Ed Plans An Outing
I think that today's experience at the Russian Consulate in Kyiv takes the cake for bureaucratic bull shit in action.
Now that all our reservations have been made for our trip to St Petersburg with Max and Betsy in May, now that we have received our official invitations and vouchers from the hotel, now that we actually have our paper airline tickets in hand, I decided that I should get our visas so that I don't have the problem I did last time of trying to find a 10 day window when we can let our passports out of our possession without interfering with another trip. (We had to get the expedited visas - very expensive - for our trip to St Petersburg in November in order to get our passports back from the Russian consulate in time to take our trip to Warsaw, which preceded our trip to St Petersburg.) So yesterday I called the consulate to confirm the hours (9:30 to 13:00), confirm the fee for the visas ($100 per visa - 10 days to get the visa), confirmed that I had 10 days before our next trip (March 9 - but March 8 is an official Ukrainian holiday and everything will be closed on National Women's Day), and set off at 11 a.m., first to the bank to get some US Dollars (I need my passport to do that, so I thought it best to get some before I gave the passport to the Russians). That took forever - everything is done by hand here - there are computers, but they still have to enter everything manually, print out long sheets of paper on old fashioned dot matrix printers, cut the paper with rulers to make lots of small pieces of paper, and then you and the bank clerk have to sign all the small pieces of paper. I didn't get out of there until 12:20, so I beat feet to the metro stop - Zoloti Verota (Golden Gate) - about 10 minutes walk away, and hoped against hope that I would make it to the consulate on time. This particular metro is very very deep, and I am not joking when I say that it takes at least 10 minutes to get down to the tracks (and of course 10 minutes to get back up once you arrive at your destination). Suffice it to say that I was 5 minutes late. They let me in the door, but that was as far as I got. "Come back tomorrow" was all anyone would say.
Oh well, I was pretty philosophical about it - it was a beautiful day - clear blue sky, sun shining, very cold - so I made my way back to Zoloti Verota and to Sofieskiy Fitness Center for my second pilates session with Julia. (I had to cancel Tuesday's session because I was totally wiped out after whatever it was that attacked me on Monday night had finished with me.) I had time for a lovely cup of tea overlooking the pool, and then got ready for my session -- this involves checking my coat, scarf, mittens and earmuffs, getting a key for a locker, putting my plastic bag (that I always carry with me in case I want to shop) into the locker, after first taking out my pair of white socks, taking off my shoes and black socks and putting them under my locker, putting on my white socks, removing my sweat shirt and leaving it in the locker with the plastic bag and my coat check, locking the locker and walking up to the pilates studio. I think I am the only woman there who does not bring a complete change of clothes and a suitcase of makeup, but I am also the only woman there who isn't dressed to the nines when she walks in!
Another good session - I'm glad I'm keeping up with this while Katya is away. My back definitely feels better when I can do the stretching and pilates. When I got back home it was already 4 p.m., so I just had time to clean up all the loose threads on the trips to Barcelona and Morocco, before Ed and I headed out the door for dinner at my favorite place - Puzata Chata - that's not CH as in CHair - it's CH as in CHanukah. It means the potbellied hearth and I love it. It's a charming cafeteria with really pleasant surroundings and great food. We had huge amounts of food (kasha, meat blintze, cheese blintze and apple blintze, vegetables, roasted potatoes, chicken and two soups, one beer and one orange juice) for $10, total. And what's more, it is really delicious. We might go again tonight as I have no food in the house for dinner!
Ed and I had a talk about how to deal with some of the problems that come about because of our cramped living quarters and the fact that we are basically together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week now. Ed gets very angry with me for sitting down at my computer and giving it my full attention, getting irritated when he interrupts me. I get very annoyed when he interrupts, especially if I am in the middle of something, like balancing a bank account! We toyed with the idea of having set hours when I could work uninterruptedly - say 9 to 12 - but I really felt that was silly. I told Ed that I will try to be more flexible, and that I will not rebuff his interruptions unless I am really involved in something that can't wait and demands total concentration, and when I am, I will try to tell him so nicely, rather than dismissively. We'll see how it goes.
We also talked about the fact that I feel that Ed would be happy just to sit in the apartment 24 hours a day and never leave, and that if I didn't do something about it, that this is exactly what he would do! I'm pretty much of a homebody too, but jeez, you have to get out once in a while - and unless I plan it, it just doesn't happen (except on the rare occasion when a third party organizes something).This really bothers me. I just feel like I'm being drained, and once in a while I would like him to suggest that we go to or do something.
So this morning Ed told me we would take an excursion to what we call "Tin Tits" -the huge Titanium statue of a woman holding a torch symbolizing the motherland, with tits that do look like an old Madonna concert tour costume, which stands above the War Memorial Museum just south of the Lavra. It's quite close to the Russian consulate, so we decided to go to the consulate first and then stop at the museum.
The trip to the consulate was uneventful - another gorgeous clear blue sky, freezing cold, day, and we arrived well before 13:00 when everything turns into a pumpkin. The man at the "reception" desk looked through our papers, brought them back to the woman in the back office, who soon brought them back to us to tell us that we would have to come back, because we were applying for our visas "too early"!!! Our trip is in May, she said - we can't get visas until April!!! I showed her my visa for my July visit to Moscow, which I got in April in the States. That was a different consulate she said, and they obviously have different rules. I asked her to tell me the earliest date we could apply for our visas, and she said April 16 (our trip to Russia is on May 16). I explained that this will be difficult for us because we have other trips planned, which will require that we have possession of our passports, and that there is no 10 day block of time between those trips when we could give our passports to the Russian consulate in order to get the Russian visas. She was, as she said "very sorry," but that is their rule! I asked her to show me where it says that I can't apply for a visa more than one month in advance but, of course, "this rule is not written down." We asked to see the Consul, but naturally he was away on a business trip and would not be back until Monday. She really was quite nice, given the circumstances - not like some of the civil service battle axes we have encountered here (and in the States I might add). She really was sorry but, as she put it, she is just the secretary for the visa section and she can only follow the rules. Such is life here in Ukraine, especially when dealing with the Russians!!! But I suppose it's the same everywhere, really - it certainly was as bad, if not worse, when we arrived in Delhi with no entry visas for India!
It was noon by this time, and neither Ed nor I wanted to go to the War Museum, so we headed home. But I guess the trip to the Russian consulate counts as an outing, doesn't it???
Now that all our reservations have been made for our trip to St Petersburg with Max and Betsy in May, now that we have received our official invitations and vouchers from the hotel, now that we actually have our paper airline tickets in hand, I decided that I should get our visas so that I don't have the problem I did last time of trying to find a 10 day window when we can let our passports out of our possession without interfering with another trip. (We had to get the expedited visas - very expensive - for our trip to St Petersburg in November in order to get our passports back from the Russian consulate in time to take our trip to Warsaw, which preceded our trip to St Petersburg.) So yesterday I called the consulate to confirm the hours (9:30 to 13:00), confirm the fee for the visas ($100 per visa - 10 days to get the visa), confirmed that I had 10 days before our next trip (March 9 - but March 8 is an official Ukrainian holiday and everything will be closed on National Women's Day), and set off at 11 a.m., first to the bank to get some US Dollars (I need my passport to do that, so I thought it best to get some before I gave the passport to the Russians). That took forever - everything is done by hand here - there are computers, but they still have to enter everything manually, print out long sheets of paper on old fashioned dot matrix printers, cut the paper with rulers to make lots of small pieces of paper, and then you and the bank clerk have to sign all the small pieces of paper. I didn't get out of there until 12:20, so I beat feet to the metro stop - Zoloti Verota (Golden Gate) - about 10 minutes walk away, and hoped against hope that I would make it to the consulate on time. This particular metro is very very deep, and I am not joking when I say that it takes at least 10 minutes to get down to the tracks (and of course 10 minutes to get back up once you arrive at your destination). Suffice it to say that I was 5 minutes late. They let me in the door, but that was as far as I got. "Come back tomorrow" was all anyone would say.
Oh well, I was pretty philosophical about it - it was a beautiful day - clear blue sky, sun shining, very cold - so I made my way back to Zoloti Verota and to Sofieskiy Fitness Center for my second pilates session with Julia. (I had to cancel Tuesday's session because I was totally wiped out after whatever it was that attacked me on Monday night had finished with me.) I had time for a lovely cup of tea overlooking the pool, and then got ready for my session -- this involves checking my coat, scarf, mittens and earmuffs, getting a key for a locker, putting my plastic bag (that I always carry with me in case I want to shop) into the locker, after first taking out my pair of white socks, taking off my shoes and black socks and putting them under my locker, putting on my white socks, removing my sweat shirt and leaving it in the locker with the plastic bag and my coat check, locking the locker and walking up to the pilates studio. I think I am the only woman there who does not bring a complete change of clothes and a suitcase of makeup, but I am also the only woman there who isn't dressed to the nines when she walks in!
Another good session - I'm glad I'm keeping up with this while Katya is away. My back definitely feels better when I can do the stretching and pilates. When I got back home it was already 4 p.m., so I just had time to clean up all the loose threads on the trips to Barcelona and Morocco, before Ed and I headed out the door for dinner at my favorite place - Puzata Chata - that's not CH as in CHair - it's CH as in CHanukah. It means the potbellied hearth and I love it. It's a charming cafeteria with really pleasant surroundings and great food. We had huge amounts of food (kasha, meat blintze, cheese blintze and apple blintze, vegetables, roasted potatoes, chicken and two soups, one beer and one orange juice) for $10, total. And what's more, it is really delicious. We might go again tonight as I have no food in the house for dinner!
Ed and I had a talk about how to deal with some of the problems that come about because of our cramped living quarters and the fact that we are basically together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week now. Ed gets very angry with me for sitting down at my computer and giving it my full attention, getting irritated when he interrupts me. I get very annoyed when he interrupts, especially if I am in the middle of something, like balancing a bank account! We toyed with the idea of having set hours when I could work uninterruptedly - say 9 to 12 - but I really felt that was silly. I told Ed that I will try to be more flexible, and that I will not rebuff his interruptions unless I am really involved in something that can't wait and demands total concentration, and when I am, I will try to tell him so nicely, rather than dismissively. We'll see how it goes.
We also talked about the fact that I feel that Ed would be happy just to sit in the apartment 24 hours a day and never leave, and that if I didn't do something about it, that this is exactly what he would do! I'm pretty much of a homebody too, but jeez, you have to get out once in a while - and unless I plan it, it just doesn't happen (except on the rare occasion when a third party organizes something).This really bothers me. I just feel like I'm being drained, and once in a while I would like him to suggest that we go to or do something.
So this morning Ed told me we would take an excursion to what we call "Tin Tits" -the huge Titanium statue of a woman holding a torch symbolizing the motherland, with tits that do look like an old Madonna concert tour costume, which stands above the War Memorial Museum just south of the Lavra. It's quite close to the Russian consulate, so we decided to go to the consulate first and then stop at the museum.
The trip to the consulate was uneventful - another gorgeous clear blue sky, freezing cold, day, and we arrived well before 13:00 when everything turns into a pumpkin. The man at the "reception" desk looked through our papers, brought them back to the woman in the back office, who soon brought them back to us to tell us that we would have to come back, because we were applying for our visas "too early"!!! Our trip is in May, she said - we can't get visas until April!!! I showed her my visa for my July visit to Moscow, which I got in April in the States. That was a different consulate she said, and they obviously have different rules. I asked her to tell me the earliest date we could apply for our visas, and she said April 16 (our trip to Russia is on May 16). I explained that this will be difficult for us because we have other trips planned, which will require that we have possession of our passports, and that there is no 10 day block of time between those trips when we could give our passports to the Russian consulate in order to get the Russian visas. She was, as she said "very sorry," but that is their rule! I asked her to show me where it says that I can't apply for a visa more than one month in advance but, of course, "this rule is not written down." We asked to see the Consul, but naturally he was away on a business trip and would not be back until Monday. She really was quite nice, given the circumstances - not like some of the civil service battle axes we have encountered here (and in the States I might add). She really was sorry but, as she put it, she is just the secretary for the visa section and she can only follow the rules. Such is life here in Ukraine, especially when dealing with the Russians!!! But I suppose it's the same everywhere, really - it certainly was as bad, if not worse, when we arrived in Delhi with no entry visas for India!
It was noon by this time, and neither Ed nor I wanted to go to the War Museum, so we headed home. But I guess the trip to the Russian consulate counts as an outing, doesn't it???
posted by Susan Spivak at 12:58 PM
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