On Monday, my visa finally came in the mail. I'm so excited because I can breathe a little easier than my last trip to Russia. Last time, did not get it until the night before my flight and that sucked. So I am very glad that I do not need to go through that whole ordeal again. Now I can just sit back and relax. Well....not really relax since I still have a BUNCH of stuff to buy, and I still haven't given my 2 weeks notice at work yet.  But I will probably be doing that either this Sunday or Monday. not really sure yet.... These next 3 weeks or so before I leave are going to be so hectic and crazy for me since, as I said....I need to buy stuff and work. But also, I need to spend as much time with the family as possible, and meet up with friends who I haven't seen in forever. And I also have a friend coming in from New Zealand who I wanna hang out with too. We're both actually flying out of L.A. to Russsia on the same day, since we're also both going to be working together. Anyways........I wish it was that week already where I'm just on vacation a week before my flight, lol!

My first day in Russia................a look back.

So, I have been looking through my journal I kept while abroad in Russia the last time I was there, and I laughed as I read my first entry from my first day there. The entries after that weren't always so happy. A few quite sad , actually, lol! But anyways... thought I'd just share this first entry from my first day in Russia. I didn't want to have to re-write the whole thing, so I just scanned it. sOoOoO.... hope ya can read my crazy chicken scratch, lol!

 

ps; didn't mention it here, but the comments that one dude kept making, made it so that we were followed by the undercover air marshals. They never stopped us, but they DID follow us, lol! 

pss:  i ended up NOT getting the shits. sooooo.....yay me! <3

What's the deal with Russians hating ice?

i LOVE ice. Russia is FULL of ice. So, what's the deal with Russians hating ice? I seriously don't get it. I would have thought that a country covered in ice many months out of the year would be so used to ice, that it would not be a big deal to put ice in drinks, but apparently, that's not what the "cool kids" are doing nowadays in Russia. Or maybe they never were.

Before heading to Russia, I had heard a little about how getting ice in Russia is a bit odd. But I did not really believe it until I had arrived. Of course I wanted to test it out the first time I went to a Russian restaurant, so I asked for ice in my drink. The waitress's response: "почему?". I was at first stunned for a second because I thought to myself " What do you mean, 'why?' because I want it THAT'S why!" Of course I did not say this to the woman. I just smiled politely and said to her, "потому что мне нравится лед". She then told me that she would bring me the ice, but would have to charge me 20 rubles. This is when I stared at her for a moment, giving her the "are you fucking kidding me?" stare. Then I finally just told her that was fine, I just wanted ice. 

When I finally got my glass of ice (no water in it....that would have to come separately in a bottle), I shit you not, there were 2 ice cubes in it. I then asked the waitress if they ran out of ice cubes, but I don't think she understood my sarcasm because she just answered no. So yeah.....that was my first experience with ordering ice in Russia. It definitely wasn't my last. i AM an American after all....and we love ice in all our drinks. Me especially. I love my drinks especially cold. I am seriously THAT guy who will put ice in his milk. Not always, but when I want it extra cold.

I began researching to find out why this ordering ice thing was such a big deal. I came across an article that gave a bunch of different answers:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/ice-enough-already/

After reading that article, the only reason for Russians not liking ice in their drinks that made sense to me was the whole health issue. Because, yes....Russia's water supply is pretty crappy. This is why you can't get water on tap anywhere, and can only get water in bottles....and you have to always boil your water at home on top of using water filters. But yeah.. as for that, I feel that if you're a restaurant, you shouldn't be serving dirty ice cubes anyways. And it's seriously not that hard to boil some water, put that water in an ice tray, and make ice. voila! Then I could actually see why one would charge for ice cubes. Even then...if you're gonna charge for ice cubes, more than 2 would be nice. Jus sayin....

Anyways, of COURSE i'm going to be bringing a couple ice trays with me, which seems pretty crazy because that would probably be the last thing someone would think about taking with them on a long ass trip to a country made of ice.

 I can't even remember If i saw ice trays in the stores... I'm pretty sure I saw some at Ashan (omg-love/hate relationship with that store, but I'll get to that later....) but yeah.. i just want to be on the safe side. and who knows...maybe i'll end up bringing over some cute-shaped ice trays. maybe mustaches? maybe unicorns? maybe hearts or stars? who knows...the possibilities are endless! lol!

aHA! i have decided. Since I am a princess, i should have an ice palace! JUST like this happy-looking girl! then my life would be complete!!!!!!! sort of.
okay. I have just spent about 25 minutes looking at cute and adorable ice molds. I am officially a super girly-girl nerd who has too much time on her hands. Actually... i dont have time on my hands. But i just kept finding cuter and cuter molds.

okay. that's enough for now. that is ENOUGH on ice and ice molds!!!

until next time....... <3

My visa is officially in the process

I submitted my visa application, passport, AIDS results, and all that jazz to my visa agency like a week ago. Anyways, when I initially submitted it, I guess I forgot to SIGN the application, so I ended up having to re-send my signed application. Anyways, it arrived to my agency yesterday and as of today, my entire packet of stuff has been submitted to the consulate.

The cool thing about this visa agency I used this time, is that you can always log on and it gives you a live feed of what step of the process your visa is on. In my case, as of right now, it shows that it is being processed by the consulate, and shows that it was submitted today. It also shows that my visa is scheduled to be picked up from the consulate on Monday, August 5th. Ya can't really see that part though because i didnt screen shot the entire thing. But yeah....it's there, lol!

Im so glad that I'll actually have my visa at a decent time this time around. The last time I got a visa to Russia, I did not get it in the mail until literally the night before my flight. Talk about nerve-wrecking. Seriously! No idea why that last company did that to me.

Anyways.. it's my Friday at the moment, and I'm having a drink. So I shall leave now, before my writing becomes illegible or incoherent.

pAka! <3

Yay to not having AIDS!!!

Well, today i had to take my AIDS test as a part of my visa application. My letter of invitation and letter of support came in the mail yesterday and I wanted to submit it all today to the agency handling my visa stuff.

                                                                    hahahaha! ;)

I ALMOST got to send it all in today, but the post office closes at 5pm, and by the time i got to the post office, it was already like 5:05pm, so I didnt even bother getting out of the car, because I knew I wouldn't get in. So anyways.... I will be doing that first thing in the morning tomorrow.
I am going to feel so sad throwing my passport in that envelope to send that in because I know I am gonna freak out about it getting lost or something. I freaked about my passport getting lost the last time I had to send it out, too. But, eventually it came back. It literally arrived the night before my flight so I was really freaking out, but it got there, haha!

So yes....this is what I will be doing tomorrow. Sending in all my stuff to the visa agency, and hoping that I will get it all back soon.

oh yeah, my AIDS test came back negative, so YAY ME for not having the AIDS!!!!  <3 <3 <3 <3

Flea Market with my Roomie :)

After I came home the first time from the flea market, my roommate asked if she could go with me the next time because she said she loves flea maret-ing. So yeah I took her and that was probably the best decision i ever made because....this girl could haggle! lol! I seriously cannot. I don't know why. But Sabina (my roommate) was such a pro!

                                          this is how it looks as soon as we get off of the train

                                                                   my friend/roomie Sabina :)

                                                                               me

It was funny when we first go there because as soon as we got off the train and began making our way down I saw mr. blue eyes again. This time he came up to me and started talking to me and wasn't being inappropriate or anything, but Sabina was a bit protective of me because any time we'd go out, men off the street would follow me, so she just kept telling him to leave me alone. Then her and I just decided to pretend we were gay, so I told him, "я лесбиянка!" And then she pretended she was pregnant. Silly stuff, I know...but we thought it was funny. He finally left us alone and she and I went our separate ways, and when that happened, he found me again, and told me that he could not believe I was a lesbian, and I kept assuring him that I was, but he did not believe it. Again, he left me alone once I told him my "girlfriend" spotted us and was heading our way. When she got to me, we continued our shopping. 

I found this cute little jewelry box thing, and the babushka was asking for 300 rubles, which I was totally willing to pay. But my roommate worked her magic and asked if maybe we could have it a little cheaper. The babushka finally said okay and let us have it for 100 rubles. I was like omg really?? I felt bad taking it for 100 rubles because that was so cheap, but I guess the woman just wanted to leave already because it was snowing and we could tell she was cold because even wearing her cloves, her old fingers still looked frozen. I just felt bad because I felt that we were taking advantage of low prices because it was so freezing cold and people just wanted to go home.

 Here is the little jewelry box I got for 100 rubles (aprrox 3 USD). It has blue velvet inside and I'm pretty sure it's real silver, but not 100% sure. And I could tell that this was very old....maybe even an antique?

 

                                                        here are some kids playing :)

                     and here are just some more picsof this swamp meet. i mean, swap meet, lol!

 

these little logs are everywhere for people to cross. But it was kind of embarrassing because I lost my balance and fell into the water. SUPER embarrassing. Nothing worse than falling into muddy water and having it all over yourself and then having a few people turn to look at you and not even ask if you're okay, or if you need a hand up, and then just turn around and go about their business :/

  It's funny because as me and sabina were leaving, there was this man walking around drunk off his ass. And then he just totally collapsed into a pile of clothes and junk a woman was selling. I kinda got scared becasue I thought he was dead or something but then someone told me not to worry, that he was just drunk, and then yeah he started mumbling again, so I knew he was alright. The crazy thing was, I thought, was that when he fell, some people kinda looked and walked past. But then there were others who didn't even notice this...like if this was something so common for drunks to just be passing out, outta nowhere, that people didn't even notice, lol! 

 that guy on the left hand side in a pile of stuff- that's the drunk dude. but it's kinda funny because that guy next to him continues to shop like nothing has happened, and doesn't even notice the guy next to him, lol!

in this pic, you can see that some people are kinda looking as they walk by. That was probably the first group of people that I saw looking this long and hard at this man besides me, lol! 



Anyways, Sabina and I finally decided it was time to go because it got soooooo cold and my rule for myself was that once I saw most of the items had snow on them, that was kind of my signal to leave, lol! 

While we waited for our train, this guy approached us and wanted to speak with us. He seemed nice. Then he got on the train with us.

the three of us just sat in the train for a few moments before it took off, and he stayed with us to chat. The ticket-checker was coming our way and this guy we met, Firuz, said he had to go but he'd hope to see us soon, so we said goodbye, and he kind of ran off the train, as it was starting to move already so I thought that was pretty crazy of him. Then I saw him running outside of our windows then I saw that he hopped back on. I had no idea what he was doing, but then realized he was going through all these hoops because he didn't have a ticket for this train and was just outrunning the ticket-taker and police on our train. So we all talked a bit more, and I finally asked where his stop was, and he said it was like 6 stops back, so I told him he was crazy, and that he needed to get off already. But he said he liked talking to us, so that's why he stayed on for so long. We ended up just giving him our VKontakte ( which is the Russian version of Facebook) and said our goodbyes. He hopped off on the next stop, and we rode off, never to see him again. Well, besides VKontakte. So he is alive and well and everything, don't worry.