целый день гуляю

Howdy. It’s Saturday night and I’m lamely stuck at home reading and blogging. I guess I’m not really stuck here, as I’m free to go when and where ever I please, but since I don’t really know anybody here yet and it’s pretty chilly outside, I feel like holding up in the old apartment for another night. Unfortunately, I am still without internet for the time being, and am writing this in word to be uploaded later. I did get internet installed in the apartment yesterday, but apparently getting online isn’t as easy as just plugging in the cable and firing up the browser like it would be back home. Apparently my internet provider uses something called a VPN, which, not being a computer nerd, I had never heard of, but I ascertained that it’s some sort of exclusive network that requires specific configuration to access. I was given an instruction sheet in Russian with all the pertinent info for how to connect to this VPN, but since Ukraine is not Mac-friendly (like the rest of the world outside the US), the instructions were for Windows only. I figured out where to do the configuration on my Mac, and tried plugging in all the right numbers and codes given on the instruction sheet, but alas, success has eluded me. Yeah, it’s pretty frustrating. I tried calling the rep from the company today to see if he could help me, but he didn’t answer. I’m going to try to get a hold of him tomorrow and hopefully I’ll be up and running in the next couple of days, or at least before heading to Kiev on Wednesday. If all goes well, I’ll be able to post this from my own computer before I would even get the chance to make it back to the internet center.
So, yesterday was spent mostly dealing with internet stuff. Around noon I was about to head out to do some more exploring of the city, when literally as I was putting my shoes on to go out the door I got a call from the internet people that said they would be coming by in an hour to install the cable. So, that kept me at home. The guy came by in his big utility vest and box-o-cable to check out the apartment to see where to run the cable, then headed to the roof to take care of business. Since these old Soviet apartment buildings obviously aren’t wired for this sort of thing, the way the install things like internet or cable TV around here is to just hang a long wire from the roof along the side of the building and into the window of the apartment. There are a few other cords that run past my balcony window to apartments below mine. So, while Johnny cable-run was up top doing his thing, my landlady called to say she was bringing round the new landlord (which I had been told about when I signed the lease) in fifteen minutes or so. I thought it might get crazy with them and the internet guy all here at the same time, but the guy was really taking a long time up on the roof, so the others came and left well before he came back down. My new landlord is a guy named Alexander (real original), and he seems pretty nice. He checked out the apartment just to get a sense of his new investment, I guess, and seemed to be contemplating taking my TV. Did I mention I have a TV? I do, and it is kind of nice being able to watch sleazy Russian music videos every now and then. Thankfully a women who accompanied my landlord and who I can only assume is his wife seemed to convince him to leave it for my sake. The landlord was also given a set of keys to my apartment, which makes me a little uneasy, but I guess that’s pretty standard, huh?
After my new and old landlords left I stuck around waiting for the internet guy to come back down. He was seriously up there for about three hours, and I was beginning to suspect that he might have left. The cable was there, and I could bring it into the apartment, but it didn’t have an end piece on it so I assumed he wasn’t finished. Eventually he came back to wrap everything up. He drilled some holes, strung the cable into the apartment, and put the proper end piece on, and that’s when all my connection problems started. I eventually gave up and finally got a chance to leave my apartment that day, and only to head over to the market to buy some food to cook. I didn’t want to buy a lot of stuff, so I just got some pelmeny and sour cream, along with a little vodka for good measure. I had a nice pelmeny dinner, then did a little drinking while finally watching the movie Pulp Fiction, which I had copied from Netflix before coming. Of all the movies that I haven’t seen but should have, Pulp Fiction has always been the one that has confounded people the most, and so I kind of feel like more of a real person now for having seen it. It’ll be nice to never get that shocked and disappointed reaction from people when they hear I haven’t seen it. My verdict: pretty good. While I was watching it, I started hearing bangs and seeing flashes outside, so I went onto the balcony to see what all the commotion was and determined that there were fireworks going off somewhere. They sounded to be very close, but they were going off on the other side of the next apartment building over, and the side of the building was blocking my view. I could only see the flashes from the fireworks bouncing off the cliffs and trees across the street. I have no idea what the occasion was, but it was kind of fun in a pseudo-scary way, like the city was under attack or something (hopefully this was as close to that scenario as we’re going to get!) Oh, on Friday I also finally spoke to my local advisor/professor on the phone, and we arranged to meet on Monday to talk about what it is exactly I’ll be doing here. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Today was fairly productive. I headed downtown mainly to use the internet, but since I couldn’t figure out which marshrutka would take me there directly, I just decided to take one to the train station and walk again from there to downtown. Actually, it wasn’t on a marshrutka, but on a trolleybus, which I found to be almost four times less expensive than a marshrutka (60 kopeks vs. 2 grivna, or about 12 cents vs. 40 cents). The internet club was filled with noisy teenagers playing computer games, exactly like the Lonely Planet guide’s description. This kid next to me seemed to think that if you click the mouse repeatedly as hard as you can it will get things to work faster. After using the internet I wandered around the immediate area, discovering the Silpo Center, which I had ready about. It’s a small shopping center with a western-style grocery store. It may or may not come in handy in the future. For now I’ve been having pretty good success getting everything I need from my small local market. Some of the vendors there are even starting to remember me! I wandered around behind the center and discovered two orthodox churches and the Russian consulate, which will come in handy if I decide to take a trip to Russia while I’m here (it’s not really near the top of my list of places to visit this time around, though). I was getting tired and cold so I caught a marshrutka back home to my part of town. Before heading home I stopped at the market to pick up a few things to make dinner. I got some potatoes, onions, peppers, eggs, lavash (kind of like a super thin tortilla), cooking oil, and salt (a whole kilogram and a half no less), and along with the cheese and sour cream I had from yesterday I made delicious breakfast-style burritos. I have a feeling I’ll be making this kind of dish a lot. I needed a shower, and decided it would just be easier to take a straight-up cold shower than to try dealing with the pot of warm water like last time. It was easier and more efficient, but far less pleasant. I really hope the hot water comes on soon. Since then I’ve been doing some reading and blog writing. There appears to be a party of some sort in the apartment above me. Hopefully it won’t go on for to long. I’ll stop there.


-Austin