Things I LOVE

Ok, it's often said that word "LOVE" is overused, but in this life I know exactly what i love and I am extremely proud of the fact that I can tell you exactly the things I love and cherish in this life so much:

Talking every evening with my devoted husband (i got the best guy in the entire world, because he is always encouraging, supportive, smart, strong, and have never failed me in anything)

Endless hours of talking with my sister Kara (it's amazing how quickly time flies when we chat :), I am very blessed to have her and be so close to her)

Spending time with my parents, who are so loving it's never stops to amaze me, unconditional love does exist

My job, it's challenging, busy, gives me an opportunity to succeed

Traveling, I am too lucky to have an opportunity to travel so much (again, my husband contributes a lot to this)

Thinking of how many friends I have and how many people really care about me, I pray for most often and can't quite understand what I deserved to have such good friends in life and keep them (many of these friends are the families whose children I watched, those families made a huge impact on my life, and I am forever grateful to them)

My home in Minneapolis that my husband picked and worked on for many hours over the last 7 years or so

These are all the things that I love in my life, without these things I would not be a happy person. With these things I am very happy and really can't wish for anything more (ok, there is one thing I wish for and that is to have healthy kids when I get to have them) Other than that i am the happiest girl on the planet :)

Things I like

Good wine
Warm evening when I could walk outside (or sit on my balcony and drink good wine)
Friday -- because it's right before the weekend
Sleep -- nothing better than have a good 12 hour sleep at night
Talking on the phone -- the more the better, the less serious the conversation is the better too
Sitting at home while it's raining outside
Listening to music
Dreaming (day-dreaming included :))
Remembering (good memories, and bad ones that taught me so much in life)
My mom's food (it's the best in the entire world)

My gift...

... from my lovely husband is the best I have gotten in quite awhile. Matt got me a digital frame :) Along with the frame he got me a 1 GB memory card with all our wedding pictures on it. I haven't had any of the wedding pictures printed, so it was really thoughtful of him to give me such a wonderful gift. I can now see both of us happy on our wedding day every day I come home :)

Just in case you are wondering as to why Matt is giving me such exquisite gifts out of the blue, I would like to clarify that this gift was given for Christmas :) It's just that I was not able to use it until now. See, my sister's computer was broked in the beginning of January and I didn't have any change to move the pictures from my camera and web-sites onto the memory card for the digital frame. Since only this past Monday we got the computer back, now I am getting to the project of downloading all the pictures onto the memory card so I can finally use my lovely gift.

I can't wait to have the photos ready and start using the frame. I miss having pictures around the house, I miss seeing Matt's happy face :) I love looking at the pictures that bring back happy memories. Can't wait to finally start using the frame. Thanks hun for getting it for me, you could not have found a better gift :)

Tomorrow is Friday...

... and I am so happy for it. This week has been exciting and busy to say the least. First of all, Monday I landed at 4:40 am at Moscow airport from Munich. I had to spend about an hour in the airport, because my taxi thought that I was landing from England and that plane was not scheduled to land until 5:30 :) I guess, my sister mixed things up, which happens at times :) Then I got home and guess what I did. No, I did not get into the shower, I did not go to bed right away, I unpacked the treats I brought from Germany (Lindt chocolate) and then decided to read my book. So, I read for about another hour or so and then thought it was time to go to bed. 8 am I finally laid down to get some sleep (since that night I was flying and I only slept tops 2 hours on the plane). That day was a bit dramatic. I got up at 12, can you believe that I only slept 4 hours? Matt would never believe that :) Anyway, it was one of the worst days I have had in Russia, but oh well... Don't realy want to talk about it in details, but let's just say that it was full of accidents and drama.

Tuesday I got to work and realized that I used to like taking a vacation, because at my previous job somebody took care of my problems when I was gone. Now, though, the problems just pile up and by the time I get back I realize that I have a ton of fires to put down. So, Tuesday just flew by. I got home simply exhausted. But no, I didn't get to bed right away. Now, we have a computer at home, so I spent a few hours online, you know, catching up on browsing the internet and answering my mail and stuff. So, the week kept going on like this.

I have been extremely busy at work both Wednesday and Thursday. I had good intentions of going to the cards stores to get a few cards for a few of my friends, but whenever I got done with work, I had no motivation or strength left to go anywhere else but home, again thinking that once i get home I will be able to get to bed right away and again staying up much later than usual :)

However, Friday is a bit different story. Yes, it ended up being that I finish this blog today, so actually the title of the blog should be "Today is Friday..." but since I don't belive in changing what has been written, you will just have to keep that mind. Oh, the reason why I don't believe in change what is written, well the reason is rather strange. You can never take the words back that you speak, so whenever I write a blog I pretend that I am speaking to my friends at that point in time, so there you go, no changes in my blogs :) What has been written is always what I thought at that moment and never go back and change it. Although, I do admit that not everything that I write gets posted :) Some blogs are left forever as a draft...

Anyway, last night (Thursday) I got to bed after 1 am, because my sister is leaving to Germany today, and she had a hard time picking out what to wear. With a little bit of my help and help from my wardrobe she finished packing (late at night) and I was allowed to go to sleep. My alarm went off at 7 am this morning, and I simply just could not get off the bed. I was thinking of skipping work, but my sister suggested that I can just call in and come in late :) Which I did, I slept another 2 hours, and even though my work day is supposed to start at 9 am, today it started at 12 pm :) I texted my co-workers saying that I oversletp (a little white lie :)) and will be in later in the day :) Nobody minded and I feel a bit more rested than I would have been otherwise. Anyway, I know better than planning to go to a card store tonight :) I will just go there during the weekend, tonight I am just going to go home and drink some wine while sitting and watching TV and celebrating the end of a very busy yet successful week :) hoping that my parents will be able to get my passport in time for my interview at the embassy, and that I will be able to move in back with Matt soon in UK :) but that deserves a whole other blog :)

Ciao...

Munich

I love that city. Matt and I spent 3 days there over the last weekend, and I am most definitely in love with Munich. It's beautiful, peaceful, clean, inspiring and very much romantic :) Even though we were there only 3 days, we got to do quite a bit of stuff, we saw: the Olympic Grounds, BMW world, Newschwanstein Castle (very beautiful, truly amazing), English Garden (we saw people surfing in a little creek, literally surfing, and we also go to drink great beer in the beer garden by the Chinese tower, yes, Chinese tower in the English Garden in Munich :)) We also on our last day go to walk through a beautiful garden by Odeonsplatz.
Matt's parents' friends took us to another castle and drove us around the mountains :) It was great, the view was fabulous, the air was magic. Oh, we got to go to beer gardens every day, their beer is so much better that I have ever had :) an I am not a big fan of beer, mind you.
Even though it might seem like we have done quite a bit, the time seemed to pass slow and I did not feel rushed or overwhelmed. It was a nice pace :)
I definitely hope to return to Bavaria, I didn't get enough of it during this trip, but I am sure that my wonderful husband will make sure I make it to Munich a couple more times :)
I love my life....at least when I am traveling with Matt!!!

Seriously people, unite already...

I am confused about European Union. Supposedly they are like one organization that has common foreign and economic policy, yet they can't even agree on one universal form that you have to fill out in order to get a Schengen visa, and they certainly don't have one universal process of obtaining a visa. The process and the set of documents needed to get a Spanish visa is quite a bit different from that for Germany visa. German visa application process is even different from the Austrian one. It's insane really.

Anyway, those of my friends who are American, be grateful that you can just get up and go to any country in Europe. This is certainly a luxury. This whole deal with acquiring visas and prove to every person that you just want to travel and see the world is getting old. Every time you go in you need 2 applications filed (note, all applications are different from each other), pictures of your self (pictures requirements are different for each embassy, some require color, some require black, let alone certain sizes, some need the picture to be surrounded by oval of white paint, some forbit that, etc, etc) all copies of your old and new passports, internation and foreign passport mind you, if you don't have your old passport you have to write where it is located and why, you have to list all the places you have visited in the last 5 years, and so on and so forth, reference letter from work stating how much you earn and how long you have been working, statements from the bank proving you can afford your visit, paid reservation of you airline ticket and paid reservation of the hotel where you will be staying (mind you, you are not even sure you will be granted a visa at that point, so you might lose quite a bit of money on air travel and hotel reservation if you have to cancel them, etc) All this just to obtain a visitors visa.

So, I am really amazed that a European Union, can't just come up with one universal form and way of applying for a visa. I mean, how hard can it be if the countries can agree on their foreign and economic policy, to agree on visa application process can't be that hard, right? Anyway, I am just getting a little fed up with all this paperwork, that is all.

Social Security card

Do you have any idea how hard it is to change your last name on the social security card? Well, you would think that there is not much to it, right? Normally I guess there is not much to it, you just show up at the social security office and ask them politely to do the change. However, I haven't done that easy way when I was in the states, instead I left US with my old social security card with my maiden name on it.

So, after my husband and I filed for our taxes this year, we found out that oops I need to change my last name on my social security card. After doing some research online, we found out that I can bring all my documents into the embassy in Moscow and request a new social security card.

After we found that piece of information out, I went ahead and called American Embassy in Moscow. At that point, I paid 140 rubles just to have them give me a different number to call. They forwarded me to INS services. I called INS the next day and they informed that I should call the embassy for such information. Hmm, I think I have done that already. After a couple of minutes of talking, I called back the embassy, spent another 140 rubles to tell them that they don't provide any services for social security cards, and then the girl said: "oh, maybe you should be calling american citizen services" Hmm, maybe? And Oh? Anyway, after that I called the ACS, and that's where they told me that they only change social security cards for American citizens or green card holders. Here we go again, I am not either of those. At least the girl was nice enough and said that I should go ahead and bring all the documents needed for this and they will try to process it, and the worst case scenario the change will just get denied.

So, in a week or so once I have my passports with me and stuff, I will head over there to give a shot at changing my social security card information from abroad. Of course, she informed me that it's going to take at least a month. Oy. This is getting tiring dealing with all this stuff, I am telling ya. At least I can't complain that my life is ever boring :)

Siberia--part 2

Well, I am back from Siberia. I kind of liked it, but really there is not much to it. The city I visited was Novosibirsk. I did not have a chance to see the city itself much because I was on a business trip, but one of the days I was there I went out and about to look at my company's competitors, so I got to see a bit of a city from the car :) Anyway, I was not too impressed, the city was dusty, dirty and the roads were in horrible condition. But the weather was perfect, it was about 50F, which is pretty good for Siberia even in April.

I was initially supposed to go to 2 cities in Siberia, but my plans had to change because the plane that goes from Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarsk (about 600 km apart, both located in Siberia) was overbooked. Actually, the plane only held about 30 people and it was quite funny, my colleagues said that it had 2 little propellers and they were a little afraid for their lives :) I am glad that my company bought the last 10 tickets to the plane before I actually decided to go :)

Anyway, the trip was good, very successful work-wise, but it just proved to me once more that I am not cut out for traveling for work :) Thank God I am not a consultant :)