I’ll write more about the ups and downs of the trip later, but since work is so crazy and time is short, I’ll start with some quick pictures, and circle back around to the rest later.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
My arrival in Frankfurt. I’ve gotten so used to flying domestically, that I forgot what it was like to get on a really big plane.
(Artem, Sasha S. and Sasha B.)
After catching up with my guys from Kiev at the airport, we decided to head to downtown Frankfurt to walk around a bit, before picking up Matt and Ilya from the airport that evening. (It turns out, we were really on a quest for sausages and beer.)
Frankfurt has a lovely river walk through downtown. And, though it wasn’t quite as warm as I like, it was still a very pleasant day to be outside.
Sasha reminded me that I needed to get an actual picture of myself in Frankfurt, instead of just taking pictures of other things. I always forget that part.
All in all, the trip itself was long but uneventful, and the few hours we got to spend in Frankfurt before leaving for Jena was nice.
The final photographed event for the night:
The joke for the night was: “How many Ukrainians does it take to load an American van in Germany?”
Of course, it wasn’t until we loaded up, with me in the back buried under suitcases, that Ilya realized the van was a stick shift… which he doesn’t know how to drive. Fortunately, Sasha was happy to take the wheel on the 3 hour trek to Jena.
I had really been looking forward to my planned trips home in January and February. I was slated to be in SF the second and fourth weeks of the month; and then ten days in the middle of February.
Of course, work is now sending me to Philadelphia during the second week of January instead. This bums me out because — despite being ridiculously cold in that part of the country this time of the year (and precisely why we moved to Texas in the first place) — my trip was supposed to start on January 9th, which is just close enough to Russian Christmas (January 7th) that it would almost be like going home for Christmas to see my Dad.
Naturally, I’m still planning to be there at the end of the month. Unfortunately, that trip (coincidentally) is at the anniversary of my mother’s death… which hampers some of the fun a bit.
Here’s hoping that my next two trips home remain intact, in spite of crazy work commitments back east. (Is there an emoticon for crossing one’s fingers?)
