Don't know if you've seen the movie Before Sunrise, but basically that happened to me and a young woman today, except that instead of running around a romantic city all night long we were stuck in an airplane, and then the Frankfurt airport. So my travel plans have already been altered as we hope to meet up in Bucharest in a couple of weeks.
Regarding less-sensational personal revelations, I made both my connections (Frankfurt and Dusseldorf), the second one just barely, but of course barely counts. So now I have taken my first walk around Kiev. This was a tremendously surreal experience after years of studying the various Kiev webcams pointed at Independence Square. Night fell fast here at around 5 PM, which is actually quite perfect considering my jet lag. The sidewalks are slippery with dirty ice, some of that ice quite thick. The natives slip and slide on this stuff, sometimes deliberately attempting to slide along it short distances in order to cover the distance more efficiently.
The hostel here is full and active. Most of the guests are online; obviously myself included. I am seated in a lounge area watching an HD TV showing Ukrainian programming.
I learned that one group of people who fill Ukrainian hostels are Russian-based foreigners whose 3-month visas in Russia have expired. They must leave the country until paperwork for a new visa is completed, a process that can take weeks or even over a month.
Tymoshenko TV ad on right now.
I suspect I'll be able to sleep through the snorers tonight, considering I have only grabbed a few minutes of sleep on the heels of a poor night of sleep in NYC (my fault; too much fun).
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
On the Run: NYC
Dropped off minutes ago at West 46th and 9th Avenue, in the Hell's Kitchen district of New York City, after a heart-pounding taxi ride through city traffic filled with (what appeared to this placid Atlantan to be) a couple dozen near-accidents scored by a chorus of angry horns and, on the radio, Billy Joel's "Tell Her About It" (shudder). Night is falling outside the Mercury Bar, which I picked in part because of its proximity to Amy's place, and also because of the Guinness sign overhead. It's basically a sports bar, but with classy leather booths and a friendly waitress named Lina who told me about a DJ friend of hers who I might be interested in contacting. So I am already networking. Amy and Paula will arrive soon; I'm writing to fill the time before their arrival.
Monday, January 11, 2010
My Last Full Day in Atlanta
I'm just sitting at the Buckhead Mercedes/SmartCar center, so I might as well blog. I'm getting a tire replaced before I turn the SmartCar over to Greg, who drives off in it this evening. Cost is nearly $200, $125 for the tire and $65 for the labor. The last month has been full of expensive surprises.
Tomorrow I fly to NYC for a last evening with my friends up there. Then it's off to Kiev. I decided to arrange for a taxi in Kiev to take me from the airport, because I know I'm going to be exhausted and stressed from trying to make two connections between New York and Ukraine.
Friend Liza loaned me a kick-ass backpack that is a considerable upgrade from the one I currently use. I will finally do a dress-rehearsal packing of my stuff tonight in order to see what I can realistically carry.
Friends Laura and Bryan loaned me a pair of gloves that will be much appreciated.
Yesterday I bought some great new shoes from REI that are both club-appropriate and sensible for walking in the cold weather.
Brookstone offers rechargeable heated insoles, but at a hundred bucks these are well outside my price range. $4 versions of these sorts of things can be had at REI, but they are for one-time use only. I'll let my feet suffer a little.
Tomorrow I fly to NYC for a last evening with my friends up there. Then it's off to Kiev. I decided to arrange for a taxi in Kiev to take me from the airport, because I know I'm going to be exhausted and stressed from trying to make two connections between New York and Ukraine.
Friend Liza loaned me a kick-ass backpack that is a considerable upgrade from the one I currently use. I will finally do a dress-rehearsal packing of my stuff tonight in order to see what I can realistically carry.
Friends Laura and Bryan loaned me a pair of gloves that will be much appreciated.
Yesterday I bought some great new shoes from REI that are both club-appropriate and sensible for walking in the cold weather.
Brookstone offers rechargeable heated insoles, but at a hundred bucks these are well outside my price range. $4 versions of these sorts of things can be had at REI, but they are for one-time use only. I'll let my feet suffer a little.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Prison Break: How to Leave a Country (Part 2)
I wrote earlier that I am inefficiently filling my blog with scattershot observations and tips about leaving the U.S. for a while for the benefit of others who wish to do something similar, and that I hope to compile these into a coherent series of pages in the future.
So here's another random tip, this one regarding payment of last bills. If you're like me you get a dozen different bills. I have utilities bills, cable bills, a web-hosting bill, cell phone bill, and so on. Some services you'll want to continue paying for (my Eurotrash web site hosting fee, for example). Most others you'll want to cancel.
If you're afraid you're going to forget about a bill, begin a spreadsheet a couple months before you leave where you list each and every bill that pops up on your statements as well as the cost of those bills. Eventually you should have a good, definitive list of who is asking you for money and a rough idea about how much money they're asking for (keeping in mind the fluctuating cost of heating and so on), so you can be sure you settle things with everyone by the time you fly out.
Just a random tip, but I didn't want to lose that thought.
So here's another random tip, this one regarding payment of last bills. If you're like me you get a dozen different bills. I have utilities bills, cable bills, a web-hosting bill, cell phone bill, and so on. Some services you'll want to continue paying for (my Eurotrash web site hosting fee, for example). Most others you'll want to cancel.
If you're afraid you're going to forget about a bill, begin a spreadsheet a couple months before you leave where you list each and every bill that pops up on your statements as well as the cost of those bills. Eventually you should have a good, definitive list of who is asking you for money and a rough idea about how much money they're asking for (keeping in mind the fluctuating cost of heating and so on), so you can be sure you settle things with everyone by the time you fly out.
Just a random tip, but I didn't want to lose that thought.
A Good Little DJ Tool - Calculate BPMs of Your MP3s
I was about to spend hours calculating BPMs for my thousands of Eurotrash songs. Then it occurred to me that somebody must have already written a freeware program that would do this automatically with digital music. I was right. And you can even view the final results in a "beats per minute" column in your regular file view. Fantastic! I am DJ King Pigeon, and I approve this message!
Download it here: http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, it seems to be skipping the m4a (i.e. iTunes files). Will see if there is a workaround for that.
UPDATE (10 January 2010): Seems there is no software out there that can calculate iTunes BPMs.
Download it here: http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, it seems to be skipping the m4a (i.e. iTunes files). Will see if there is a workaround for that.
UPDATE (10 January 2010): Seems there is no software out there that can calculate iTunes BPMs.
Ukraine - Hostel Booked
"Irony" has been the operative word this week here in sunny Atlanta, where temperatures plummeted into the teens (that's in degrees Fahrenheit) and two inches of snow and ice prevented most friends from making it to my Friday "Going to Kiev" get-together. There is a larger party tonight which will make up for some of that.
My friend Nathan, at whose Decatur house I am staying, was not able to drive up the steep and icy hill just outside his front door, so we nixed our last Vortex/Apres Diem night plans and hiked to the James Joyce Pub instead.
The hike was fun. In the early darkness we wandered through a woodsy area where some unknown wild animal crunched around in the leaves by the trail (my wind-up power flashlight failed to flush it out, but I'm sure it was a wolf ;-)). As we crossed a small bridge a MARTA train gracefully swung by underneath, its amber windows glowing and a few passengers visible as it glided towards Atlanta.
Once at the James Joyce bar counter, an older woman walked up behind Nathan and put her hands over his eyes saying, "I hope you're who I think you are." He wasn't, and she laughed and apologized and went on about how she had met somebody at the bar before who wore a sweater similar to Nathan's. It was all terribly awkward. I suspect this was her version of a pick-up line; that her story was fiction. This being my last Friday night in Atlanta for at least a few months, I was not interested in having a kooky woman invite herself into the conversation so that she could awkwardly hit on married Nathan.
Fortunately, friends Bryan and Laura arrived. Conversation was delightful. Laura flushed out plans to pursue freelance writing, we speculated about what the best bar in America is (and what qualities a great bar should have in the first place), and we weighed the merits of Def Leppard versus Poison. Bryan and Laura gave us a lift back to the top of Nathan's hill, we hiked down it, and after going to bed at 11 PM I awoke refreshed enough to be penning this blog entry.
Today I booked three nights at a hostel in Kiev, so I now have a place to go when I arrive. Picking one was tough; many highly-rated hostels can be found on the hostelworld.com website. I told myself I could sample several during my visit if I so desire, so if I'm unhappy with the first one I'll just move on to another.
Tours to Chernobyl were advertised on the web site as costing "a small fee," but the confirmation email revealed that small fee to be 120 euro per person, which is not a small fee at all. Will likely have to do this, though; it's a rare opportunity.
Back of my heel is injured, but Nathan, who leads a very active lifestyle, quickly diagnosed the condition and recommended stretching exercises that will, over time, solve the problem. I already sense improvement.
My friend Nathan, at whose Decatur house I am staying, was not able to drive up the steep and icy hill just outside his front door, so we nixed our last Vortex/Apres Diem night plans and hiked to the James Joyce Pub instead.
The hike was fun. In the early darkness we wandered through a woodsy area where some unknown wild animal crunched around in the leaves by the trail (my wind-up power flashlight failed to flush it out, but I'm sure it was a wolf ;-)). As we crossed a small bridge a MARTA train gracefully swung by underneath, its amber windows glowing and a few passengers visible as it glided towards Atlanta.
Once at the James Joyce bar counter, an older woman walked up behind Nathan and put her hands over his eyes saying, "I hope you're who I think you are." He wasn't, and she laughed and apologized and went on about how she had met somebody at the bar before who wore a sweater similar to Nathan's. It was all terribly awkward. I suspect this was her version of a pick-up line; that her story was fiction. This being my last Friday night in Atlanta for at least a few months, I was not interested in having a kooky woman invite herself into the conversation so that she could awkwardly hit on married Nathan.
Fortunately, friends Bryan and Laura arrived. Conversation was delightful. Laura flushed out plans to pursue freelance writing, we speculated about what the best bar in America is (and what qualities a great bar should have in the first place), and we weighed the merits of Def Leppard versus Poison. Bryan and Laura gave us a lift back to the top of Nathan's hill, we hiked down it, and after going to bed at 11 PM I awoke refreshed enough to be penning this blog entry.
Today I booked three nights at a hostel in Kiev, so I now have a place to go when I arrive. Picking one was tough; many highly-rated hostels can be found on the hostelworld.com website. I told myself I could sample several during my visit if I so desire, so if I'm unhappy with the first one I'll just move on to another.
Tours to Chernobyl were advertised on the web site as costing "a small fee," but the confirmation email revealed that small fee to be 120 euro per person, which is not a small fee at all. Will likely have to do this, though; it's a rare opportunity.
Back of my heel is injured, but Nathan, who leads a very active lifestyle, quickly diagnosed the condition and recommended stretching exercises that will, over time, solve the problem. I already sense improvement.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Final Days in America
December was spent moving out of my apartment. It was hell.
I moved about 80 bankers boxes of stuff to Seth's office for storage. The apartment was pretty empty when I left for the winter holidays; just furniture remained. My time with my mom and sister, who live in Central and Northern Virgina, was wonderful, but obviously no progress could be made in moving during my visit.
While I was in Northern Virginia my landlord sent me an email telling me he was charging me $145 for damages I'd done to the walls. He said he would charge me even more if there were any other problems. I did some research online and found sites that said that the security deposit, which he had pocketed as a penalty for my breaking the lease, could only be used for such repairs (in other words, he could not keep my security deposit for himself and then charge me an additional $145 in damages). I was in for a fight with my landlord.
When I returned to Atlanta I went over to my friend Nathan's house, which he had kindly offered to me as a place to stay in comfort during the remainder of my time in America. But the keys didn't work. He was out of town, so I had no choice but to return to my nearly empty apartment and sleep there wondering where I would spend the days between the end of my lease and his return.
The next morning I found a back-up key that got me in. Relief.
I spent last Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of New Year's Eve day Thursday cleaning the apartment. My downstairs neighbor Matt was thrilled to have my bookshelves; the rest of my furniture was picked up by the Salvation Army. I gagged on the fumes of floor-cleaners, appliance paint, oven cleaner (4.5 years of grease in that oven), and bleach in my efforts to get the place looking awesome.
I might have a future as an apartment cleaner, but it was not in the financial interest of the landlord to agree, so during the walk-through we went to battle over the $145. We fought and fussed, and in the end I handed him $80 in cash, which he accepted, and I was done with it. Strangely, after the negotiation, he seemed quite cheerful with me, almost as if he half-admired me for standing up for myself.
There was a lot of, "Wow, four and a half years!" and that sort of thing.
On my way out I said goodbye to the best mailman on earth, Lee, and then drove away from the apartment for the last time.
Moving out was hell, but Nathan's house in Decatur is heaven. I had it to myself until tonight, when Nathan returned from Africa severely jet-lagged and sleep-deprived. He went to sleep around 7 PM and he is sleeping still.
Tomorrow I have to fix a flat on my SmartCar and will likely get the car serviced before turning it over to my friend Greg. On January 12 I leave Atlanta for New York, and on January 13 it's off to Kiev.
I moved about 80 bankers boxes of stuff to Seth's office for storage. The apartment was pretty empty when I left for the winter holidays; just furniture remained. My time with my mom and sister, who live in Central and Northern Virgina, was wonderful, but obviously no progress could be made in moving during my visit.
While I was in Northern Virginia my landlord sent me an email telling me he was charging me $145 for damages I'd done to the walls. He said he would charge me even more if there were any other problems. I did some research online and found sites that said that the security deposit, which he had pocketed as a penalty for my breaking the lease, could only be used for such repairs (in other words, he could not keep my security deposit for himself and then charge me an additional $145 in damages). I was in for a fight with my landlord.
When I returned to Atlanta I went over to my friend Nathan's house, which he had kindly offered to me as a place to stay in comfort during the remainder of my time in America. But the keys didn't work. He was out of town, so I had no choice but to return to my nearly empty apartment and sleep there wondering where I would spend the days between the end of my lease and his return.
The next morning I found a back-up key that got me in. Relief.
I spent last Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of New Year's Eve day Thursday cleaning the apartment. My downstairs neighbor Matt was thrilled to have my bookshelves; the rest of my furniture was picked up by the Salvation Army. I gagged on the fumes of floor-cleaners, appliance paint, oven cleaner (4.5 years of grease in that oven), and bleach in my efforts to get the place looking awesome.
I might have a future as an apartment cleaner, but it was not in the financial interest of the landlord to agree, so during the walk-through we went to battle over the $145. We fought and fussed, and in the end I handed him $80 in cash, which he accepted, and I was done with it. Strangely, after the negotiation, he seemed quite cheerful with me, almost as if he half-admired me for standing up for myself.
There was a lot of, "Wow, four and a half years!" and that sort of thing.
On my way out I said goodbye to the best mailman on earth, Lee, and then drove away from the apartment for the last time.
Moving out was hell, but Nathan's house in Decatur is heaven. I had it to myself until tonight, when Nathan returned from Africa severely jet-lagged and sleep-deprived. He went to sleep around 7 PM and he is sleeping still.
Tomorrow I have to fix a flat on my SmartCar and will likely get the car serviced before turning it over to my friend Greg. On January 12 I leave Atlanta for New York, and on January 13 it's off to Kiev.
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