Saturday, July 31, 2010

Mysterious shoes




Last week the street on the south side of park had unusual decoration.
Between lamppost someone put the string and on the string there were various kind of shoes - pumps, mules, boots, sandals, etc... No one new why they were up in the air.
I looked at the internet but did not find anything about it.
Few days later the shoes were gone.

Hot again...


After few days of bearable heat it is now hot again. Wish I can join these bears and chill out.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Hot summer day


It was so hot today Khreshchatyk was empty.

No Double Coffee on Khreshchatyk

Double Coffee on Khreshchatyk was a nice outdoor cafe. Not my favourite but I liked to go there. It was not my favourite as I could not go there with Igor. When waitresses saw Igor there they had such a frightened look I thought Igor transformed into a Rottweiler. I passed today the place and the cafe is gone. I asked a lady with souvenir stand across the cafe what happened. She told me everyone has the same question. She informed me the cafe is gone about three weeks ago. And with the recent storms the parasols were always falling down and she wondered if someone was injured which might trigger a closer. So far the closure remains a mystery.

Fired up Igor

After saying goodbye to Kees in the afternoon, in the evening I was catching up with a friend from Zagreb. It was hot yesterday. About 38 degrees so we went to Marinsky Park, close to Dynamo Kiev stadium. Yesterday Dynamo was playing home. I was with Igor who was behaving well. Dynamo won and this was celebrated with fireworks. Igor is afraid of fireworks. I was sure his leash is well tied to my chair. I decided to take a photo.
After I took a photo I looked to check upon Igor and he was GONE! Horror! The firework was still ongoing when I started to run through the park screaming: Igor! Igor! I started to ask people have they seen Igor. Many have not answered but one young man told me he has seen a dogie running and showed me a direction. My friend was in shock too.
I started to run in direction showed by a young man. I continued to ask have anybody seen Igor! Two people told me they have seen a black dogie. I got scared. I wondered will I find Igor and what could happen if I do not. I started to think how all street dogs will attack Igor. One woman told me she's seen a dogie running towards the friendship rainbow. I was running towards it screaming on top of my lungs and than I saw my Igor running towards me. I grabbed him and strongly hold him in my arms. We were both shaking. Seems he was scared too. I was so happy my 10 min drama had such a happy ending.
I will never ever made another firework photo unless Igor is safe at home.

Goodbye to Kees


Before Kees went to the airport we had a lovely lunch at our usual place. Igor and me walked Kees to Premier Palace before he left for Boryspil.

Zoa Alexandrovna Grand Prix


One of Igor's girlfriends in the park is Patty - English Pointer. Patty's owner is Zoa Alexandrovna, the professor of choral music at the Kiev Music Academy. She also conducts the choir at the Kiev music academy. Every two years a city of Nis in Serbia arranges an international choir festival. Zoa Alexandrovna wanted to go to Nis this year. She made an application and a down payment for her choir participation at the festival. As the Academy did not have money, students put money for the downpayment themselves - per participant it is EUR 150. In Kiev a salary of EUR 500 is considered a good one, so for students and their parents EUR 150 is a lot of money. Unfortunately some students could not pay EUR 150 and out of 36 singers in the choir - only 24 student could pay EUR 150 to go to Nis. Zoa was never in Serbia. Most of her students were never abroad. Zoa and her students received a confirmation to participate sometime end of April. Since than every time I met her she talked about paperwork she needs to arrange to get the money - about EUR 3600. Academy said they do not have any money to help with funding. Some government institutions said the same. It was very hard for Zoe to go around and beg for funds but she did. As some students never been abroad they had to get their first passport. Than she had to arrange for herself and students a transit visa for Hungary and a visa for Serbia. She told me each student had to fill eight forms for each visa application. She was struggling with the amount of paperwork she had to do for students.

Before she could apply for visas she needed a down payment for a bus. Without a contract for a transport vehicle a transport visa would not be issued. A day before a "bus contract" was to be signed Zoa still did not know if the government would find few hundred EURs for a downpayment. She had her own money as a "back up". Fortunately she did get the money from the state.
For Serbia the process of obtaining visa took two weeks. For Hungary one week. In the visa application form there is a question for the applicant about financial support. Zoa was very nervous about it as parents had to confirm they are financial capable to support their kids. Parents of some students are officially unemployed (they might have unofficial job) so Zoa worried these kids will not get visa. Fortunately they did. The festival in Nis started on 7th. On 6th Zoe still did not know if she will get the money from the state for a trip. During all this time hectic "visa arrangements" time she and the choir continued to practice. It was truly very stressful time for her. I had not met Zoa on 7th in the park. I hoped this is a good sign.
I met Zoe on Wednesday. I asked her how it was. Humble as she is it was difficult to get from her that her choir got "grand prix". Congratulations! She told me how her students were happy! They all liked Nis. She said everyone there is in good mood. She liked it very much. She told me the "grand prix" is huge and the dean of the academy is impressed.
I am so happy all the stress she went through for two months is now well rewarded!

http://www.choirfestivalnis.com/srpski/

Kees' Boat Party


Last Monday the office arranged an intimate farewell for Kees. It was on the small boat with people with whom Kees closely for six years. While the boat was cruising along Dniepro river heartfelt speeches full of warm, touching memories were shared. We were all very happy Kees liked our presents. We were sad to part with Kees but we hope we made it clear to him how much we appreciated he was with the office and how much we will miss him. For farewell photos please go:
http://picasaweb.google.nl/gordie26/KeesBoatParty?feat=directlink

Tired Tiger




Netherlands-Spain


The better team won. Dutch played rough - mildly speaking. In Golden Gates - where most of Dutch watched the game it was all orange. And octopus Paul was right again. For more photos of Dutch cheering click on
http://pandorawinter.livejournal.com/778288.html

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Storm on July 10th











July 10th - On Saturday afternoon I was skyping with a friend. It was sunny hot summer afternoon. Suddenly the wind started stronly to blow. There was such a fury of the wind. Within seconds the sky changed. The room got drak. The rain started to pour. There was such The rain was so densed I could not see through the window. It lasted about 20 min. How strong the storm was I could see when walking in the park - many fallen trees, braches big as trees broken. It took few days to clear the park.



Sunday, July 4, 2010

Inquisitive Igor

Igor surprised me this morning. We walked in the park. As usual Igor is busy sniffing grass, trees, other dogs and people. We approached one bench where an old lady was sitting. Igor sniffed her shoes than jumped on the bench and joined her. He just wanted to sit with her for a while. Two of them shared few nice moments. Then Igor took off. Lady was happy. I was surprised.

Park's Facelift


Shevchenko park got a face lift recently. Its usual weedy looks are uplifted with flower images and sculptures. While al of it is a bit too much for me (I prefer soft green grass) - heads up for trying to improve so far unkempt park. Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/gordie26/NewLook?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrAyraMg9fT9AE&feat=directlink

The first and the last one




On Friday evening after the match I went for a dinner with friends. Because of watching the game I was late and although I could walk I decided to hail a cab. I like hailing unofficial cabs (any car on a street stopping and willing to take you where you want) as I practice my Russian and come across people I usually would not meet. So far my "cab drivers" were government translators, managers in the bank, pensioners, unemployed, ex-prisoners. On Friday evening for the first time a lady driver stopped. We negotiated a price and she drove me to the restaurant where my friends were already waiting. The lady driver works as a graphic designer. She only picks up women when going back from the work. I had a very pleasant drive.

The dinner was the last one with Catharina who is leaving on Monday. We had wonderful view over the city with spectacular light which unfortunately camera have not captured well.

Orange Surprise


On Friday afternoon I called a colleague in A'dam. A female colleague answered and informed me the guy I was looking for left to watch the game. My comment was - I am not watching as I am sure Dutch will lose and I do not like watching such matches. My colleague agreed. I ended the conversation saying: Well let's see if the evening will bring us surprise. Otherwise we can always nurture sorrow of losing with caipirinhas. I left work when it was 1:0 for Brazil.
Hillary was in town and traffic was of course terrible. Hillary was greeted by a storm. Hurrican like wind and hail. As Kiev municipality forgets city has sewers, for few hours city streets turned into canals with cars almost floating. Fortunatly Kiev's challange to Venice was only few hours long. Once I was home I read on BBC ticker Dutch equilized to 1:1. I started to watch the game. The rest is already written all over. Now I hardly wait for a game on Tuesday.

I am sorry Argentina lost. I hoped on Saturday Argentina and Dutch will play in the finals. Now I expect Dutch-German finale.