Pre New Years Eve 30-12-2009

Im sitting here laughing as I type this blog. This is such a strange place! Today, Sasha, (Lada & Iurii via phone) and Dima & I were trying to find a place to go for NYE celebrations to eat before midnight. We didnt want to have NYE at any of our places as it means preparing meals and cleaning afterwards. We figured Pushka would probably be OK & I would get to see the Aussie flag flying at last! Pushka closed on NYE. What about Adriano's I say.... Closed NYE, Chateau? Closed NYE! Nothing is open on NYE!!!

We finally ring Chateau (the pub style Chateau on the square where we watched the soccer. Its on the square, so its good for midnight too), and yes they are open, but need up front payment $650 UAH or about $90 AUD) which is not bad. So on the way home from work, We drop off Dima, pick up Lada, drop me off & I go home. Sasha and Lada go on to Chateau to pay the money for food & drink for tomorrow night. No problem.

So, I am sitting at home reading my book, and the phone rings. It's Sasha, and there is quite a bit of noise in the background, so I assume they have decided to stay and eat and drink. "Merrin, he says, they want us to order food now as the will not be able to cope with all the orders on the night. I will read the menu to you and you can tell me what you want". "No problem I say". As soon as I say this, I remember that the menu was quite extensive so before he gets too far I say, "Sasha, Just order me chicken"! I can see my IS guy laughing at this blog right now as we are all so sick of CHICKEN!!!!! I tell Sasha just to order for me, including appertisers and salads & I will fit in with everyone.

Back to the book and about 10 minutes later, the Phone rings again. Its Sasha! "Merrin, we have found something we think everyone will like for the main meal, duck with apples! One kg or 2 kg." "Thats fine Sasha, I am happy with duck".... This is too hard I think to myself as I go back to my book.

Half an hour passes asnd the phone rings again.... You got it right..Sasha! "I'm so sorry Merrin, but they want us to order drinks in advance!" Geezzzz...... "Ok I will have beer". "Merrin they will supply beer and Champaign, but what else do you want to drink" ? Shit..... beer is enough for me!We are thinking Irish Whisky?" "Sasha, I will drink what every one else drinks", " But you can have wine, spirits, etc".  "OK Sasha, pick a bottle of Chilean Chardonay".... I hear talk in the background and then Sasha comes back,"Yes Merrin we can do Chardonay from Chilie"..... "Sasha, you are going to have to carry me home I say."

Needless to say, I think this NYE will be one that I will remember for a long time.... And I do intend to remember it. Yes I will have a few drinks, but I want to take pictures and live NYE in one of the coldest, oldest but frienliest places I have been to. Stay tuned & you will find out how it pans out.

Bad news today. Katya, who organised my flights back to Aus, e-maild me and said the my last leg home from Kyiv to Kharkov on the 16th had been cancelled and here are your other options. Basically they were, catch an express train from Kyiv to Kharkiv (6 hours on a train after 28 hour flying, not bloody likely), overnight stay in Kiev then fly out 21.30 to Kharkiv, more expense and an extra day, or an overnight train from Kiev to Kharkiv ariving 6.30 am.......This is not good!!!! So I ask Katya if I change dates of travel, does it make it any easier to select airlines and times. Katya comes back with a few other options & i finally settle on the best one I can find. Fly 17th Jan from Melb to KL, KL to Heathrow, hop on a bus to Gatwick, fly Gatwick to Kiev then Kiev to Kharkiv on the 18th Jan at 10.30pm. Now this all works well within two days if the weather is good and no flights are cancelled!!... I hope the boss doent expect me to front up to work the next day !!!!

Anyway freinds back home, world wide and family.... I wish you all the best for your NY celebrations.

My message to my friends for 2010 is appreciate the good things you have and take nothing for granted

xm

Christmas day and Boxing Day

Hi everyone & I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and Boxing day with your family and freinds. It's not quite Christmas here yet. Christmas happens on the 7th of January! A bit strange but they seem to celebrate from 31st December, NYE, the 7th January and then again on the old Christams calendar on the 13th and 14th of January. So I cant tell you anything about Chrissy in Ukraine. But I will tell you about my Boxing day.

Maryna and Andrey wanted to spend some time with me so I told them that I had a hairdressers appointment and then I had to do some grocery shopping but I could meet with them after that. No problem said Maryna, we will take you shopping and then spend some time together.

The hair dresser is about five minutes away, but at the moment, the temperature is quite warm +3 and all the snow and ice is melting and it is very slippery on the street so I gave myself 15 minutes to get there. I slid most of the way, but arrived without breaking any bones!!!  I survived the hairdressers again (without Inna this time) and came out looking normal (took me ten minutes to explain that I only wanted the base colour and no foils) , although they did put something in my hair on top of the colour & I was a bit worried what it would come out like but I think it was some sort of conditioning treatment? Luciana, any idea? I must admit though the language barrier is not helping my hairstyle mum, it is becoming all the same length, I'm not sure how to communicate layers to this guy. He asked me if I wanted short or long & I said no, not short, he said all the one length, and rather than trying to explain layers, I just said yes. So Luciana, I will need a decent cut around March next year to get things back into shape. Colour is good though.

I do find it amusing how the women in this place manage to get around in extremely high heels at this time of year. The first thing I did when I arrived was to get a good pair of waterproof boots to wear in the street during the winter. No heals, flat sturdy boot. These women all go out dressed to the hilt and in the highest heels possible. I am sure I would break my neck if I ventures out in my boots that have an inch heal!

Anyway, I meet Maryna and Andrey at my apartment & we skate to the car & drive off to the supermartket.... Target! This is the big supermarket that we went to via the metro during the first month. Lots of variety and everything you could need. As I am coming home on the 5th, I really only needed washing powder, fabric softener, toothpaste etc. not much in the way of food. I did however want to get some tins of crushed tomatos to make spagettiie sauce, which is fast becoming my main evening meal. No.... says Andrey, we crush our own home grown tomatoes and bottle them, you should not buy them at the supermarket... full of unatural preservatives! OK I say and think nothing more of it.

We pay for our groceries & hop back in the car & drive to Maryna's apartment where I am greeted by the smell of wonderful home cooking. I thought I was going to Maryna's place to see her cats, but they provided a beautiful meal for me. More important to me than food was the babies..... and here they are Lisa (white) and Malyshka (tortishell)

Fat cat Lisa














Fat cat Malyshka












Fat cats tucked
up underneath a
blanket together
Life is good in this
house!






Andrey is a keen photographer and loves geography, so we spent a lot of time looking at his pictures and on Google earth. Andrey showed me photos of some ice station that he worked on & they had polar bears visit them. Would be great to see, but at minus 50 and at times with only one hour of daylight, I dont think its my cup of tea. I showed them where I lived and I must admit my home (384) when I saw it looked good. The photo must have been taken during summer as the trees were in full bloom and it was sunny. They were suprised that I lived on such a large block of land and I explained that this is my mum and dads first house and the surrounding area when the bought the land was orchards (fruit trees). These days the blocks are a lot smaller and houses closer together, so I am very lucky to have so much land. I also showed them PML at Moorabbin and Chadstone shopping centre and the bay, to give them an idea of the layout of Melbourne. I really hope that one day my Ukraine, Polish, Russian, German and Swiss friends will get the oportunity to come out to Australia and visit. I would love to show them my country.

Maryna's mum spoke no English, but I think in the end she understood my very bad Russian and understood I was trying to say thank you (spasiba) for the hospitality. I received an invitation to come back, so I must have made a bit of an impression. Andrey suggested that in spring, they take me to a place in the countryside where he took some of the photos and perhaps have a BBQ. I am more than happy to take him up on this offer. Now as we were leaving, Maryna and Andrey were doing something in the kitchen. When I was putting on my jacket, they came out with 3 big bottles of crushed tomatos and a big jar of Andrey's home made honey....... One of Andreys hobbies is keeping bees, and these bees make beautiful honey!!!!! So no preservatives for me in Ukraine, just pure home grown goodness!!!

My street covered in snow
befor it started to melt.








Had a bit of a sleep in this morning then got up showered and cleaned the apartment. It doesnt take long to clean, unlike Sasha's & Michal's who's apartments are quite large and spacious. Tanyia, the owner of all our apartments arranged a cleaning lady for the boys as obviously, they are not doing a particularly good job of cleaning! Last week, a family moved out of an apartment above me. I think this is the apartment that Christina will be going into. Christina, its not the one directly above me so you dont have to worry about making noise........ you know what I mean!!!! looking forward to having a house warming party for you when I get back.

They are predicting snow again this week, but with quite mild temperatures nothing colder than -3, so with a bit of luck, we will have snow on NYE & I will be able to fly out on the 4th without any problems. Christina is flying in on the plane that I fly to Vienna on, so we can wave to each other as we pass through the airport. I have attached this link so you can see the weather in Kharkiv.

http://www.meteoprog.ua/en/weather/Kharkiv/

I will keep the blog running while I an at home so my mates in Ukraine can see what I get up to on my home visit, so dont be suprised if when I catch up with you all, that I take pics so I can post them on my blog.

Time to go and have some lunch..... Honey on bread I think! :-)

xm

Sasha's Birthday

Our beautiful friend from St Petersburg, Sasha turned 23 on Saturday the 19th December. He invited us all to his apartment for a celebration & I must say he went to a lot of trouble, although I think the cleaning lady had to take some credit for the clean apartment....hehehe! The appertisers, pizza, drinks and entertainment were all provided by the birthday boy and in return, he got our wonderful company!! He did receive a few chocholates and bits and peices, but the real present is yet to come & yet again, I think my IS man and I will work on this over a bottle of "Bear Crossing" red!... There may even be something being organised from Down Under as well :-)

Food, food and more food














What you got there Sasha
Is that Vodka and Brandy !!!










Sasha's Mum, you should be
proud of your boy. A
wonderful caring person
.... However...






I'm not sure about his choice of
bed time attire !!!!
The Simpsons :-)

And, I do like his Tiger
Slippers, which he let me
wear all night.

Misza did a wonderful
karaoke using the Vodka bottle
as a microphone












Then we just did our normal stuff to keep ourselves amused.....

We discusssed Tania's
taste in decoration,
in particular the lights








Laughed











Discussed Tania's
green lights

Posed for the camera











Laughed Again!










Took pics of streets
covered in snow



















Now I must mention here that Friday night and Saturday, we had blizzard like conditions in Kharkiv. It was horrendous! The streets were empty as it was to wild to go out! I'm not sure what the temperature was, but it was cold enough for me to have about 5 layers and thermals on! ..... and it was slippery!! Michal & I brought a few bottles of beer to go with the pizza for the party & I made Michal carry the bottles, as me and ice / snow dont go too well. I took the chocholate!! It was hard work getting to Sasha's pace & by the time we got there we were covered in blizzard stuff (snow,ice) and exhausted.!

The good thing about the weather conditions is that the VOLGA drivers have to slow down. It is near impossible to get over 60km because of the ice. Even going slowly, the back end of the VOLGA slides around the corner. It's a good thing they are so heavy........ it keeps them from plowing into other things!!...sometimes....

However....... Friday night we are sitting in the VOLGA in Pushinskya waiting for the traffic to move. We are literally crawling. Everytime we take off, the wheels spin & then the driver chucks it into second gear & gets a bit of grip. We were sitting pretty much outside Pushka (where my Aussie flag is hopefully being displayed) when WHACK..... we are hit in the back of the VOLGA by a Chevvy!!!!! I wont repeat what the driver said, cause it was in Russian & I dont understand Russian, but I can imagine what he said!!!! He got onto the radio to speak to the supervisor & we asked Dima what was happening. Dima explained that they had called the POLICE! Now, given we have a Kriminalist amongst us and we had again been pulled over by police the previous week when Michal was in the front seat, we decided to leave the VOLGA to fend (sorry the pun) for itself. We walk the rest of the way home and I can still feel the cold in my feet.....
PS, The chevy hardly had a mark on it! The VOLGA's bumper was broken!!!!

Christmas is on Friday, it is a normal work day in Kharkiv!. Christina has gone home, Pierre-Andre and Michal leave for home today, and I think Lada arrives soon to be with Sasha. I made the decision to stay in Kharkiv for New Year so I could experience something new and I am looking forward to it..... I just need to get over this little thing called December 25th in which I would normally be with my family! I do however have a special little envelope to open on the morning of the 25th! Thanks M&D&S.

 I also need to mention Lisa (George).... she gave me Skip the kangaroo all those years ago when I was going to England. I bought Skip with me to Kharkiv!....he has been around the world a bit over the years George. Thank you Christina, for giving me Charlie!.. As close as you can get to my real babies. Charlie is a soft toy cat that sits with Skip on the bookcase. With these two ... I will spend Xmas eve.

However, to my family & friends back home.......... Have a great Chrissy & New Year from me and my family in Kharkiv, Ukraine......We wish you a merry christmas, we wish you a merry christmas, we wish you a merry christmas and a Happy New year.......

I hope you have a wonderful festive season & I look forward to seeing my Aussie family and friends  in the NY...... (Weather permitting.... lots of delays along the way in Vienna and London...at the moment).

xm

Coming home..........
to warmth and sunshine!

Now I know why they drink VODKA !

Woke up this morning and it was a bit harder than normal to get out of bed. The apartment felt a little colder than normal, so I checked that he heating was on and yes it was fine. I looked out the window and the sky was clear and in fact bright sunshine! Fantastic, maybe it wont be so cold today. Then I went out on the balcony....SXXT.......... It was so cold! Of course, I cant listen to the news to find out the temperature, so I am assuming it is -15 to -17 as predicted!

I shower, have breakfast and step out the door to meet Dima and the Volga. I swear my nasal hair started to freeze. I think Dima and the Volga were on time but when they arrived, I was absolutely freezing even with all my heavy winter gear ( no thermals). We pick up Michal & the normal polite morning conversation starts. "It's cold". "Yes but the sun is shining". "Yeah its good to see the sun". Then we all slink back into silence. I try and look out the window of the Volga, but I can see much, so I try & wipe the window a little to clear it. It is ICED up on the inside!!! I turn to Michal & say, "there is ice on the inside of the window", he nods and laughs!

We get to work.....
PMU Administration,
behind is the factory.
We have about a 150 meter
walk from Security
to the building. Look!
Blue sky!!!!!!!




Looking back down
from the bulding
to the main security
and car / truck enterance







When we get in the lift to go to the third floor, another guys gets in and says, "cold isnt it?" Yes Michal & I say in unison, "-23 says the guy". I look at Michal in disbelief............ minus 23.... surely it cant get that cold. As we get to the third floor, people start to look at me and laugh, knowing this weather would be killing me!   I have been inside for 10 minutes and I still have on my outdoor jacket, scarf etc. There is no way I am striping off until I warm up. I logon to the computer & see it is +39 in Melbourne!

If you look hard, you can just
see the city in the distance.
Photos were taken through
glass, so its not too clear.

The nearby town, not the city
centre













As you can see, no hills
very flat and bare








Leaving the building tonight was hard. You are in a heated building around 23degrees & then all of of sudden, you are in below freezing temperatures again! As we walked down to the outside security enterance, My nose hair begins to freeze again. "Dont stop to let the bus through" I say to Michal. Otherwise we will be outside 10 seconds more! As we get to security, Michal yells to me..."are you alive?"......."Only just, dont make me speak, it hurts".

Its 5.30 am your time & 8.30pm my time as I write this and the temperature here is -22 and the temperature in Melbourne is +22....... so we have something in common.......22 in either direction! I will  be throwing another doona on the bed tonight....I would really like to have my two babies, Bella and Middy on my bed to keep me warm but it cant be. So before I go to bed, I am going to have a shot of VODKA to warm up!!!!!
xm

СНЕГ СНЕГ СНЕГ

For you foreigners who don’t understand Russian, that means SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!!!
I see it is hotting up again in Melbourne ! 36 on Wednesday! Well I can tell you that In Kharkiv, Ukraine, it snowed all last night & here is what I woke up to!

Quite mild though its only -7 degrees....and on Friday is going to be -13 with a low of -17 #$&%#*# COLD!!!!!!!!!! I put a beer bottle with water out on the balcony last night. I use it as an ashtray. This morning the water was frozen solid!!! Please make sure it is warm and sunny on my return to Melbourne!!!! Mum, get Beryl to say a few words to her mate for me



Snow makes a world of difference to this place. It has been grey and depressing the last month. The snow tends to make things so much brighter, lighter and brings people out of their houses. However, I got a few lessons from my European friends today about snow. I cant build a snow person (politically correct term) yet as the snow is not wet. When you pick it up it doesn’t meld in your hand, it is just like dust! I thought you could build a snowperson out of any snow! I suppose it is a bit like building a sand castle, the sand cant be dry!. I am learning! My friends also told me to watch out for yellow snow, but I knew what that meant :-)

The big Elka going up
in Freedom Square







Today I rug up for the first time, long johns are mandatory & I am glad I brought them, it was worth the $. We are shopping for Xmas trees and decorations, so, we meet at my apartment & go looking for ЁЛКА..(Xmas trees or Elka).... but of course you all knew what ЁЛКА means . Now I don’t know if we are living in the “Toorak” of Kharkiv, but there are no Scouts or Lions clubs selling ЁЛКА in Kharkiv, so we have only seen plastic ЁЛКА and the decorations are minimal. I don’t think the boys are taking me to the right shops!!! So we did not come home with ЁЛКА . However, we did find a couple of touristy type shops, (we had to go underground through a dentist surgery, and hairdressers to find them!) so I bought a Ukraine flag (small) for work, to add to my Malaysian flag, a key ring and we saw some traditional Ukrainian shirts etc. I also found the equivalent of my Aussie whacking stick (Paul, Bob, Fi, you know the one), so I think I will purchase one and display it at work! The range of souvenirs is not good. Maybe if I was in Kiev, it would be different. I have no doubt that I will be bringing back presents from airports......... I think I am going through about six of them to get home!!!!.... Oh I forgot! I went back to Promod and bought two more tops..... N, you cant stop me now!

The main street
Sums'ka

Trolley bus
runs on Electric
wires

Its amazing the
people you meet
in Kharkiv

Michal at the
souvenir kiosk

Michal dumpring snow
on my head

We didn’t have our normal night out on Friday night as last week, we had two work functions this week, one at Chateau.... to celebrate the Blueprint signoff

Philipp Steiger
& Christina

Sasha & Yevgeniy

Michal & Jozef

Sigi & Behzat

And another more important one at Pushka where I handed over the Aussie flag to be displayed! It was Christina’s last day in Ukraine before she left to go home for a break for Xmas. Last time we went to Pushka, we found..... two different rooms that we didn’t know existed. They are sort of more laid back areas where you can order Chinese, Japanese etc. It’s pretty cool. So we rock up to Pushka on Thursday night. I had been struggling with a sore throat so wasn’t at my best, but after a couple of red wines, I felt better..... as you do... As the beer and wine kicked in, we started to have a bit of fun

Given it was a weeknight, and we had been out the night before... we had a reasonably early night, but not before handing over the flag, which had been ironed to take out all the creases. How do you pronounce iron Sasha? (Sorry folks, in house joke)

Pushka staff couldn’t put it up that night, so I will go back shortly & take pics of the Aussie flag in Pushka...... my Aussie mark on Ukraine!

& that hopefully is where it will live,
next to the blue and white one







Maryna!!!! As I am showing Maryna some pictures I have taken since blasting off on this adventure, I flick to my babies, Bella and Middy. “I have two fat babies” she exclaims! So Hopefully next weekend, I will get to cuddle Maryna’s cats! I am soooooo looking forward to having a cat on my lap, purring its head off!!!

Work is going well, we have our blueprint signed off now, so we now get into the detail and hard work. Apart from the team I work with, I am slowly getting to know other people in the office. Most of the staff speak English but the people on the floor don’t. I prepared some presentations to communicate to the Secondary and Logistics workers and they had to be translated into Russian (thanks Dima & Sasha). Obviously I cannot deliver the presentations, but the reactions seem to be the same as they would be in Australia....:that means more work for us” !!! PMU is typical PM though, same politics but the people are nice.

I am planning when I get home, to purchase a few flags....Polish, Ukraine, Russian, German and Swiss. I want to put them up in our office to show what a multi cultural team we are & instil some of that mateship into PMU. I will also be picking up a DVD of Aussie Rules to bring back and show to the team and a sample of the Aussie legend.. ...Vegemite. No I didn’t bring any over as the customs rules said no food! But I think I will throw some Tim Tams and “black gold” into the hand luggage for them to try. If I get caught, I will loose it but I don’t think I will end up in a Ukraine jail.

Watching a video (Oceans eleven) yesterday & almost falling asleep, I was jolted back to reality by an absolutely shocking noise that I hadn’t heard before, coming from the front door. The door bell!!! I peeped through the hole but didn’t recognise the lady, but I figured I wasn’t going to get robbed or mugged so I opened the door. The Russian spiel was lost on me but I saw she had a clipboard and a bit of paper that I had seen before...... an electricity bill! My visitor was here to read the meter which is inside the front door. I let her in and she did her meter reading, gave me the bill and left. That was easy compared to the man I met in the lift going up to my apartment the other day. As I entered the lift and said “Prevyet”, he decided he wanted to have a full on discussion with me about something. I politely interrupted and said “ I am sorry, I don’t speak Russian”. This didn’t deter him... he kept talking and I got the feeling he was asking where I was from so I pointed to my chest and said “Australian”. He kept talking and I felt quite rude not responding, but he just didn’t get that I didn’t understand him. I slunk out of the lift, smiling at him, but I don’t think I made a friend. These are the moments I really don’t like as I don’t want to offend anyone and seem to be rude..... but what do you do? PM hasn’t come good with the Russian lessons that they promised, so my knowledge of the Russian language is not progressing to well. Thank goodness for my team mates who help me out in public and try hard to teach me a few words to get me through the basics.

The phone bills have been a bit expensive so Mum & Dad & I have been writing e-mails more frequently. I think they are getting the hang of it now as I usually get one a day & I must say I look forward to it. Any e-mails or comments on the blog are welcome from home.

I have been doing a jigsaw puzzle to occupy the dark hours on the weekend when I am not out socialising. It is ¾ complete & is good therapy for me when the weather is crap! More snow predicted for Wednesday, but I am told the weather is getting milder over the years... nothing like it used to be 10 years ago.........something about climate change!


xm