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.

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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.