obsessions

I think i may have a teeny, tiny calendar obsession. It's only mid November and i've just made my 2nd 2009 calendar purchase. It's Japanese wood block prints... they're my favorite.. can you realy blame me? It's for work.

Back in college i always had one every year.. Escher prints, black & white photography, hot super fast sports cars :) .. would rip out the pics when the calendar was done, hang them up as my room art. I think after graduating and moving to LA i had a long break. After all with computers, palms, cell phone what could i possibly need a paper wall calender for.. that is so 20th century. And aren't i bit higher class than calendar art.

Now that i think about it, it was the trip to Ireland and a souvenier Ireland landscape calendar that got me back into it again. The last couple of years i've been good one for home.. last year one home and one for work, but this year, and my early start (this is the first time, i really have bought a calendar before the year has started (with the exception of the Ireland one).. i'm just a bit scared. But.. I resolve.. only one more.. only.. 3 that's it! i draw the line.. i'm sure i can make use of a third though...




p.s my first calendar purchase for 2009 was hot tennis guys with washboard abs.. not sure you can blame me there either.

Kiev

I love the Ukraine! Kiev is such a cool city, i totally recommend it. The Russian might be a bit tough, but you can do it :) ...

It was very interesting, I would classify it as very classic European city. (Though i have only been to Ireland, so not sure what my classification means :) ) And much more modern than i had expected. Also, less touristy but usually restaurants had English menus available. Very sad i did not even see one postcard in my travels, but i was in the office every day. I didn't get to the more arts & craftsy area that i wanted to go to.

I was very interested in there culture. After centuries of being invaded and conquered... Mongols, Poles, Russian. They still had they're own identity and self assurance. The USA elections took place while i was there. Though all over the only cable news channel i had that was in English at the hotel, the next morning it was only a small topic of conversation among the people i was working with. Yes, USA elected a new president.. Obama.. good. We have our own elections going on. It looks like they will be redoing elections again, i think for the second time this year.

Off topic, i tried rabbit.. very yummy. I stayed away from salo: Raw spiced pork fat, a great accompanyment to vodka shots.

home

It is good to be home in fabulous, sunny L.A.

I do love travelling, but a week spent by myself in a Russian speaking country, new bugs popping up at the end of the week taking over my touristy time.. makes home coming and my new apartment even sweeter. Yay, L.A.!

coffee

so i'm starting to realize, maybe i like travelling so much.. just for the coffee...

it is sooooo good here... Kiev, Ireland, Costa Rica.. Peru (though in peru i had more Coca tea than coffee) ... It was only after the trip to Ireland.. that i really even started drinking coffee.

America and our mass produced, cheap, Walmart culture :( ... I think Starbucks is the walmart of the coffee world. But now that i'm reminded of how good coffee can be, i'm even disappointed in Coffee Bean ...

Does anyone care about quality anymore?

amazing race

as i sit here at my "work away from work" listening to a russian conversation where i pick up possibly every 10th work.. and i'm still waiting on an example to research for our issue ... i'd thought i'd share with you my "super fun" weekend.

i knew ahead of time this would be a long trip. And you think i would have learned from 10 years or so of travelling back to the east coast, in the early years usually getting flights w/ a stop overa (to save money), to expect delays. But i was trying to manifest a very smooth day. After all LA to San Fran to Frankfurt... really what could go wrong there.. no snow delays for sure.

oh how wrong i was. My LA flight was delayed for 2 hours due to poor conditions in San Fran. Seriously ? Yes very strong winds, and what appeared, when we flew in, to be super strong drizzle! very scary. ok lets back up for a bit, back to LAX so i wait in the customer service line for an hour because i had the time, and it appears i'm going to miss my flight to frankfurt so why not get a new plan in place asap, sounds like a good idea to me. So the Evil (& i emphasis this) customer service guy, with a big smile on his face, assures me that.. i have 30 mins in San fran and that i have a good chance of making it to the international terminal for my flight. Now i also pride myself on being fairly good w/ directions, fairly navigable, and pretty quick, but on this i had a strong doubt that i could make it. And.. they wouldn't even confirm that this flight would leave when they're saying. Please.. can u give me a new itenary.. No!

so i land in San Fran and that's when the amazaing race begins. Seriously i felt like i was on that show. I slung on my back pack, and rolled out my carry on, off the plank started running. Found the international terminal bus, me and the girl who apears to have missed her flight to Korea get on. International terminal.. start running... down a long straight away.... damn i'm in bad shape, heavy breathing half way down.. Gate 77.... stairs.. going down.. fingers crossed.. please please please.. it's like 1:50.. my flight was scheduled to leave 1:48... downstairs.. LED board, flight 1290 to Frankfurt: "CLOSED"... and the worst, as i looked out the window, sad eyes, my plane sat right there. i know it missed me, it had sad eyes too! boarding gate just pulled away from the plane door, and no one in site down at the terminal, like a ghost town. I try a little wave, hey maybe the pilot would take pity on me & come running out through the boarding door... no such luck :(

so as i sad no one around, seriously, no helpful gate person to speak with. Oh look, how convienent, at gate 88, 3:30 flight to frankfurt.. i go over there... no gate people.. only people waiting. Does anyone believe in help over here. So i start going back down the terminal, and see a customer service phone, tried Delta.. they tell me i need to speak to Lufthansa, b/c that's who my flights booked under. So not really sure why i do this, instead of calling lufthansa, i go back to gate 88, all the way down the hall to: "speak to someone in person". No one is still there of course, but there a customer service phone there. So i try Lufthansa, now at least the Delta girl sounded helpful, the lufthansa guy was evil, said i needed to go back through Delta b/c they were responsible for the delay....

so i head all the way back down the hall again.. through security.. to the Delta ticket counter.. wait a good 30 minutes or so , as the same people who were at the desk when i got there finally got processed, and speak with my lady. "Hello, i've missed my flight to Frankfurt, can u help me".... "oh let me see... clickly click click... we've got you booked on the flight tomorrow"... come one now seriously, i've wasted all this time to spend a night in San Franscisco. I wouldn't have minded the lost day as much, if the evil customer service guy in LA could have taken care of this for me then, so at least i spent a night at home. So i begged and pleaded... and finally mentioned the magic words that i had no luggage checked in, only carry one. And with much more clickly clicks, and a few phone calls. She gets me on the 3:30 flight. Did i mention we landed about 2pm. So she prints me out a card.. and i run to security. "where's your boarding pass?" i show here the card.. "that's not a boarding pass".. i'm about to argue and look at it.. and it is odd, she's like u need to go to Lufthansa Aisle 4, if anyone is still there.. she says... how sweet. So i run.. down the aisles.. phew someone is there, and they actually help me. 3pm .. print me out one boarding card, what about my connection to Kiev.. this seemed really confusing for them.. so i'm just like ok. run back to security. luckily no line. i pass!.. and run.. all the way down the hallway again, gate 88,,, down the stairs.. oh look they haven't even started boarding yet, i have a little luck.

So i do make this plane, yay! in the very last row, of non-reclining seats, with a "bulkhead" down below, so i can't even put my back pack under the seat in front of me, and to strech my legs i kind of need to share w/ the guys next to me. But i'm on my way to Europe! they can't stop me now. but they can delay me. This flight is now delayed, i think it was about 2 hours again. Technical landing gear issue. Hey what'ya gonna do. I'd prefer to have a 100% chance at landing safely. Now i don't even know if i had a connecting flight to Keiv or not, i'd prefer to think that there was.

I arrive in Frankfurt, 2 hours late, check the flight board.. maybe mabye... nope i don't see one Kiev on there. Ok, back to customer service... waiting waiting. My German customer service guy, very help. I have to give him props, he was the best of the day. A possible mid/late 40ish, not sure i can describe him, but if he wasn't a flight customer service guy, i'd picture him working in a kookoo clock company. So we work out a plan, there's a flight to Berlin, and from there, with a 4 hour layover i can take a Ukraine airlines flight to Kiev. Boarding pass for berlin flight, voucher for Kiev. well.. i hope it works. ok 40 mins for berlin flight, need to go terminal A (landed in B) and off i go.. down escalater through tunnel. Try & call my contact in Kiev who was going to pick me up, whom i'm probably late for. I think he waiting at the airport already. and get my my new UA flight number.

Short flight i land in Berlin. I talk to the Lufthansa ticketing about my UA flight, because this voucher scares me. She couldn't help me too much, though she did print out my itenerary.. and give me a 10Euro food voucher, because she is very sorry for the long layover. I've got to thank the Germans for they're value of promtness and efficiancy :) I eat at the very nice restaurant there.. start feeling a little better. Then take off around the airport, let me find internet.. This airport is tiny! one big circle, all boarding windows & ticketing gates, no place to sit except for the restaurants. I get a cappachino and chat with Sumar , originally from Lebanon, living in Berlin for 19 years. he helps me find internet , yay.

and they're are some comforatable seats here, i try a mini nap for half an hour. It's 5:15 let me head over to UA airlines. Huge line.. i head up there.. he takes my voucher with no issue yay. And he also takes my carry on bag, booo. "This is way to heavy for carry on" .. oh well, last leg what can go wrong now. I'm on my last flight, and things start looking up when the beverage lady comes by. The Ukrainain next to me orders a Peeru (beer) and he gets a large can of Carslburg. Carslburg, yay! brings back memories of Ireland. I'll take one of those......


oh p.s. ha i forgot about my morning adventure. So being i was going to be sitting on a 10 hour flight, of an 18 hour jouney, i thought i'd be a good idea to me to get up early and go for a little run in the morning. I make it up 6am yay, grab keys and am out the door. Sun was just coming up, run felt good. Back at home... keys. hmm.. no gold key what's going on.... i had grabbed the wrong set! they had my apt. door keys.. but they'd had just recently put on a different loop & they got attached to my unimportant key loop. I did not have the key to the main apartment building door!!! and it's like 6:30 am... i don't want to wake people... eventually i get in.. don't even ask.