kiev, ukraine

i don't know what i will be able to write in 4 minutes from this internet cafe in a soviet-like suburb of kiev, in the basement next to the building i am being hosted in there is this place, the best kept secret of this area, full of teenagers playing games online, it could be in france, italy, germany, or the states, anywhere really...i saw two H2 today...yes the car...here the traffic is bad, the smog is worse, since there are still way too many cars from the 60s, trying to race with the newest bmw's and mercedes...but tonight on the independence square it was magical, strong and cold breeze, lots of people and lights, and i was thinking about what happened during the orange revolution on that same square...i also saw the dinamo kiev's stadium and some churches that blew me away....soooo much gold!!!

i got here in lviv, ukraine today after a 21-hour train ride from bratislava, which i enjoyed very much despite the cheap,drunk and loud british tourists.i went back to my beloved tescosupermarkets,so that was cool too. today i got into ukraine and then rode till here, where i am staying in yet another big and anonymous soviet-style building in the outskirts of town. i had the luxury of potato pierogies (sp?) and minestrone soup thanks to the kindness of O. at whose place i am staying. walking around the city makes me feel like i am in some kind of WWII movie. i don't know what it is about it, but it just feels and looks very different from any place i've been to so far...and this city has so many churches it's not even funny...it makes italy almost look like an amateur...tomorrow i will get a better look at them...it's interesting because they have the same style but they represent many different cults: greek orthodox,protestant,ukrainian orthodox (of 2 different kinds), armenian, and even greek-catholic,a mixture of orthodox calendar and the acknowledging of the pope. this is the most nationalistic part of ukraine, so people don't seem to want to speak anything but ukrainian,even though they do understand russian...so i can't really use my basic russian, although i entered the cyrillic-written side of the world today and i've been practising my reading skills...so i try to read every single sign like a little child who just learned how to read, because it takes me a minute or two for just a simple sign...
oh,when i got to bratislava i waited till the next morning to take a shower, and when i woke up there was no water at all...so when i got here i was going to take a shower, but there is no hot water, and there is no water whatsoever between 24:00 and 6:00...i guess i will wake up for a cold shower tomorrow...

some people call it luck...

yesterday on my way to the laundromat i found a $ bill on the ground, picked it up and put it in my pocket thinking it was a ten...i just realized right now going through the crap in my pocket that it was a HUNDRED $ bill!
i am also leaving tomorrow to italy/europe, i will be home for a good 2 weeks before i do some traveling...i am really excited although i am not done with finishing up what i have to take care of here...so i am still stressing out, and will be till i sit on my plane tomorrow...

-7

minus a week, just a week and i will be home...the insane amount of things i have to get done before i leave is daunting and i better not stress out too much, because i should be enjoying this time of the year...summer is about to start, fun is about to be had!

there's hope!

today i got notified that my H1B petition (H1B = work visa) got accepted, so i will receive my I-797 soon, with which i can apply for an actual work visa on my passport for the next 3 years...which means that SMU owns me...wow, is that what i am thrilled about? i guess so...but H1B has always meant hope, it's a huge step up from the student visa i have now...i used to think that the H1B meant being very close to residency, which i just learned is not true...plus it costs a heck of a lot of money! so i am happy to think that there's hope for other people like me...or rather, for the ones who pay! the other day i saw a bumper sticker that read: "we don't live in a democracy, we live in an auction". which means everything has a price...everything can be bought...think of bailbonds...think of immigration lawyers...it's interesting how all of this doesn't constitute corruption, because it's official and institutionalized...

two weeks.

two weeks till i get to go home. i haven't been home in two years, it's a big deal! fourteen days till my summer starts: summer 06 should be an awesome one, probably the best since summer 03. last year i was waiting for a job offer and couldn't leave this country, the year before i graduated and went straight into grad school after having switched continents...
so this is the plan:
may 11-25: home (guastalla, italy)
may 25- july 1: traveling (slovakia, ukraine, russia, estonia, latvia, lithuania, poland)
july 2- august 2: around italy (rome, tuscany and bologna) with the SMU study abroad program (teaching two classes and chaperoning)
august 2-15: home again!
august 16: back to dallas, tx.

Doing without a car in the States.

Read this article, it's pretty interesting! It sounds kinda normal to me, I almost got used to it now, but it's nonetheless inspiring.

Back for a little bit.

I am back in Dallas, TX, USA, for a couple of weeks before I leave for Argentina and Uruguay (woohoo). I made it back after 18 hours on the bus back to Texas, 5 of which were spent at the border...yes, 4 hours in line to even get to the border checks, and then I spent almost an hour by myself in the immigration offices while the whole bus was waiting for me, and I was scared they'd leave me there! As always, there's no comment to describe the border police...so now I am making sure, one more time, that I have everything I need to come back in from Argentina...here just a couple more days of school and this semester too is over...luckily I am not in grad school anymore, so I have no research papers, just grading. Also, I posted the pictures from my Monterrey trip here! Check them out! Here's me with the second biggest flag in Mexico!

Monterrey, part II

After another day in Monterrey, the first full day here, I feel like writing more...a lot of thoughts go through my head as I am living in a place that is a mix between the States and Mexico...so it has American chains and brands, people play American football here, but at the same time we're in Mexico, everybody speaks Spanish, or castellano, and everything is "dirty, loud, broken and poor", as most Americans would say. I guess that is how they see it, and now that I've been in the US for a long time I can kind of see where they come from...but still, there's so much they're missing! People are more simple, friendlier, more "normal", and I feel more alive here...social interaction is just Latino-like I guess, so it seems quite different from that in the States...the way cars drive, the way people walk and cross the street, the way people greet and spend time together, the way things look and work is just very close to what I am used to, at least before my time in the US, and it just seems so much more real!
They still have all the American trucks, chain stores, a lot of brands and stuff...and they probably look up to the States as some sort of model I guess,...yet it seems so different!
Today I went around town in a car twice, during the daylight and at night...and I learned some interesting things about this place that most Americans are so ready to look down upon: I went on a hill from where you can see the whole city, and where the 2nd largest flag in Mexico lies, on top of this hill. Well, I learned that to use the Mexican flag in non-official situations and without the due respect is prohibited, so you can't find any clothes or things with the flag...yeah with the colors you can, but not with the whole flag (colors + "shield"). You can't sing the national anthem just whenever and however you want, but you have to do it in the appropriate situation. This is a world away from what they do just 2 hours away over the border, where, as everybody knows, the flag is way overused and can be found in anything from bags to underwear...2 completely different ways of being "patriotic", although on both sides of the border there seems to be a lot going on about the flag and stuff, in the schools for once.
Also, I got to get groceries for cheap (including bread and cheese!) and I got to try some local specialties, although the number one seems the "cabrito": the legs of a kid (baby goat). Well, I got to try some sort of pumpkin immersed in honey, and some sort of cornbread cooked with butter...interesting, although kind of heavy! :)
No vegetarian restaurant for me today...hopefully I will get to go there at some point...tomorrow is the Horsetail Waterfalls (Cascadas Cola de Caballo) and maybe some caves (Grutas de Garcia)...and then Saturday I am off to Saltillo for the day, before I head back to Tejas on Sunday morning! But I better not think about that and go enjoy my night out!

Monterrey, Mexico.

here all is well. the bus was/is nice, except for the little detail that it broke down in san marcos, tx and we were waiting all night for another one that was coming from laredo, tx...in the meantime they had the great idea to put on movies, except that they were all in english without subtitles, so i don't know how many people were doing more than just watching images! (it's a Mexican bus)
finally at 6am, after having tried to make the bus run a gazillion times (which means doing 1 km on the highway, stopping on the side for 10 minutes, ...each time..) at 6am the new bus came to our rescue and brought up to laredo, tejas
we got on a mexican "Conejo", which is a bus a little smaller and quite crappier (not complaining, just describing), and then drove through the border. we got stopped by the mexican customs police, and they had a brilliant idea: since you guys have so much luggage and you're late and you wanna get going, we propose to you that if you pay 10$ EACH we will not check anything...(way to go, i feel much safer now)...of course me and other people refused to, so they got every single item out of the conejo and searched the ones that didn't want to pay...hahah but it was fine, then we got here at around 12:30 noon that is...then i messed up with the buses and got to R's house, very nice people.
the university is a polytechnic, and it's nice and full of foreign students from europe and guys with soccer jerseys...i am at their lab now...i also got to walk around and it was so much fun!
now i can see it through the eyes of the gringos, sort of, and i can see them saying: it's dirty, noisy, loud, unsafe, and whatnot...but guess what, so is italy then, and it's really fun anyway!
i got a "paleta", and i loved it, and i will get more tomorrow! a paleta is a homemade popsicle, with fruit and water in the same thing! haha :)
tomorrow i am definitely checking out the veggie restaurant that's on the lonely planet, easily the only one in town...and then the next day is Saltillo...