles) their tickets are about $120 a ticket and ours are about $150 each. A far cry from the $4 in Kharkiv, but it is after all the Bolshoi, in the Bolshoi Theater.
I then called the Marriott hotel in Moscow, where we made reservations a few months ago, to find out whether we could cancel those reservations and get new reservations at another Marriott (in the center of the city, AND cheaper, it turns out) without having to pay a penalty because this Marriott had already provided the paperwork necessary for our visas and without having any problem with the validity of the visas. They said NYET - they would charge us and we would have to get new visas with "invitations" from the other Marriott!! Well, I really couldn't believe that this was the case, so I called the center city Marriott and explained that we REALLY wanted to stay at their hotel, but didn't want to have to pay a penalty to the first Marriott - could they help us? NYET again. Okay - we'll stay at the hotel originally booked, it's just not worth the hassle. Of course, now I had to cancel the reservations I had made for us and for the Smiths at the center city hotel, but that only took about 30 seconds on line.
I then called Mir Travel Agency to see if we could keep all the travel reservations they had made, EXCEPT the flight from Kharkiv to Moscow since we had just purchased train tickets for that part of the trip (but only because the travel agency is not permitted to book the train tickets for non-Ukrainian citizens). My old pal Ana at the agency said that this would be okay and that she would recompute the total cost so I would know how many Hryvnas to bring with me when I go to buy the tickets on Saturday or Monday.
It's a new experience for us to be living in a 60 square meter space, especially with Ed spending much more time than we're used to at home during the day (after all, the project doesn't even have office space yet!). We're doing pretty well, but we do manage to get on each other's nerves more frequently than we used to. But we talk about it, and we're really trying to deal with it. In the end, I think this will actually improve our relationship (if that's possible - I think it's damn good already!) because we are forced to examine these issues. At home, these "tiffs" occurred much more infrequently and we could sweep them under the rug and forget about them. But now we really have to face the music and try very hard to do what we can to manage our irritation and frustration levels. We'll just have to wait and see how successful we are at doing this.
Ed told me this morning that one of the speakers at the judges forum that he addressed yesterday was a very attractive woman (by our standards - not overly made up, well groomed and nicely dressed), who is a very important figure in the human rights community and a special adviser to the Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament). I immediately asked him to find out where she gets her hair cut. He couldn't believe it - he said, "You mean that the first question I should ask this very important lawyer - a leader in the human rights community - is where she gets her hair cut?" I said it didn't have to be the FIRST question, but I sure would like to know - I've got about two more weeks, max, before I'll have to get a cut and color done!
By now, incredibly, it was already 12:30. Ed had to leave to meet his translator so that she could read him the Criminal Procedure Code. I had my usual list of errands (marketing), and some new ones too - Ed had torn the seat of the pants of his Zegna blue suit and we had to find someplace to mend them. I knew it wouldn't look very good - there was no way to really fix the pants so that it wouldn't show, but we both agreed that a moderately okay patch job would do for Kharkiv, and that we would just have to consider this suit a casualty of the adventure. Well, he has owned the suit for 6 years, and he has worn it an average of 2 or 3 times a week since then, so I guess we can't really complain!! The dress shirt that he had worn to a couple of meetings was ready for the dry cleaners, as were the khakis he had been wearing every day, and the blue suit jacket had gotten crushed in the trip over from the States and badly needed pressing. I stuffed everything into a plastic carry bag and took a sample legal size file folder, a small loose leaf notebook, one of Ed's legal pads that he likes to use, and his black and white school boy composition book, to see if I could find similar things for him in Kharkiv.
I knew where the dry cleaner was located, so that was my first stop. I already had my pantomime for "wash" and "iron" and "don't wash, just iron" worked out. The first thing I did was show her the pants, and she made it clear that she didn't do that kind of work, but she wrote down the name of a tailor, and I got the impression it was on Pushkinskaya Street, a few blocks further on. Everything else went very smoothly - she understood that the suit jacket should be pressed, not cleaned, and that the shirt and khakis should be washed and ironed. I understood that everything would be ready on Wednesday, June 28, after 2 p.m. and that the cost would be 57 HVA (about $11.50), payable in advance. I paid, got my receipt, and went off to the stationery store.
There I managed to get a loose leaf notebook and numbered dividers for Ed - but no luck on the file folders, legal pads or composition books. I may have to have Fern FedEx these to me!!! But come to think of it, after my experience with the FedEx package sent to me by Goldman Sachs on June 13 (I still don't have the package, and I still get calls from someone at the Fed Ex office in Kyiv - I think it's Kyiv anyway - SCREAMING at me in Russian and completely ignoring my repeated "neh rosamiyous"), this might have to wait until we get to Kyiv.
After making my purchases at the stationery store, I showed the paper with the tailor's name written on it and asked "deh?". They seemed to recognize the name and just pointed up Pushkinskaya Street. I stopped and got a refill black ink cartridge for my HP printer/fax/scanner ($20!!) and asked there as well. They also seemed to recognize the name and pointed in the same direction. I kept walking and periodically I would go into a store and ask - with the same result. Finally, one woman escorted me out the door, and walked about half a block with me to show me exactly where it is - I recognized the sign before we got there and thanked her profusely. I went to the door and saw that it was closed until 1:55 p.m. (it was now 1:40), so I walked a little further and went in to the Parisian pastry shop. I would have bought pain au chocolat for tomorrow's breakfast, but it's so hot, I was afraid they would melt all over everything if I bought them before I finished my errands. I came back to the tailor, walked down to where I thought the sign pointed, and went into a tiny battery store!!! A woman who was talking to the man there led me out to the building next door and brought me to the tailor. The tailor's shop consisted of a very big room with sewing machines, fabric and irons, and about 25 people working away. A man came and looked at Ed's pants, and basically said no way. There was a really nice young woman waiting while her male friend or husband was getting his pants fixed. She spoke English and offered to help me. I asked her to explain to the tailor that I knew the pants would not look good after he mended them, but I wanted him to do it anyway - that he should just do the best he could. He agreed, and I was asked to wait. I had a great conversation with the girl (she was also waiting for the job to be done on the spot) who, it turns out, is a law student in Kharkiv. She comes from Lviv, wants to be a prosecutor, but is worried that they are not favorably disposed to hiring women. I told her how I believed things would change here, that my husband was here to help reform the legal system, and that in my lifetime I had seen a revolution in the rights of women in the U.S. I hope I'm right about the future prospects for this country.
After about 15 minutes the tailor came back with Ed's pants - not bad. He had also mended the pocket, which had a hole in it (and which we had asked Browns Fancy Schmancy Cleaners to fix at least three times - but they charge $80 to dry clean the suit, so why should they bother to fix the pocket!!). Total cost - 8 HVA, or $1.50.
I stopped at Beatric to take a look at the gym - lots of weight lifting equipment, but I'm not really interested in that, and no pilates machines. The only trainer seemed to be a man who speaks only Russian. The cost is $80 per month if you want to go every day, and $60 a month if you only want to go twice a week. I looked at the manicure and hair salon (manicures and pedicures would run about $12 total, and a haircut and color with highlights would cost about $50). I'm still hoping I see someone whose haircut I like, and someone whose color I like, so that I can ask them where they go to get their hair done, but if all else fails I guess I'll give it a try.
I decided to get a bite at the Beatric cafe - they have wonderful coffee (Illy) and I really wanted some. I decided to order a salad that I thought was cabbage and something else and some black bread and butter. I got it right!!! A cabbage salad with a few very sour red berries, black bread and butter, all arrived at my table. But this place is pretty expensive - this all cost me $3.50 (with the tip)!!!!
I did a little marketing on the way home (scored two more boxes of Nestle Fitness without fruits or sugar!) and got home just in time to take Belle for a walk before the rain (blessed rain - the clouds really cool things off) came down.
posted by Susan Spivak at 4:16 PM
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