A taste of Some Pictures

So, a few of the photos from the photographer are online. There blog has a section for our event. We will see in time just what all we get from them, but these look great. For information purposes, and for google rating assistance, here is a link to there website. Its Erin Johnson Photography.

My friend who was along, also snapped some pics, you can see his here.

WeddingS

So I went and got married this weekend. I'll put up various photos and interesting tidbits about the event. Come back and check, there will be stuff here soon.

Great fun event, a wonderful bride and good friends and family...

Masha hard at work.

This process has so much paper work.  Masha is busy trying to get her moms paperwork done.  How sad it will be if her mom can't come.  It shouldn't be a problem but its taking lots of Masha's time.

Forgetful

I forgot to bring my camera this time. So what few pictures I take are with my phone, and the quality is marginal at best.

Today Masha and I went to the clinic and she had her cast removied. It was very interestig, and a little tramatic for Masha. This was a trama clinic, so every one there had a cast of some kind. We waited with a group of old people, with various boddy parts in casts, and 1 young boy. Masha joked that only old people, little boys, and Masha break things.

I wont go into detail of Masha's tramatic event, but it was very interesting to end up standing alone with a group of old Russians, chattering to me. I think I was getting advice? I just smilled and noded and they didn't seam to notice that I had no idea what they said. It seamed like a moment out of some strange comidy, these old people acting concerned with casts on there arms and legs. Very strange.

Every day here has been aboslutly perfect. Blue skys, light clowed cover or none. It rained one night, but as far as the daytime goes it has been absolutly perfect. Masha said this will be the hottest week of they year, and its maybe 80 degrees, but probably more like 75. I had to appoligis to her, virginia is colder in the winter and warmer in the summer... Even though the wether has been perfect, we have spent a total of maybe 1hr outside. Mostly masha can't get around so we go nowhere...

Still its a great time, and we are getting her things all packed away... Olga was displesed with me for the Superior Pack being dirty. It even had dog hairs, shame on me... After she cleaned it out, there was some dirt in the bottom and dried leaves. It was good to use. I guess now there is a little bit of northern minnesota dirt her in Russia...

Packing up Masha

We are packing up Masha's things.  We will need to make a second trip it seams.  Olga is a packing master, and they are systimaticaly packing and documenting all things.  I'm not much help except for things that are hard to reach or something needs holding.

MY Bag

I got to watch my bag load into the airplane.  My seat is kind of in the back end of the plane.

Landed

This flight has to be one of the best ever.  Having WiFi on the plan is amazing.  I will definitly seek it out in future air travle.

In flight

I'm on my way to atlanta, and there is wifi on the plane :D

At the Airport, flying off to Russia agin.

I'm sitting at the airport, waiting to board my flight to atlanta so I can fly from there to Moscow. The woman at the ticket window scared the crap out of me. Here is a discription of what happened...

I'm waiting in line, finaly its my turn and I walk up to the little checkin computer. I swipe my passport and then enter my flight number. The computer says, I need "Special Handaling" So I try again, this time enteing my ticket number. Same message. So I wave over the woman, and show her. She asks where I'm travling, I tell her Atlanta then to Moscow. She informs me that its so they can check my Visa. I show it to her, and she starts pulling up infomraoitn on her computer. She asks me what my flight number is, so I tell her. She says "There is no Fligh 1565", so then she asked, where are you flying to again, I again tell her, Atlanta then to Moscow, she says, "hmmm, there is no flight 1565 to Atlanta, only 1997" So I hand her my printout of my ticket information. The date in the lower left is of the day I printed the information, so, July10th. She then says, to me "Oh, your flight was yesterday thats why I can't find the flight number..."

I staired at her in disbelife for a moment, then just said "No, its today at 11:20", I looked at the papers in ther hand, and I saw the place it said July 11th and pointed to it. She appoligesed and informed me that the flight number had been changed to 1997. She printed my tickets and everything was just fine.

For that one split moment I thought I had missed my flight.

Russia here I come again...

Its a few weeks away now, but my 3rd trip to Russia is comeing up. I will go the Ivanovo on July11th and return July18th. I will bring Masha back with me, so I'm very exited. There is no big events planned for this trip, just to go and help prepair her to come home with me. I'm sure we will find some entertaning things to do also.

Masha Comes

I just wanted a quick update to quel the rumers.  Yes, Masha will be ariving.  I will take another trip to Ivanovo, to help her pack, provide aditional lugage capasity, and to see her off from her home land.  I will go July 11th, and we will return together on July 18th.  So of course watch for more updates in July, and into the future, as I will list wedding plans and info here.  Also, for the record, We will be going to both Nina's and Brandons weddings, so every one will have an opertunity to meet Masha.

Not sure why, but I enjoyed this graphety from Иваново.

The "Я не могу" is part of some thing that goes on past the picture and is not part of the alien.

I was just thinking how I had lots more pics to share, so I should through up some.

Seams like there was live music everywhere...

Floriday

So I have been in Lakeland Florida since Friday. We played in the national paintball tournament. I played yesterday and my squad took 30th out of 54 teams, this is much better than our 37 out of 42 last year. Our other squad made it to the final 4, and at this time it looks like they took 4th place. For only the second year of having a team these are very good results. Better than last year anyway.

I will get a few pictures from Ben (our photographer) to put up here. With it some more info about our event.

Cover the the MN Daily.

So The press came out to one of our Paintball Team's practisis, and took some pics and asked questions.  We made the cover of there School newspaper, which is one of the most cerculated print news sources in MN.  The article is online here.

Here is a close up of the picture from the cover of the paper...

The press!!!!

The school paper came and took pics of us for the paper.

The MS 150

Once again I will ride int he MS150. I need to raise about $300 for this event, and hopefully with the help of my faithful readers I can raise more.
Click here to Donate.
It is a long bike ride, and for a good cause I am told. Thanks for any support...

Traffic

So I had an update about my traffice once befor.  Here it is again for sng.  Notice the spike from each trip.  I like the level of sustained traffic after the seocnd trip...

The fail

Lolz

This is my now.  A friend is trying to show me something with his BB, and has failed...

Lolz

My little Nephew

I took this picture of one of Megans ultrasounds yesterday.  I just wanted to shair how cool it is.

With pictuers also...

Test

Phone to blog testing...

New Phone

I hate to have a new post, I really like the one thats at the top of the page.  But we must move forward.  I will keep this blog up to date on all of mine and masha's efforts.  As we pass hurdles in the Imigration proces and draw closer to a wedding date.  This will be the primary method if information distrabuiton.

I got a new phone.  Its a HTC G1.  Comanly called the Google phone.  It is truly an amazing piece of technology.  I have a strong feeling that I am now living in the future with this divice.  I can take pictures and uplaod them strate from the phone.  I'm working on intgrating that.  If I get it done right, there will be single image posts from time to time strate from the phone, possibley some video to (but thats a little harder).

So every one knows about wikipidea and how much information is on it and available.  Many of the articles have gelocation information in them.  You don't see it when you read the article, but it places them in a location on google earth.  Well with the G1, you can actualy have an augmented reality.  It turns the camera on, and you look around like you are looking through the camera.  It works in conjunction with the GPS in the phone and you can see icons floating over buildings then when you touch them on the screen (its a touch screen) it gives a small part of the wikipediea article.  Its an app for turists, so when you are in some strange city you can look for interesting things about the city...

Picture taken RIGHT NOW, as I sit with Ryan in a coffee shop...

Love

Masha and I have a very strong and deep love.  We have decided to get married.   I proposed to Masha in Moscow on 9 January 2009.  There is no date set at this time, we can not set a date untill the immigartion process is further along.  The current estimate is that she will be in the US some time around August.   It might be sooner, it might be later.  We will get married during 3 months after Masha's arrival and everybody will be informed about this great event.  Now congratulations for the engagement are being accepted.

Moments after Proposal.

Happy together.

A bridge in Иваново.

Train station in Moscow.

---

ПЕСНЬ  ТОРЖЕСТВУЮЩЕЙ  ЛЮБВИ
Мирра Лохвицкая

Мы вместе наконец!.. Мы счастливы, как боги!..

Нам хорошо вдвоём!

И если нас гроза настигнет по дороге,— 

Меня укроешь ты под ветром и дождём

Своим плащом!

И если резвый ключ или поток мятежный,

Мы встретим на пути,— 

Ты на руках своих возьмёшь с любовью нежной

Чрез волны бурные меня перенести,— 

Меня спасти!

И даже смерть меня не разлучит с тобою,

Поверь моим словам.

Уснёшь ли вечным сном,— я жизнь мою с мольбою,

С последней ласкою прильнув к твоим устам

Тебе отдам!

More to Come

Sorry about the ranting.  I have many more fun storys to tell about my trip, as well as pictures.  Now is not the time, I need to sleep, and go to class in the morrning.  Keep watching for some positive updates, now that chicago is behind us.

Chicago

Did I mention yet, How much I HATE the chicago airport?

Worst one ever.

Domodeved in Moscow makes it look like slow and confused.  Minneapolis makes it look pathetic.  I wish I could just yeal out how crapy this place is.  I walked around for almost an hour looking for a place to charge my laptop.  There are none.  The Internet works, but I have to pay for it.  I don't mind paying, but they force you to look at advertisments.  Come on, I'm paying for the service, don't show me F*** adds.

They took away my apple and sasuges at customs.  The one guy was nice, but the other was rude.  When I made my decleartion of 1 liter of alchohol, he looks at me and says "Your one of those people... GO to gate 4"  At gate 4 they took away my apple and diddn't bother to check my alchohole.

Then to make it worse, they check your lugage on through to your domestic flight, and then make you go out into th eparking lot.  So after airport security in Moscow, Government security in Moscow, and Airline security in Moscow, Customes complete with bags being all looked through.  You then have to exit the airport and start over with security.  And they are so slow here.  And the fat, chigago people.  Being in Russia for 10 days, you start to get used to every one being more or less fit.  I fit into the catagory of fattest people in Russia.  Then here, I have to wait behind a fat kid who says he has to take his laptop out of his bag about 5 times, befor he puts his bag though without taking out the laptop, so of course they make him go through again.  And he had a watch on, and coins and a belt, and a necklas, he must have gone through the stuped medel detector 10 times.  And is mother was the same.  No problem, I have lots of time, but very anyoing.

For the record, I will not fly thorugh Chicago again, no matter how much I'm perswaded.  American Airlines was ok at best, but I would need compensaoitn to sit in this airport again.

Sorry for the rant, I'm safe and waiting for my flight to Minneapolis.

Hello Peaple

We went to Суздаль yesterday.  It is a very buwetifl little town in part of Russias, Golden Ring.  The city had something like 500 churches.  Its a funny number of churches for a small town.  Think Eveleth with 500 churchas.

One of the larger and used cathedrals, is surounded by a large earthan damn.  It was originaly built int he 1200's.  I have a picture of a plack telling about it bellow.  Since its high ground, I took these 3 panaramic shots hopping to show how many church tops litter the skyline of this little town.  I'm not sure how clear it comes through, but standing there I could count something like 20 churches from this spot.

Some random churches we walked buy.

The next 2 pics are all at the christmass cathedral.  The one were I took the panaramic shots.

Commenting

A quick note on commenting.

1. I changed some setting and people can now comment wether they have an acount with google or not.
2. To my lovely aunt, usualy it is best to only comment on the newest, or close to the newest post. When its one about the economy from when no one was watching the blog, no one will see the comment since its under so many more new posts. Thanks for the comments just the same.
   

Having a great trip

Here are just some random pictures from my trip so far.  Everything is fantastic, and wonderful.  This is the first collection of randome pictures, Enjoy!

When we where waiting for our bus in the bus station, there was a cat.  Just hanging out.  It lived there, and people just ignored it.  It wondered around from group of people to group of people.  There were lots of birds out side, and I saw some mouse droppings, so clearly there was food for it and a warm place.  People did not seam to even notice the cat as they walked around.

And This

This is the river that runs through Ivanovo.  

This was the School that Masha went to during her child hood.  It seamd like a nice school.  We got yelled at when taking some pictures by the doors.  A man in a sucurity uniform came out, and told us no pictures.  Masha said she had the permision of the Minser of Education, and the man asked, Seriously?  Then we scurried away.

This is the regonal government building.  The govoner works here.  When we walked up, Masha said, there would be no pictures and a guard would yell at us.  So in proper style she asked for the camera.  We snapped a pictuer well walking, and no one said anything.  Though they also probably didn't notice since it was quick.

Short

I would include more updates, and infact I have already written and fomrated the updates, but I will release them over a few days, instead of all at once, so that none get missed.

With Pictures come Many Updates

There is an interesting history here in Ivanovo.  You would never hear about this city, in a US history class, but here it is tought that the very first soviout revolutionarys came from this citie.  It is a and was a factory town, and it only makes sence for labor inequalitys to fule such ideas.  In my History class last semester when we coverd the Russian Revolution, Ivanovo was not mentioned.  When I asked my profesor why, he said it was not important were things started.

There is a monument at the very center of Ivanovo.

The dying solder drops the flag, and another will always pick it up and continue the fight.  

Also it is considered an old man passing on the flag to the new generation.

A rose grows from a factory pipe.

These are at the very center of town.  It is a local tradition for wedding partys to come to this monument.  Another local wedding tradition is to take a lock and atach it to a bridge.  We have walked acrose 2 bridges a number of times and both have many locks atached to them.  Some very new locks, and some very old.  Masha wants me to spesify that the wedding tradition of visiting the monument is for the one with the flag passing, and not the factory pipe.  I was confused since they are at the same location, but I guess it is spesific.

Finaly Pictures

Sory for being a little slow.  It took me a litle bit to properly setup Masha's internet for wi-fi.  Now that I can get online with my computer, I can put some pictures online.

Masha and I are having what you might call our first fight.  Its not really a fight, more of a gental disagrement.  She does not want pictures of her online.  So untill I convincer her to allow me to put pictures of her on this blog, it will only be me, and various things online.

My mother gave to Masha's mother a gift of Wild Rice, and a recepe for wildrice soup.  Of course, the recipie includes things that we can not get here, so we had to supstitute.  Here is the soup.

The soup was very good.  There where a few things different.  First there is no Cambles Cream of Potato soup here.  So we had to make that ourselfs.  Olga did everything on her own, from the translated instructions, even though we did not ever everything quite right.  The potatos were shreded, and there was some parsly.  The stores did not have any strip bacon left.  There was recently a holiday, and all that was available was back bacon.  Also there was no American Chese, so Olga used some other kind.  The flavor was almost exactly right.  The consistanct was just a little creamyer, since Raw Milk was used, but it was quite delisous.  Olga is a great cook.

My home away from home

I have made it safly to Иваново, and I am at Masha's home. I will quickly appologies, I am using her computer, and the spell check is in Russian, so EVERY word is spelled wrong, and I will not be able to properly correct them. The aparatment here is quite small, but is very nice. The things they have are new, and in very good condition. However there is not much room, and so there is no wast or excess. Also the honey comes in a very unusual form.

So Ryan, showed me a site, when I was sittin the the Worst airpot in the US. He checked it during my flight and it showes your location. Ryan, Post the link to this site in the comments, please.

Masha's mom is fantastic. She is very fun, and friendly. We looked over the resipie for wild rice soup, and discused it some. It seams that not only the wild rice is an american only product. Its quite difficult to explain what a "can" of soup. But we will find some substitutes, and make it worl. Also, Velveeta does not exisit here, and the american chease is a dary prdocut and not actualy chease so we will have to find a substitute for that also.

No internet for my laptop yet, but we will fix that tomorrow.

In Chicago

Looks like I made it to Chicago just fine. Not to many people sitting around my gate so it may be an empty flight which will be nice. I really can't pinpoint it, but I really don't like this airport. I watched a cleaning lady emptying a garbage can and she had a nasty bag full of garbage on top of her portable trash bin, it shifted and had a hole in it, and a foul smelling fluid came poring out. She did nothing about it, letting it spill onto the carpet with me and anther person looking on. The other person said something to the cleaning lady and she barked at him that she saw it. Finished her task letting it continue spilling, and then finally adjusting the bag so it would stop spilling. A woman sitting very close, did not know until the guy near me said something, she moved her bags away from the spill, and the cleaning lady started barking at her not to move her bags since nothing was spilled on them direct. I really just don't like this airport. Nothing good here, I looked into flying Minneapolis to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Moscow, but was strongly persuaded against, since the airport in Moscow that KLM flys into is supposedly much harder to navigate, and not as well organized. But next time I will try it. Can it be worse than Chicago? I'm willing to find out.

Off again to Russia

My dear friends and family. For all of you who read this, I am once again off to Russia. This time to meet the family of my travailing companion. This trip will be a little more laid back, less site seeing, and more meeting and intermingling.

I will travel to a provincial town, I have also heard small used in reference to Ivanovo (Pronounced eevanava). But the population is 400000 so I don't think it will be small, I guess maybe it is compared to Moscow, but so is Minneapolis.

I will leave Minneapolis in just under 3 hours. I will take a plane to Chicago (Worlds Worst Airport), then from there to Moscow. Masha will be meeting me at the airport, and we will travel together by bus to Ivanova.

Masha said she will show me the place she works, so I'm looking forward to seeing a Russian Court House, and governmental offices. This should be really a fun trip, and very interesting. Stay posted for pictures and further updates.

Some people say its the worst recession since the great depression.  I have seen quite a few charts like this one.  Things have been worse for short periods, and its far from over.  Let us hope the governments plan works.

Fallowing Traffic

It is very interesting to watch the traffic for this blog.  

This image is my traffic.  My first trip to Russia was from Dec 28 to Jan 10th.  It seams perfectly reasonable that after that time period people would stop visiting.  What I'm curious about next is my march trip.  I will be leaving for Иваново on March 12th and return on March 22nd.  Will my traffic pick back up?  It sure well if I tell everyone to come and look, but what if I don't?  I think it will be interesting to see.

My upcoming trip will not contain as many monuments or historical events.  However I will get a better look at Russia.  How people are living, what its like outside of the famous cities.  With a population of 400,000 this is no little town.  It will be very interesting.  I expect even less people to speak English on this trip.  My Russian is still very bad, but I'm making some progress.

Economy

Just in case any one is still checking on this blog.  I have found some interesting videos by an economist name Peter Schiffer

This is in 2007, they laughed at him and he called it exactly right.

And this is what he is saying now...

I hope he is wrong since its not a very good outlook, but I think he might be right.  I only wonder what the best way to prepare for hyperinflation would be.

Going Back

So I finalized plans to return to Russia.  I will be going from the 12th of march untill the 22nd.

This time I will stay in Ivanovo, its pronounced more like Eevanava, and is properly spelled Иваново.

My tickets are bought, I'm only waiting for my Visa to come, and then to board my flight...

Why the US and Russia will never get along

I had my eyes opened on my trip.  Russia is a great place.  The people are friendly and nice.  I will go again in march, and have nothing but positive things to say from my trip.

But

There are some things, that stand out.  I know understand why the 2 greatest nations will never be friends.

1. Fur Coats, 80% of the female population in Russia are wearing fur coats.  In the US, 50% of the female population are through paint on fur coats.
2. Waiting in line, they don't, we do.  There cutting in line is just done with shopping cart if necessary.  Here not so much...
3. Language, so they don't teach English any more than we teach Spanish in our schools.  We both pretend but it really doesn't happen.  You can't be friends if you can't have a chat.
4. Cold, I'm from Minnesota so the weather there was fine.  Also some of the customs and ideas the flow from a cold climate make sense to me.  If you are from Florida, they will not.  To much of the US is warm.
5. History, they have it, we want it.
6. Similarity's, there is so much that is the same it is uncanny.  People are just people after all.  But when you are told a group is evil and you learn they are just like you, then you ether admit it is all a lie, or you ignore the obvious.  Clearly more people ignore.
7. Did I mention Fur coats?
8. Also, many Fur hats.  The hats the have there are warm comfortable and soft.  But they are also a dead critter, and again we run into the PETA nightmare that is Russia.

SmugMug

So I'm uploading all of the photos taken to my mothers SmugMugg site.  So that beyond my commentary any one interested can look through all of the pictures that I took in there full detail.  The only problem is that to upload them all its taking about 30 seconds a picture, and since there are 1121 pictures it should take about 9.5 hours or so to upload them all.

Mom is that enough pictures for such a trip?  Was this a little better than they last time I went some where?

Post Production

So The trip is over, but I have have so many pictures I will have to do a bunch of updates to share them.On the last full day we went to a few different places. One of them was a large shopping center under red Square.  I don't know the name of it but its 3 stories underground, and its main entrance is from the metro.  Masha was trying to find a gift for her mother, but the thing she was interested in they didn't have the right version of.  The shopping center was very interesting, it was very large.  Just a little smaller than the Rosdail mail.  Totally underground, you can see the top of it on Google Earth, but it looks like a dome on the ground, which is a skylight.

We walked allot in Moscow on our last night.  Mom, don't be to upset, but I have things to tell you that might make you a little crazy.  We had a wonderful time.  I did not have a single moment of unhappiness or disappointment.  Masha was more wonderful than I could have expected or hopped for, and Russia was far more friendly and fun than I had anticipated.  It was very safe.  If you could see a monument you could see a police officer, and if you are in St. Peters or Moscow then you can see a monument.  I don't think I was ever out of shouting distance from an police officer for if I needed one.  Never was I given an unfriendly look, and many times people approached me and asked me questions in Russian, so I look enough like I belonged that people did not assume I was an American tourist as apposed to a Russian tourist.  I had a strange sense of belonging that I'm not used to.  I'm not sure if its the more social attitudes of the people or just being with Masha.

The only thing I will say is without an interpreter, it would be a difficult trip.  In Moscow many people speak English, but in St. Peters there was very very little.  If any one wants to go, I'm happy to go along, and I'm sure I could convince Masha to come again.  

So Chicago cancled my flight to minneapolis, so I got to spend an extra day on the trip.  I'm about to board a plane to Minneapolis finaly, and get home.

Moscow The Next Day

There is definitely something different about Moscow.  I would say that I liked St Peter's better.  Its a nice place, and everyone is friendly, its something about the buildings.  Mom you may not like this news, but I have committed my spring break to Masha.  I will come back in March to visit Иваново.  I'm not sure just what.  In both city's there are police everywhere.  An officer or a guard on just about every other street corner.  With so many monuments, and historical structures, it only makes sense, and most of them are in positions near such monuments and structures.  In St. Peters, there was never a problem with taking a photo of a building of any sort, however in Moscow some buildings are active government buildings, and guards are quick to let you know not to photo the building.  Of course we usually got a few pics first.  We didn't even get to find out what this building was, but its not to be photoed.

It seams each day we spend more time together and less time sightseeing.  Thursday was cold, and snowy and Mashas mother said to be careful and better to stay in and watch movies, so we did, one of these movies was Russian film called Moscow Vacation.  Today we are setting out to find an open air art market, a flash drive so Masha can have all the pictures also, and some other things.

Here is a picture of our final day in St. Peters, it was a very magical sky that night.

Moscow

So I made it to Moscow safe and sound.  The hotel is well, a little different.  They are very good extortionists here.  One hour of Internet at this hotel will pay for a month of Internet in MN.  And Masha says the same for her hometown.

So for those that are worried.  MOM... I made it safe, and sound, my computer is fine, and everything is going great.  Moscow does not feel quite the same as St. Peters.  I liked it better there.  It is still a very nice place people are friendly.

Some thing a little interesting about Russian theater.  Since there are no black people here, black face is still alive.

When I get back home, I will have to make a few large updates to this to bring any one interested up to speed.  Pictures and such will be coming then.

Another day...

No pictures just now, I don't have time to put them all online.  I will tell more about today latter.  We attempted but did anything but see the Hermitage museum.  We tired but did anything but stay warm.  It was the coldest day by far.  Tomorrow is the last day in St. Peters.

There is so much to tell, I feel like I will be updating this for weeks after I get back home.  We are averaging about 150 pictures a day.  So really I'm only showing a very small fraction of whats going on.  Of course many pictures are duplicities when there is a blurring or some mistake, blinkin and such.

Another Show

Our next day we sort of took a break from vacationing.  How does that work anyway?

We went to the Nutcracker.  It was another production of the Marinski theater.  This time our show was in the the propoer theater.  The one we tried to go to first the day befor.  We were a little late.  It was my fault for loosing our room key so we had to search for it.  We did not find it until we returned, and had to have the frunt desk let us in.  Of course it was in my coat pocket the entire time.

Again no camears allowed.  oops...