Many Triumphs And A Few Disappointments

Sunday was another scorcher, but we still decided to go out. Ed wanted to go to the crafts store we had been to about a month ago. Neither of us could quite remember which street it was on, although we had a vague recollection - we knew it was off Pushkinskaya somewhere north of our Arkitektura metro stop (where my little market, Beatric and McDonald's are) and on the first block east of Pushkinskaya. We took Belle with us - she gets practically no exercise here.

On our way, we stopped at a building right next to Bujara, but set way back, called Center for the Support of Israel. I was curious about what this was all about. We walked over to the door - first there's an outer gate, which was open, and then a big heavy metal door which was locked. But there was a buzzer so I pressed it - someone answered (in Russian of course) and I asked if he spoke English, and he said something in Russian. We waited for about a minute and were about to leave, when the door opened and this guy appeared and asked us something in Russian. I told him I was American and I wanted to know "shtrotsay" (what's this), pointing inside the door where he was standing. He let us in and we followed him up several flights of stairs (after passing this Menorah in the entrance). The place had been renovated beautifully. The steps were beautiful stone, as were the walls, and it was really well air conditioned. There were pictures of Israel and the history of Israel (I felt like I was seeing stills from Exodus) on the stairwell. When we got upstairs, the man telephoned someone, and soon after a girl who spoke English came out . We asked her what they did there, and she explained that they helped people emigrate fromUkraine to Israel. I didn't ask her how things were going lately, but I have a feeling that the rush to emigrate may have slowed a bit - but who knows what it's like for Jews in Ukraine in general, and Kharkiv in particular - all I know is that there are damn few of them now.

After our brief stop we continued on Pushkinskaya and overshot the mark for the crafts store, so we backtracked and went down one block and then another until we finally found it - closed of course - it was Sunday. But at least we know where it is now (quite close to our apartment - one block past my market - right after the Metro station). Meanwhile we passed some interesting places, like the Academy of Arts and Design, that we will have to check out. Since the crafts store was almost at the end of the block, we decided to walk back on the street just east of Pushkinskaya and parallel to it, just for a change and so that we would pass the front of our building and actually see the windows to our apartment. I was wilting again, but this wasn't really out of our way. Or so we thought - until we realized that we were one block too far north to walk down Chubarya, and instead we were walking down a street called Revolutsioniy. And we were going downhill. And we were running out of shade. And I began to worry that what goes down must go up!! Well, we kept going and going, down and down, until finally I decided we had to go right (west) - sure enough we would have reached the river if we kept going two more blocks. We passed a morosivo cart and I bought a vanilla with chocolate covering (my usual). This revived me a little, but poor Belle was fading fast too. We asked "deh Pushkinskaya?" and she pointed straight west and then off to the right (north) - as I feared, back up the hill. We walked straight for several blocks, recognized nothing, and finally passed an old man and asked "deh Pushkinskaya?" and he pointed up the hill. So up we went, until finally I saw a building I recognized, and then another, and then finally the front of our apartment building (which is actually more than a block away from our entrance - hard to believe, I know, but true). But just before we got there, I looked over to my right and saw a really nice looking entrance to something, with beautiful landscaping in front. So I just had to go have a look. Ed and Belle went back to the apartment and I walked over, and found a "Gastronomic SuperMarket" called Gorka. This was a really nice market - and unlike all the other markets, where each counter is apparently owned by a different person, this had one checkout (like our supermarkets - you didn't pay each individual vendor), except for the bakery section. I found Valrhona Chocolate (I thought of you Jill) and bought some (a fortune - probably $3). I had to try their perogies, so I got a mesom (meat), sur (cheese), and kapuska (cabbage) selection. I moved on to the main market, (I knew it was going to be expensive when I took a cart - this is the first market in city center where they even had carts - and an attendant in a uniform - all the workers there were wearing the same uniform, another big difference from almost all the other city center markets - came up to wheel the cart around for me as I made my selections!!! I declined the offer.) I found fine wines (but didn't buy any - this food just tastes better with beer), Lapsom oolong tea (I bought it - very expensive), good cheeses, meats, and great looking prepared foods - so of course I had to try some of those. I ended up spending $16 which is an absolute fortune here.

Back at the apartment, we were all exhausted, dripping wet and, in the case of Belle, panting like crazy. We had absolutely no energy left to do anything but take nice cool showers (running out of hot water isn't always a bad thing), sample my purchases (everything was good except the Valrhona, which had been sitting on the store shelves for too long - no wonder - no one else in this city could afford it, I'm sure!), and go to bed.

I kept waking up though, and during one of my hiatuses (hiati???) I began thinking about the two micro halogen lamps I had brought with me from home (the base and the transformers of which weigh a ton), and which never worked here. I began to think that there must be a reason - it just couldn't be a coincidence that they both were damaged during the journey! And then I realized that they, like my electric toothbrush, probably weren't dual voltage (i.e., 110-220), and that I probably blew them out when I plugged them in. So the first thing I did after breakfast on Monday was to take a good look at the transformers, and sure enough, no 220 in sight. I decided to see if I could find a replacement part (this whole lamp comes apart and the transformer and plug are a totally separate unit) - did a quick google search - found the manufacturer, found the lamp, and found the contact email address. So I shot off an email asking about a replacement (got a reply - 110 volt transformer and plug cost $30 and 220 volt plug and transformer cost $40 - so it would cost me $70 for each lamp if I wanted to be able to use them here and at home). I thought that maybe I should get a separate transformer so this doesn't happen again. I remembered that great "battery and all things electrical" store I had found when I was trying to fix my toothbrush (where they confirmed that I blew it out by plugging it into 220 current). It's probably much cheaper there than at Magellan's, where I would have to pay shipping to Jodi, plus tax, and then impose on Jodi to bring it with her in September! So off I went with one of the lamps, to see what I could find. They remembered me, of course - everyone here does. (It reminds me of when I was in law school - there were only 12 women in my class, and only 6 in my section. EVERYONE knew us, whether we knew them or not.) The woman who had translated for me the last time was summoned, and I explained that I wanted to know if I had ruined the transformers for my lamps and if I could buy transformers there (I also wanted to know if I had ruined my mini power surge protector, plug converter, and phone line protector - a great device and a must for anyone traveling with a laptop - when I had plugged the lamps into it.) Amazing success. Yes, I had blown out the lamps, but they could fix it (for $30 - each), and then the lamps would work on both 110 and 220 current- all I would need is a plug converter when I got home (a lot better than getting two transformers for each lamp - $70 each, not to mention shipping - those things are heavy!!!). I don't really need a transformer (actually two - one for each lamp), since the lamps are the only things I have left that can't run on both currents (that saved me about $90 plus $16 shipping costs for the two I had been ready to buy at Magellan's). And my mini power surge devise works perfectly. I waited about 10 minutes while they fixed my lamp - we plugged it in - brilliant light! I was very pleased! I asked if they had plug converters that went from the configuration in Ukraine (2 round poles) to the configuration in the US (two rectangular poles) - they have everything there and I figured this would be a rather common place item since anyone traveling from the Ukraine to the U.S. with a laptop would need one. Amazingly, they didn't have one! My translator said that maybe I could find it somewhere else, but I told her I was pretty sure that if they didn't have it, no one in Kharkiv would. I'm not worried though - any country that uses their kind of plug, which is just about every country that was in or was a satellite of the former USSR, will have it, and we'll be going to lots of those places over the next year. I left with my now working lamp told them I would be back soon with the other lamp.

Meanwhile I decided to look for a down pillow since I had only brought two with me (and they're pretty old and have lost a lot of their oomph), and Ed had appropriated one of them. I thought that maybe this was why I wasn't able to sleep very well now. I had asked Ed if he wanted me to bring a pillow with us for him, but he of course said "Absolutely not." But I can't deny him one of my pillows - not with the two rubber balls that pass for pillows that came with the apartment. No kidding, I think you could play tennis with them if they weren't so big. I thought I remembered passing a store with such things near Rosy Luxembourg Square, so that's where I went. And I found a store that I thought might have such a thing as a down pillow (not easy to find in Kharkiv). There were two young girls who were the salesgirls there, looking utterly bored and ignoring me. I found the pillows though and went over to ask about them. The minute I opened my mouth they perked up and became interested. I wasn't just a boring local - I was exotic. We had fun - they spoke a little English, I spoke a little Ukrainian - we pantomimed (my imitation of a duck or a goose is pretty good), we read each other's minds - they wanted to know where I was from, did I like Kharkiv, how long had I been there, how long would I be staying, did I miss my home and family, was I really a grandmother???? they couldn't believe it (I was charmed!!), etc., etc. I decided to bring Ed back with me to make sure he likes the pillow (duck feathers, not down), so I left and told them I'd be back soon.

I was right next to a KievStar office (a big one that looked like they might be able to do more complicated transactions), and I wanted to know what I had to do to be able to use roaming when I was in another country and how much it would cost. When we were in Moscow, Riga and Vilnius I could receive calls and text messages, but I couldn't make outgoing calls. I also wanted to see if I could set up voice mail (but only if I could do it in English) and how much that would cost. I was sent over to a young, beautiful girl, who said she didn't speak English. Well, that may have been true - but she could write it, and understand most of what I said! She absolutely wouldn't speak in English, but she wrote down that I had to have at least 200 HVA on credit in the phone to be able to make outgoing calls when roaming, that I had to have at least 50 HVA to receive calls or text messages (which explains why we could get a text message from Gennady while we were in Moscow but couldn't send one), that it costs about 1.5 HVA per minute when roaming (about 30 cents - not cheap, but nothing like the Cingular charges), and that calls to the U.S. cost about 60 cents a minute (again, not cheap, but not bad compared to Cingular's $4.50 per minute). She also wrote that voice mail costs one dollar to set up and then 5 kopeks per minute to retrieve the messages (1 cent a minute). I told her to sign me up - she did, and then explained (without speaking a word of English) that I had to wait at least 2 hours and then go to the main office at 60 Sumskaya to get the voice mail set up in English.

I was definitely on a roll. I went home, where I found Ed there and told him about my very successful morning. He told me that he wanted to buy me a "bijou" as a keepsake of kharkiv, and that he had found two stores that might have something I would like. They are both very near my "batteries and all things electrical" store, so we decided to go out together, take the second lamp to be fixed, look at the bijou and bring both our phones to the main KievStar office for voice mail (we'll be the only ones using it to leave messages for each other). First stop - lamp fixed in 10 minutes. Second stop, not as successful - there wasn't anything I really liked and we both agreed that it was silly just to buy something for the sake of buying it. There were some chatchkes that Ed had his eye on (some sort of metal mug with embossed figures on it - probably from Italy and having nothing whatsoever to do with Kharkiv). I told him that of course he could buy whatever he wanted, he just couldn't put it anywhere except on his desk when we got back to Sherman Canal!! He was also very interested in some iconostases - but I had to draw the line there - they were so patently religious, and not artisticly interesting in any way.

We made our way up Sumskaya (turns out 60 Sumskaya is practically at Lenin Square), with Ed complaining the whole way! I told him he didn't have to come - that I would take the phone in for him, but he said he really wanted the exercise and he just liked complaining about it. So now I understood! When we got to KievStar it looked jammed with people, but I guess they were on line for other things because it was our turn in just a few minutes. A young woman on line next to me helped explain what we wanted to do to the woman behind the desk - she in turn called over a young man and spoke to him in Russian. The young woman next to me said "it will be just a few moments" and the guy disappeared. We waited about 10 minutes, and Ed asked me if I thought anything at all was happening. I actually did think so. In fact, I told Ed that at home I would probably be in a rage by now, but here, I just wait patiently and it doesn't upset me at all. The guy came back after about 15 minutes, sat down, took my phone, pressed a lot of buttons, listened to it, pressed more buttons and then picked up another phone, called my number and put the speaker phone on so that I could hear the English message saying that my number was not available now and to leave a message after the tone. Magic!! He told me what numbers to press to retrieve my voice mails and what numbers to press for the password - I put them into my speed dial, and I'm all set. Then I gave him Ed's phone. He did some stuff with that phone and then told us we have to come back tomorrow to have it set up in English because you have to wait at least two hours. I expected that, so I told Ed I would take his phone back the next day for the set up.

All in all a pretty good day. Back in time for supper and a good read (War and Peace is so great) and finally a good sleep.

Today (Tuesday) I was having a VERY good day. I walked down to Rosy Luxembourg Square with Ed this morning. Ed has been asked to teach a criminal law course at a university in Budapest for the fall semester of 2008!!! He's thinking about it (missing the kids and the grandchilren is a problem for us - but this would only be for about 3 or 4 months), and meanwhile he's decided to provide all the paperwork they need, which includes a notarized waiver about health insurance. Well, try and get something in English notarized here!!! Not so easy. There is no American consulate in Kharkiv, and although we expect to be in Kyiv this weekend, we will not be there during business hours of the Embassy. Ed found a "Notarioos" here, but he wouldn't do it because it's in English - he sent Ed to someone in Rosy Luxembourg Square who said he would translate it into Ukrainian and then notarize both for $14!!! The Embassy charges $30 just to do a plain old vanilla notarization. And you should see this thing. It looks like Ed was awarded some sort of medal or knighthood. It's gorgeous, on special paper, with the Ukrainian symbol all over it and with stamps and seals and ribbons. Anyway, he had to go there to get the translated papers from the notary, so he agreed to first go with me to the pillow store. He approved of the pillows, and went on about his business. I made the purchase ($12 for a European square king size pillow - feather, not down, but still pretty good) and walked up Constitution to Pushkinskaya.

On the way I noticed a jewelry store and went in to see if I could find something. Bingo!! The first thing I saw was perfect - for Ed!! And for me too!! I got him a small yellow and blue enamel pin (Ukraine's colors are lapis blue and yellow) with the Ukraine symbol (a trident looking thing) in gold, and another small gold and green enamel pin with the Kharkiv seal (a kind of cornucopia looking thing with a sword overlapping it) in gold and red enamel!!! They really are quite beautiful. Ed loves to wear pins, and so do I. I whipped out my Visa card, which I never leave home without, and bought them.

I decided I had to go to Beatric and make an appointment for a mani/pedi and to get my hair colored. I think I can wait for Yulia's return from vacation to get a cut, but my gray roots just won't stop coming! But first I stopped at the little market attached to Beatric where Ed had left the Kiev Post he had just bought yesterday when we stopped at the market on the way home from KievStar. I managed to retrieve it - I rehearsed what I had to say - ouvasyir moya Kiev Post, chorra ja buda tout - Do you have my Kiev Post, yesterday I will be here - is what I think I said. Anyhow it worked. Somehow I got enormous satisfaction from that.

I went up to Beatric but discovered that Olga, my French speaking receptionist, wasn't working today. Oy vey. Now what do I do? The woman who was standing next to me to pay her bill said, in English, "I can help you a little." So I asked her to tell the receptionist I wanted to make an appointment for a manicure and pedicure on Thursday. There were two kids, a boy and a girl sitting on the bench in the reception area - I thought I heard the girl say "Finally" when her mother appeared, but I was concentrating on my next task of making the hair color appointment. The mother of the girl and boy said to me, in perfect English, "my kids can help you too - they both speak English - we live in Chicago." Well, that was pretty amazing in and of itself, but the really amazing part is that this woman is in Kharkiv visiting her parents, and her father is the head of the Law Faculty at the University!!! We exchanged phone numbers and names and I told her what we were doing here and that I knew my husband would love to meet her father. Meanwhile she helped me make my appointments and told me that there was a wonderful masseuse there - Oxsana - and that I should definitely try it - 200 HVA for a 2 hour fabulous massage. Count me in! I asked her to make that appointment for me too on Thursday and if she could explain to the receptionist what I wanted done with the color - make it as natural looking as possible, and try to make it look like real hair after being bleached out and dried out by the sun with all the walking and tourist activities lately, highlights, low lights, the whole 9 yards. She started to do so and then said, "you know, I come here everyday to work out so I'll just come at 1:30 on Thursday and tell the woman who colors your hair." Well, this was more than I could ever hope for. Talk about serendipity - imagine meeting the daughter of the head of the law faculty at a weird beauty salon/cosmetic surgery center in Kharkiv!!!

But soon after I got home my Skype-in phone rang with a sad call from a friend back home. I know she'll be reading this one of these days, and I know she knows how I feel. I think we can help, but still . . . It certainly puts things in perspective, and all my small triumphs begin to look a little trivial.

I never did make it to KievStar because Ed was expecting a call from Arkadiy about a very important meeting that they are trying to arrange with the officials from the police districts that they will be dealing with here. Ed had told me that the meeting was going to be either Wednesday or Thursday. I asked if he had told Arkadiy that he will be in Kyiv on Friday and unavailable for the meeting, but he hadn't. I told him that in that case there was probably a good chance that the meeting would be set for Friday!

So, just as I was about to turn off my computer and go to bed, I heard Ed talking to Arkadiy, and I heard him say "Oh, I was planning to go to Kyiv this weekend, but we'll make it work." I knew what that meant! I told Ed I had heard and knew he couldn't go to Kyiv. He asked if I was angry and I explained that I wasn't at all angry. I know this is a very important meeting, and that it's out of the question for Ed to miss it. I also know that they have one shot at this meeting - it's the PD office that wants the meeting, not the police district officials. I told him that I understand this, and that I also understand that even if he had told Arkadiy that he planned to be away, Arkadiy might not have been able to avoid having the meeting scheduled for this weekend (although I'm pretty sure that if it was Arkadiy who was planning to be out of town, he would have found a way to have the meeting set for a different day!). But even so, it would have been better if he had told Arkadiy in advance. For one thing, Arkadiy may feel bad that the meeting is scheduled at a time that is inconvenient for Ed, and that Ed has to cancel his trip, and he might also think that he perhaps could have gotten them to agree to a different date if he had known Ed's plans.

One of the biggest benefits of this adventure is that Ed and I are talking much more about how we interact and how we can avoid those little head butts that happen in every marriage or close relationship. It's interesting how we are each getting more focused on the particular character flaws that each of us has to deal with and do something about. I know that my impatience and my being a control freak can and does get out of hand, and I'm really trying to work on it (sometimes with success - a lot of times without). Well, this is one of Ed's issues - he doesn't like to hit things head on. Now sometimes that is a real virtue, and often, with patience, he is able to get what he wants (and in particular, what a client needs) in situations where one would think that it would be impossible. But at other times, like this one, it can be a problem. We encountered this when dealing with the Foundation about our living situation here before we left the States. Things would have gone much more smoothly if we had dealt with things directly rather than obliquely. And in fact, at my insistent urging, Ed had told everyone involved very far in advance that he planned to go to Moscow and Riga at the end of July - as a result no one was surprised, nothing had to be rescheduled or canceled, and nobody was upset.

So, sadly, I will go to Kyiv alone. I want to meet Susie's friend - the one who has the art opening on Friday - and I've set up appointments to see apartments with three different agents. Maybe I'll get lucky and find an apartment this weekend.

But another sleepless night - and here I am, it's the middle of the night here (somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. on Wednesday) and I'm being eaten alive by mosquitos. Tomorrow (today really) I'll try and take photos of the notarized document and the pins and insert them in the appropriate spots. But this may be where we will miss Ed's camera - you have to hold mine too far away in order for it to focus on such small things (it has about 1/10th the zoom capability that Ed's had), and I'll never be able to capture the detail of the pins. But that's not the end of the world and, for now, I think I'll try and get a least a couple of hours sleep.

It's been a frustrating morning - I did manage to get a few more hours sleep, but I still feel washed out. Ed and I both tried to take photos of the pins, but we just couldn't get anything that even resembled the actual pin. So we gave up and he left to see what's going on at the office. At about 9 a.m. I heard this big belch from the sink and went over to turn the faucets on and found that the water had stopped - I don't mean the hot water - I mean all water. So I couldn't wash the breakfast dishes, and I couldn't wash my face and I couldn't put my contacts on. I thought it would just be off for an hour or so, but by 11:30 I gave up and used bottled water to brush my teeth and put my lenses in. I went off to KievStar and took care of Ed's voice mail, and even got them to put the retrieval number in speed dial. When I got home there was an email from Allison suggesting that I set my camera to manual focus to see if I could do better with the detail on the pins. I tried, and I've put the results of my efforts in the proper place on this Blog entry. They are still not very good I'm afraid, but better than what we got with auto focus. We'll see if Ed can do better when he gets back.