Pictures

I know you haven't seen any pictures of my trip in awhile, but I do have them, and I'll post them on the blog as soon as I am able, which may be a few more days.

Airport Records

I spent a wonderful evening in Vienna on Sunday walking around and soaking up the cafe atmosphere with my friend Susan. I have now been in four airports in as many days and feel like I should write a book reviewing airports around the world. I was in Prague, Vienna, Dubai and Bangkok in the last four days. The airport in Dubai is amazing and all the more amazing because I was there from 11 PM to 3 AM, and I thought there would be no one there and everything would be closed. It was as busy at that time as most other airports are during the day, and all the shops were open, including a huge duty free section. My travel agent told me that Emirates Air (the airline I flew to Bangkok through Dubai) is the best airline in the world and now I understand why. Their economy class is like most other airlines' business class -- a range of movies, decent leg room, excellent food. I have broken my record for the most airports in the least amount of days; however, it doesn't rival the most cumulative amount of time I've spent in one airport. The honor for that goes to Schipol airport in Amsterdam, which I knew well after many long layovers flying to/from Kiev. Even those layovers don't rival the most amount of time I've spent waiting for a flight, which was 2 days in Honduras. Okay, I didn't spend the whole two days at the airport, but I spent eight hours one day and six hours the next waiting for one flight to the Bay Islands. The airline in that case was TACA, which we affectionately called Take A Chance Airlines. It's the airline I'm flying to and from Lima, so that could be interesting . . .

I'm a Geek!

I admit it. Instead of enjoying any number of cultural activities available in Prague, I went to see Star Wars: Episode III. After 8 hours of walking around Prague today, the air conditioning was nice. Plus, I didn't want to break my streak of seeing the latest Star Wars movies overseas. I saw Episode I in Tegucigalpa, Episode II in Hong Kong and Kiev and now Episode III here. They're just not the same to me without subtitles or dubbing. It gives you something to pay attention to when the movies get boring. I think most of you know my theory that most movies would be better with an additional 10-15 minutes cut out of them, and these movies are no exception. I saw most of the major sights of Prague on a guided walking tour and met a nice woman from Ukraine (of course) who knew some of the Americans who were at the Embassy when I was. Now I have one more person to visit in Ukraine. I think someone is trying to tell me I need to go back there again soon.

Russian Bowling

Wednesday Lyuda, Alla, Slava, Andrei, Andrey and I had another shashlik, but this time homemade. Irina also came, even though she had just come back from the States that day. We went to a park by a lake outside of the city. Andrei has a whole setup with folding chairs and table and grill, and the resulting barbeque was delicious. The bowling took place on Thursday. It was part of the celebration for Slava's birthday that started with a happy hour after work. Then we went to the bowling alley, and this was the first time most of the Ukrainians had bowled. I started bowling 30 years ago at the alley in the small town where my grandparents lived in socks (because they didn't have shoes small enough) and barely able to push the ball down the lane. So I should've been able to beat everybody, right? Wrong! After 2 games, we decided to have a championship of the four best bowlers so far -- Andrei, Irina, Vadim and me. Well, the boys soundly beat the girls. At least I made it to the top four. Everyone did really well for not having bowled before. Sadly, that was my last night in Ukraine, and it was very hard to leave.

Russian Pool

Monday night I went out with the guys -- Andrei, Igor, Sergey, Sasha and Yuri. Sasha and I started the evening playing Russian pool. It's played on a bigger table than American pool with all white balls and one red. I asked what the rules are, and they told me there are no rules. I guess there are variations on the game, but in the basic game, you can hit any ball into any other ball. Sounds easy enough, right? Except the opening to the pockets is so much narrower than in Amercian pool that you have to be very precise about where you hit the ball. Luckily, when Igor and Andrei came, we started to play as teams, so with Igor's help I won one game. He and Andrei continued to play, but I spent the rest of the evening just talking with Sergey, Sasha and Yuri and drinking a little more vodka than was good for me. After some recovery on Tuesday, I went out walking for awhile, but it is HOT in Kiev. It feels like July. The evening was nice, though, and a group of us (Oleg, Tanya, Sergey, Tanya, Lyuda, Andrey, Alla, Slava, and Alyona) sat on the patio of a restaurant on Andrevsky Spusk and ate and drank and talked. It's a very good life!

Home Again in Ukraine

I finally made it to Ukraine, and I think it's illegal to have as much fun as I'm having. Oleg, Andrey Babich and Lyuda met me at the airport (with flowers) when I finally made it out of Paris. We went out that night to eat and to have a few drinks with Tanya, Andrei Bobrov and Igor. After dinner, we did some walking. Kiev is a great walking city, and that night was the finals of a huge Eurovision contest that a Ukrainian singer had won the year before so Kiev was hosting it this year. There was a huge crowd in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Indepedence Square). That was also where the Orange Revolution happened, and my friends said the crowd reminded them of that, except without so much orange. On Sunday we had a shashlik (picnic) at a restaurant outside the city, so we didn't have to cook ourselves. Alla and Slava, who I hadn't seen yet, joined us. The only unwelcome guests were the mosquitos. Slava invited us to his apartment after that and was an excellent host. He had brought a water pipe from Egypt, and we smoked that and talked and laughed and drank and danced and one of us (I won't say who) even took a little nap. It was the perfect house party.

The Accidental Tourist

I'm typing this post for the second time on a French keyboard. If you see a Q where an A should be, you now know why. Mon dieu! In case you haven't guessed already, I'm not in Kiev where I'm supposed to be, but in Paris. My flight from Chicago was delqyed due to weather, so I missed my connecting flight (actually two connecting flights). I did see the Mona Lisa and other famous Parisian sights today. Still, I'd rather be in Kiev. I can see some of you rolling your eyes. You just don't realize how beautiful that city and its people are.

Friends, Food and Five Hundred

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Originally uploaded by krpe.

We met up with our friend Russ at a tapas place. After mucho tapas and sangria, Laura and I brushed up on our skills at 500 (a card game). Laura trounced me even though she claimed not to have played in years.

Portrait of an Artist

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Originally uploaded by krpe.

After my caffeine fix, we did some shopping. Then we visited Laura's husband Michael, a talented artist, in his studio. I decided we should do something Chicago-y after that, so we took an architectural tour by boat on the Chicago River. I learned that they recently exonerated Mrs. O'Leary's cow as the cause of the great fire that burned Chicago to the ground in the 19th century. "Scientists" now believe the fire was started by a meteor. The cow story actually sounds more plausible, but who can argue with science?

The Windy City

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Originally uploaded by krpe.

I had an excellent day in Chicago with my friend Laura. Her only flaw is she doesn't drink coffee, so the first order of the day was a search for Starbucks. We ended up at one next to the infamous public housing projects in Chicago called Cabrini Green. They are being torn down soon as the area around them gentrifies, though people stil live there. . .

Union Station

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Originally uploaded by krpe.

I arrived by train yesterday in Chicago. You can see a train in the picture between the water and the buildings. As Karime has pointed out to me, I've already been traveling for awhile and haven't posted anything. But I didn't really feel like I was traveling until I abandoned my car and most of my belongings at my brother's house on Tuesday.