Writer's Land: Travel

Paris - Day 1 (Part 5)

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:12:27 GMT

After arriving back at our hotel, we are greeted with a warm smile and a key to our room, which is obviously ready for us. Taking our luggage and calling the elevator we cram inside the tiny box and nervously head for the 5th floor hoping that all the shaking and rattling doesn't mean we will end up on the 1st floor. The elevator finally comes to a not so pleasant stop and we head into the hall. The hallway is incredibly narrow. I had to push 1 bag in front of me, and pull the other behind. This place would be very uncomfortable for anyone that is claustrophobic. We reach our room, open the door and walk inside to a very lovely 2 bedroom suit as it appears. We had no idea, otherwise we could have had my wife's friend stay with us. But no biggy, she had a room 1 floor below and we spent most of the time outside anyway. Well, we parked our bags took a shower, which buy the way felt so goooooood. We opened the window and unfortunately our 5th floor view was not so good into the back alley type area with nothing to see but other buildings. Regardless, the fresh air felt nice swirling into our room as we relaxed.

I pulled out my power converter and set up my laptop excited to transfer some pictures and maybe get a few thoughts down. The computer came to life and after a few moments of booting up I logged in and went for my memory card. Then it hit me. "Oh my God!" I said, "I brought all this stuff, but I forgot one important item." My wife looked at me. "Uh oh, what is it?" To which I replied. "The memory card reader!" Yes I am ashamed, but hey remember how we got rushed the last minute? :) But all was not lost, I did have my 30GB video camera which takes SD cards, so I was able to back up my pictures at least and was not limited to only the 3 cards I had on me. Instead I thought I'd get on the Internet, check email and what not. I opened the wireless manager and started to look for an access point, when suddenly my computer power light started blinking and I got a low battery warning. Well, long story short, the power converter I bought didn't work. In fact after about 30 minutes of letting the computer battery charge, I pressed power only to have the computer shut down mere seconds after starting. Finally I accepted my fate and decided I would just put the computer away. Lucky for us I did that too, because when I grabbed the power converter to remove it from the outlet, I almost burned my hand. That sucker was SO hot! Who knows, it may have caught fire if I left it plugged in much longer. I took it and placed it on the ceramic sink in the bathroom. I was afraid to leave it on the wooden table it was so hot. Ok, it was so hot, it didn't cool off completely until the next morning. I know! However, while in the bathroom I discovered a US style outlet, which sadly to say did not have enough power to charge the laptop battery either. But at least it was enough to keep our other stuff charged, which was a very fair trade off.

So I finally settled down to relax once again, when the phone rang. Well that could be only one person, and upon answering the phone I found that it was only one person, naturally, as opposed to say a conference call. Just kidding, it was my wife's friend. They talked for a few minutes. She was already in her room and ready to head out into the city. My wife told her to come to our room to plan out the rest of the day. When she arrived, my wife finished up getting ready and we looked through our Frommer's book for two things. A restaurant that was recommended by her friend in Germany, to which we would go to in the evening, and the path we would take to get there. After about 30 minutes of trying to figure out the correct name of the restaurant using the GPS, we finally found it and marked it on the map. By the way the GPS reception in Europe, or at least where we were, is horrible. It took 10 minutes to find the satellites, and another 5 to finally connect. Apparently as we learned later, it seems that GPS satellites are American, and do not have a very good line of site around Europe. I have to believe this after our experience with it. This particular GPS model has some newer technology which promises much better reception which is true, because here in the US I can get a connection indoors. Over there, I had trouble in wide open spaces and even then it would only last anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minutes.

Finally we left the hotel. One block away we passed a very nice looking bakery/restaurant which we made a mental note to visit later. You should have seen all the sweets and oh how yummy they looked! We continued walking and after a few blocks we passed through place de la Concorde and got on to avenue des Champs-Elysees. The first few blocks had a park on our right and we stopped at a food kiosk, where we bought a crepe, and ate it as we walked. Seemed a bit odd walking down the street eating a crepe like you would an ice cream. But hey, this is Paris.

We walked the entire avenue occasionally walking into a store to have a look. Levi's are about 80 euro. I'll let you do the math. Prices are just ridiculous. We walked almost all the way to the Arc de Triomphe, but decided to cross the street and head back since our restaurant was in the other direction on the other side of the Seine. As we crossed the street I took this picture of the Arc.

On our last day I got a really nice shot at night also, right in front of it. I'll post that later.

We walked almost the entire avenue back, but turned right and walked towards the Seine.

The day was really starting to improve as it got warmer and a bit clearer. We followed the Seine for a couple miles and decided to get our bearings. We found that we somehow ended up much farther away from the restaurant then we thought. At this point we were all getting pretty tired. We had already been walking for about 3 hours. It was around 6pm and we decided that we need to find the nearest metro and use that to get there because it would take us at least another couple hours if we walked, and that didn't appeal much anymore after a very long day of nothing but walking.

On the way to find the metro we stopped for a few minutes to get these shots.

Around this time it looks like I got some dust inside my camera which on some pictures shows up as a dark spot. I didn't clean it for a couple days because it's hard to notice it on the small display the camera has. I will eventually use Photoshop to remove it, but with so many photos to go through and write these posts, I decided I'd rather use my time to get this out there rather then spend the next few weeks correcting images.

We actually ended up walking another 30 min or so until we finally got to the closest metro station. We rode to our stop and from there we figured out which way to go and had to walk yet another 30 minutes to reach the restaurant. Here I was able to use the GPS to get us there quickly, but the reception on it was really bad at best. By the time we reached the restaurant it was around 8pm. We got a table and had a really good dinner. It was in fact a very nice place. It was strange though, one of the waiters there was kind of weird. Every time we asked him for something he just said "No." and walked away. So we had to keep calling someone else. We had a really good laugh every time after the first few attempts of asking him for something.

We finished dinner around 10pm and decided it was time to head back to the hotel. We got outside the hotel and looked down the street and to our surprise there was a metro station right at the end of the block. How did we miss it on the way there? No one knows. Needless to say we chose to use that station versus walking back to the one we came from. We got back to the hotel, set our alarms so that we don't oversleep because we needed to get an early start on another long day of site seeing, starting with Montmartre.

Paris - Day 1 (Part 3)

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:54:50 GMT

Well it's day 3 of writing and I still have a ton of pictures to go and starting to wonder just how long the entire thing may take. Also I decided I'll split this day into multiple posts as it's becoming to long for 1. So I just split it into 3 parts and posted the first. Well, at least I won't have a shortage of material for the coming years. LOL

So we continue walking when we spot to our right, in the not to distant...err..uhm...future? That sounded right when I started typing. Lets see...we spot to our right not much further away from us...

The Louvre. There it is, a section of the Louvre

Just beyond the statues rear end of Joan of Arc and her horse. On a side note, see those busses on the left? Those are tour busses, and the tour office entrance is inside the building left of those buses. This is also a place of note, because we take a tour from here later on, which my wonderful wife scheduled for us in advance, of castles. But that's another day, so stop asking. sheeeesh, people!

But wait, no Louvre just yet, we can't forget our primary objective...cafe shop! Well what do you know, just across the street on the opposite corner from where I am taking this picture as an open cafe, with chairs outside and everything. "Two cappuccinos." I ask of the gentleman behind the bar. Yes it's a cafe with a bar, so what of it? As he prepares our lovely beverages, my wife looks for a place to sit. Inside is a bit cramped and we really wanted that outside in Paris in a cafe experience. You know what I mean? Even though it's like 58 degrees outside and windy...imagine how cold that is, we choose to sit outside. So my wife walks out and picks a table to sit at. At this point the guy has said to me that the 2 drinks will be 8.50 euro, naturally, and notices that we will be taking our drinks outside. With a quick wave of his hand, "Outside?" he asks. To which I respond wee, my French is exceptional with all 4 or 5 words that I know. He responds, 3 euro, brining our total to 11.50. So now we are also paying an additional 3 for the luxury of sitting outside! Imagine if Starbucks did that. This seems to be normal there, although this was the only time we were specifically told there is an additional fee to sit outside, it's possible it was automagically included in future trips to cafes and we just didn't pay attention. Anyway, about $5 US gets you a seat anywhere outside the cafe. Which we ended up regretting because it was very difficult to enjoy in that cold and windy weather. None the less, our spirits high we finish our drinks and head for our next destination. By now it's around 9am or so. Hey look who we passed.

The front side of Joan of Arc and her horse. "Hey Mr., quick run! She's gonna spear your head!" She also does circumcisions on the weekends.

By now we've walked almost 2 miles. Which really isn't that bad, unless you've forgotten I'm carrying about 30 lbs on my back. I didn't forget! So our plan is excellent. We'll spend the entire morning at the Louvre and head back to the hotel to get our room at 2pm. As we get closer to the Louvre however, it starts to look like we are going to have to rework our plan.

It looks like there is not a sole, well except for that guy by the bushes, around. Well it is pretty early, and this is Paris, so we are thinking makes sense that it's not open yet. But we figure we're here, we'll get closer and take some pictures. As we get closer and round the bush, to our surprise...

It's open! Yay! We rejoice, take some pictures and get in line. As it turned out, this was an excellent plan, because we got there in time to beat the crowd. What you see here is nothing. When we left this place, but mostly inside was a blob of people. So we had a great opportunity to see stuff without any pushing and shoving. You know how it gets in a really crowded place when you try to get up front and see something? No one moves, no one cares, excuse me, pardon, etc., people don't seem to understand this. So you end up having to squeeze through. Anyway, inside this glass pyramid the first thing you go through is a security check and then an escalator to the bottom and entrance into the museum. But before we go there, here are a few more photos outside.
This is what I love about a place that's not crowded. You get to take scenic photos. My favorite style of photography by the way is journalistic, but I do love to be able to get nice portrait styles as well. Keep in mind I didn't do any Photoshop work on these photos, but with a little cropping and tone adjustment, even with the bad weather and poor lighting, it can look pretty decent in a frame.

Ok we head inside to get our tickets.

Well this is the lobby area. The ticket booth is right there on the left and it appears like there are 4 or 5 different ways to enter, depending on which exhibit you want to start with. But don't worry they are all connected so you will be able to see everything. But make sure to get a map, because lost is what you'll be without one. This place is HUGE! On the flip side, while there are multiple ways to start your day here, there should be only one way to leave, and that is through the Mona Lisa exhibit. I mean really, that is probably one of the single most reasons people come here. But I should say right now, photography in that area is strictly prohibited and guards are very watchful of this, so I do not have any photos of her.

I take one more photo before we head inside.

And we begin with...

Armenia Sacra. It's pretty cool. The room is built like a section of a castle.

With a miniature model of what the entire castle looks like.

We move on.

That was about the size of the crowds we had to deal with. Pretty good. The only time it got really crowded was at the Vinus de Milo, Winged Victory and Mona Lisa areas.

Next we arrived at the Egyptian exhibit. Actually this and Mona Lisa were the two things we wanted to see most.

How cute...it's the original and current version.

Wait a minute...something about these...hold up I know!
They look Japanese. Don't they? I swear we were in the Egyptian section.

In the next room we find...
"Ok, the next one to interrupt me will end up like these guys!" Needless to say it was very quiet as all the children listened up.

"We were inverted..almost."

And finally you know how sometimes you read a forum and there might be a picture with some phallic shaped object, and it's almost certain that someone will write something really stupid about it, and you just know it's some poorly raised 14 year old?

Well, I'm not 14 years old. ;) So I will not make any comments. Not a single one, nothing that stands out and makes you wonder about my character.

I believe this one was Hathor.

Next we went to the Chinese section and I only have 2 pictures from there.

It's kind of hard to see it in a picture, but this was a giant slab that was hanging on the wall. By the looks of it it has to weigh at least a couple tons. I can't imagine what it takes to hang it on a wall.

Red Bull, it gives you wings.

There are still a few more areas to cover, but my time has run out today and I must go to work.

Paris - Day 1 (Part 2)

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:27:38 GMT

Ok this line here is day 2 of writing this entry. I realized that I'm already forgetting stuff. Just before Paris, we had a quick change in Vienna also. We didn't really see much, but one thing that really stood out in their airport is the fact that it looks like a mini mall and one very prominent store that really pops into view with big red bold letters is, "SEX UP YOUR LIFE". Not use to seeing that kind of store so public, even more so in an airport. Overall that entire scene kind of reminded me of the part in Space Balls, where they meet Yogurt and he tells them that it's all about merchandising and shows his store. Anyway, lets move on. Ahhh Paris....well Paris airport anyway. The weather wasn't very good when we arrived, but it wasn't horrible either. So we couldn't complain to much. After getting our luggage we set out towards the taxi area, and made a quick stop at the Amex booth to exchange some money. We knew that US dollar kind of suffers compared to Euro, but it still hurts to see your money reduced by so much. Armed with some spending cash, we got our taxi and directed the driver to our hotel. The drive from the airport to the hotel wasn't all that impressive, not at first at least. The highway and scenery almost reminded me of home. Sure it was obvious things are different, but I didn't have any significant feelings of being in another country. It was almost like a been there done that kind of deal. But then, we got off the freeway and onto the city streets in the main areas of Paris. I was immediately awe struck at the site of the gorgeous architecture. You also notice right away how many people keep flowers on the perch of their windows. A very nice touch! By the way, I forgot to mention that we arrived at about 7am so the streets were pretty empty and the city seemed almost abandoned in certain parts.

Finally the taxi turned into a tiny street and stopped at our hotel. Hotel Burgundy was a very cute little hotel. The lobby was nicely decorated with a short hall way to the front desk and a small couch with a foot rest on the opposite wall, just left of the very tiny elevator, which at first we thought was a storage room and we would have to hall our luggage up 5 floors. Just beyond the front desk was another room separated by thin columns which had a dimly lit lounge and a computer by which to access the Internet. This lounge connected to the hotel restaurant, which had a very decent appearance but we never did go there. "Bon jour" said the lady at the front desk and so did the gentleman who offered to take our luggage. "Bon jour" we replied, and then gave our name after being asked in English. She did her thing on the computer and told us that our room isn't ready yet and won't be until 2pm. She said she has a room on the first floor we can have now however. Well, we wanted a room higher with a view, so we decided that we will roam around until 2pm and come back for our normal room. We asked them to store our luggage, which after tagging, was placed inside a room adjacent to the desk. Well all bags but one was put into that room. I chose to keep the back pack with me as it contained, what in my opinion, are some of the most important assets in a man's life. Computer, cell phone, GPS, ipod, in short, electronics. Looking back now, although looking back 1 hour after we started even, not relocating the laptop to one of the suitcases was a -huge- mistake. That's about an extra 6lbs of hell! Yes my friends, that 6lbs doesn't seem so much, but when it's an extra burden on your back for a period of 5 to 6 hours, the only thing you want to do with it is burn it. But as it were, I placed the bag on my back, with the assistance of my beautiful wife. Yes, the bag was so full of stuff and so heavy, she had to help me with getting the second strap around my shoulder. This is one of those cornerstone moments in life that you never forget.

We whipped out our Frommer's, got our bearings and headed in the direction of the Louvre. We picked a hotel that was right in the center, or very very close at least to all the main spots. Basically the primary tourist area of Paris. We eventually found that there was a metro entrance just 2 minutes walk from us, but I'll get to that later.

We left the hotel and set out down the street.
That's our street. If you look at the top slightly right of the center, you will see the sign for our hotel. Well a part of it anyway, "Urgundy". See that large building at the end? That's Madeleine and at the end of the street, just around the corner is the entrance to the metro, but I thought I told you I'd get to that later...stop asking.

We at this time we were walking in the opposite direction and turned left at the end of the street. You know what, I think I'll skip the turn by turn. Notice, how empty the street is. It seems that the cars are always parked, even when it's busy. Primary objective this morning was to find a Paris cafe. Who would of guessed...right?

As we walked I took a picture of the view down the street. Nothing out of the ordinary, just to show what we were looking at. Notice however, how monotone everything is. Everything has this gray appearance. All the building are exactly the same color with slight variance in darkness. But the architecture is wonderful. Look at the street lights, I mean how cool is that? It's like walking into a movie.

Oh, quick fact about Paris officials. They have a special gender police unit. I kid you not...see...

"GENDARMERIE"...Must be a tough job. After all, a loaded 9mm with 3 extra clips. I would not cross dress in front of this guy!

Anyway, as we move on towards our goal, we find that most stores are still closed. Who are we kidding right, this is Europe, they probably open at 11am...lucky bastages. I of course being digitally armed, take photos of everything! I kid you not, and in many cases multiples just to make sure I got a good one. Here is another street I took a shot of, primarily because I liked the glass building at the end.

It's kind of hard to see it, but it was rather impressive looking. On the left in the foreground you can see some construction going on, which is a very common thing there. Especially in most of the tourist areas which killed the ability to take good pictures. As we continued on I turned and got this shot.

I forgot the significance of this monument and I'm to lazy to look it up, and I'm already late for work, so I might find it later. But I want to point out again the weather, was a bit depressing for our first day, but it is only 8am or so, which leaves a lot of time for improvement. Also I have a picture from this exact same spot on a later date when it was nice and sunny, and you will see just how beautiful it is in contrast to a picture on a gloomy day.

Paris - Day 1 (Part 1)

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:28:45 GMT

I was worried that our ride would not arrive on time and we would end up rushing at the airport to check in. But worse then that, I really hate waiting in long lines. Then again, who doesn't? While some people like to get to the airport as close to their flight as possible, we prefer to get there early, check in and hang out at stores and stuff. On the flip side, we don't rush to get on the plane since the seats are assigned. So we wait until most are boarded before getting on, or at the very least we don't stress over making sure we get our seats. Also since seats are assigned, there is also no worry about space for carry on bags, since 99% of the people end up stowing their luggage above their assigned seats. For anyone who's done at least some travel, you know that on local flights seats are normally not assigned so you need to get in line as soon as possible, especially if you want to sit next to someone. Also on local flights it tends to be a problem finding space overhead for carry on bags.

Anyway, so it's 5am and we are doing a last minute check to make sure we didn't forget anything. Tickets and passports are definitely with us, we are certain, after checking 10 or so times. Our plan is to have about 15 minutes of relax time before we set out on our trip. Suddenly the door bell rings...and the rush begins. Having to abandon our last minute check to a rushed move to get everything to the front door so the driver can get the bags on the van. This became quite hectic and stressful as you usually tend to forget stuff when you rush to leave. Mind you, going away for 3 days can tend to be stressful wondering if you haven't forgotten anything, but going away for 3 weeks is a completely different animal. Well having no choice, we put those worries aside, got everything out the door and after a last minute walk through of the house, I turned on the alarm and left to join my wife in the van.

We told the driver which airline as he pulled away and we were off. We checked our flight time again, and it was scheduled to depart at 8:53am. We had plenty of time. We thought also that since we are on a shared ride, that by the time he gets other people we'd end up getting to the airport early enough, but not to late. We went through the usual good morning, how you doing, where you flying dialog with the driver, then he tells us, that we are his only ride this morning. He had another couple to pick up, but they canceled. That would have taken us to another city and added at least another hour to the trip. Sounds good...but wait...

We arrived at the airport, paid the driver and went into the terminal. We get inside and this lady at the terminal tells us to go the the automated check in. We stood there for 15 minutes or so until our turn came up and then wasted about another 10 min or so trying to check in. Apparently the automated check in does not work for international flights, or at least it didn't for ours. It was asking for some weird confirmation numbers that we did not have. We finally interrupted one of the employees there and found at that we needed to go to a completely different line. We were slightly pissed. Well we got to our line which only had 2 people ahead of us and when our turn came up we made sure to request seats with more leg room and we got our tickets. Upon examination of the tickets, it showed that the departure time was at 7:15am! We double checked with the lady there and she confirmed that was the correct time. Imagine our surprise! And then imagine our relief of how things fell into place that morning with the driver arriving early and the other ride canceling. If those two things didn't happen we may have missed our flight! I always check flight status when meeting someone to make sure their flight is arriving on time or what not, but I never thought it was necessary to check the status of a departing flight. At least in all the dozens of times I have flown over the past few years I have never had a flight leave at a time other then scheduled. Well we had just enough time to grab some breakfast, which we did, and headed for our gate.

Our flight had two parts, with a change of equipment at Washington DC. And from there straight to Paris, France. I have to say, the airport in DC is horrible. It's in such bad shape. It's almost depressing to think that the airport at our nations capital looks like that.

Travel Log update

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:49:45 GMT

It's been a few days since I started my travel log for our trip, so I thought I'd give a quick update.

I have all the photos for day 1 set and ready. I started writing and have a small part of day 1 written up and already I have almost 2 pages worth of text. I will see how much I write for the first few days, but I'm thinking I will end up condensing multiple days into 1 entry at some point as writing out each day on it's own may end up being to much. On the other hand, what's the difference...condensed into 1 huge entry, or a more manageable multiple entry log?

Also I thought I'd note that since I did not have a tripod, I have a lot of low light pictures that I took holding the camera. To get good quality shots I upped the ISO to anywhere between 500 and 1600. This actually works great for hand held low light shots and the natural light is just amazing compared to the generic light you get from a flash. This really becomes apparent in the photos that are taken inside buildings with displays that are finely crafted with vibrant colors. I tried doing a comparison shot of natural light vs. flash and the flash just washes all the color out and creates a very boring picture. As soon as I took that flash away and let the camera eat up the natural light, it just makes a world of difference. But, there are times that the flash does play a very important role, like getting good detail from close subjects under very bright lights.

Anyway, I love how these photos turned out, even under bad weather conditions. And I really enjoy seeing the change in the shots as the weather improves. It's just amazing what a difference good natural lighting can make to a photograph, both indoor and out.

Oh, and I also wanted to note that my write up will include images where appropriate with explanations before and after as needed. I thought it will flow much smoother if I do this, versus having you read and then go try and find the image I'm talking about in a separate location.

The Trip - Prologue

Wed, 30 May 2007 23:24:51 GMT

While I still have not gotten to my pictures of which I have over 2000, can you blame me? I'm guessing yes, but that doesn't change anything. :P I thought I'd write a little intro / overview of the trip, to get the appetite going so to speak.

It's hard getting my thoughts organized as there is just so much to write about. I'm not quite sure where to start, so I'll try at the begriming with the specs.

Two suitcases...packed
Wife's carry on...packed
My carry on back pack with laptop, mobile phone PDA, ipod video, tomtom, video camera, all needed cables and chargers, and ofcourse the most used item my D80 with 3 lenses. Total weight of my carry on about 25 to 30 pounds if not more.

By the way, I carried my wife's carry on as well. :) Did I mention I was still recovering from a bad back injury at this time?

Laptop and ipod were synched with the latest season of CSI and Battlestar Galactica and various music, that never got listened to by the way. Although CSI and BG did a great job at passing time on the plane. I made sure to bring 2 headphones and a Y splitter.

Objectives:
1) Paris, France (4 days, with a 1 day trip to Barcelona. Wait until you hear about this one.)
2) Lvov, Ukraine (2.5 days, visit my family explore city)
3) Nikolaev, Ukraine(20 days, visit wife's family, friends and explore surrounding areas. Yalta, Odessa)
4) Kiev, Ukraine (2 days, visit my family and explore city)
5) Home

Since I'm writing this from memory I may be forgetting some details, but overall that about covers it at a high level. I'm thinking that once I start to go into details of the trip, I will not just write one time and that's it. I think it will be funner to post each day of the trip individually. And really, each and every single day was so full of activities and adventures that they definitely hold up on their own.

May 5th:
It was 3am and I had finally went to bed to get at least a good 1 to 2 hours of sleep before getting ready to leave for the airport. Even with this little time to rest, I was able to get up with ease when the alarm went off. I took a quick shower and waited for my wife to get ready. We thought we had it all under control but then our ride arrived 30 minutes early.

To be continue...

Home Again

Mon, 28 May 2007 14:14:53 GMT

Well, we're back. Just arrived last night. Luggage is still by the front door and will probably get unpacked today. Probably... :)

I doubt I'll post anything for a bit while I recover and get up to speed at work. Besides I have a ton of photos to organize and get stuff written up. Hope everyone is doing great!

Travel update

Mon, 14 May 2007 15:28:38 GMT

Well as I thought it's not as easy for me to get connected here, so I'm not able to do regular updates. But that's ok, I've got over 1k pictures taken so far and a ton of stories to tell. So I'll have to do a write up when I get back...if I can remember everything. :)

Really happy to see some old buddies stopping by. Hope all are doing well.

The big day...

Fri, 04 May 2007 07:36:37 GMT

Well tomorrow...or should I say today, is the big day. In 5 hours the shuttle will be here, which will be 5am here, to take us to the airport. I have maybe a good 4 hours left to sleep and I don't feel sleepy. It's kind of hard to empty your mind and relax when something so big is just around the corner. In case you're confused I'm talking about my wife and I going to Ukraine to visit our home. On a side note, if you've been following my posts I'm happy to say I did get my passport in time, obviously if I'm going. :) I ended up paying through the nose for one of those passport services that guarantee a quick turn around. While expensive, you sure can't beat having piece of mind. Would have been much more expensive having to cancel my trip.

So here I am, just mere hours left to sleep and I'm at the computer typing. I got this idea, I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it because I don't know what if any Internet access I will have, but I want to try and chronicle our trip here. Should be fun, if I can find time and Internet access. I have 3 2GB memory cards for my Nikon, and I'm brining my laptop. So that means I can take as many pictures as I want and not worry about running out of memory cards. Even if my 50 or so gigs of free space on my laptop won't be enough, I still have a 30gb video camera which also takes SD cards and has a copy to HD function. So depending on how much video we shoot, I have between 50 and 80 gigs of picture taking pleasure. :) On the other hand, I'll probably need a year to go through that many pictures. Which is ok, I love photography and with digital you can't have to much. Of course I won't have my tri-pod with me so I'm going to have to improvise if I want to get some good sunset and evening shots. I think between the aperture and speed I should be able to get some decent hand held shots going. And of course it's not always very difficult to find someplace to rest the camera and leave the shutter open a bit longer.

So here's my plan. Every day I will be taking photos and if I have time in the evenings I will post my favorites and do a little write up. Yeah...sounds fun, I will try and do this.

On a side note, I put some TV shows and movies on my laptop to watch on the trip tomorrow and was pretty stoked until my buddy at work, thanks Jake :P, reminded me that airplanes don't have AC so this means my 16 to 19 hour movie extravaganza will be a mere 2 hours at best. Although we have a stop on the East coast before we take off again for Europe, so I'll be able to get off the plan and charge up in the terminal. Better then nothing I suppose. Oops, how can I forget, my wife will be there too, so it won't be boring after all. I think that last comment was just in case she reads this. LOL

How exciting! I'm going to see where I was born, where I lived, where I went to first grade, the park I played at, I'll also finally get a chance to visit my grandparents graves and place some flowers there. Sounds kind of weird saying that after indicating excitement, but you know what I mean. I have no idea what to expect. I have no point of reference, this is a totally new event for me in my life, just a roller coaster of emotions. I guess that explains me not being able to sleep. Besides my own reasons for excitement, I'm also really excited for my wife. She hasn't seen most of her family and friends for 10 years, so this will be a huge reunion. And since I really don't have much family left there, just a few cousins and an uncle, I get to still experience meeting my family from her side and see her just so happy when she sees them. I can't wait, this will be nothing less then excellent!

Oh wow, I hope my DVR doesn't fill up, I'd hate to miss the last episodes of 24, Heroes and Stargate SG-1. Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. I'm not going to loose sleep over it though. The trade off is more then worth it. Shoot there is always iTunes.

I feel like I want to just keep writing and writing, but at one point I'll probably loose your attention anyway, that is, if I haven't already. :) So I'll just say good night, and have a great Friday.

International Travel and Passport

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:18:11 GMT

I was born in Ukraine and I came to the United States with my parents almost 30 years ago. Last year my wife, also from Ukraine, and I made plans that we would visit this year. She hasn't been back in over 7 years. So we're taking a big chunk of next month off from work and will be travelling to visit family, friends, see places from our childhood...etc. But this entry is not intended to talk about my past, it's about something much, much, much...MUCH more important....

PASSPORT!!!

Why you ask? Well then you came to the right place, because I will tell you. For those of you that don't know and those that probably do, passports last 10 years from data of issue. Pretty convenient. I actually had one issued exactly 10 years ago (no I never used it, not even once) and ironically it expired last month. Which of course put me in the uncomfortable position of having to go through the rounds of getting it renewed. I went to the post-office well over a month before our departure and they said it's not enough time. Regular turn around is something like 10 weeks. But luckily there is such a thing as rush service which has like a 2 week turn around...or so I thought. The very unhelpful gentleman at the post office told me the only way for me to get rush service is to go directly to the regional office in San Francisco. Here is where the really frustrating part begins.

I called the regional office end of March, around the 27th or 28th. Naturally it is fully automated and the automated appointment scheduling system tells you that if you, and pay close attention here as this will be important later, are leaving within the next 14 days press 1, if not press 2. Pressing 1 gets you into the appointment system to make an appointment. Pressing 2 gives you instructions for calling later. This got me very nervous as I was not sure how 14 days is enough to get a passport. So I played around with the menu options in their phone system and found an option to speak to a live person. After being on hold for about 45 minutes I finally got someone. He told me that this process is normal and that I should call back, as the automated system said, 14 days before and it will give me an appointment. Then I can come in at that time and within 1 to 3 days I will have my passport. That's great I thought. NOT!!!

Today is 14 days before. I called and got into the automated system and pressed the option to give me the earliest available appointment. This thing put me on hold for like 15 minutes while it searched. There were no sounds what so ever to indicate that anything was happening. Just silence until it came back suddenly and gave me an appointment time, which I was very happy to hear was on the same day of my departure, and if that's not bad enough...5 hours after my departure time. Talk about pouring salt on an open wound.

Once again I got someone live and they said there is nothing they can do over the phone and you can't do a walk in cause the guards will shoot you on site. Well not really but they won't let you in without an appointment. But, he said he will tell me how to finesse the phone system so that it will give me an earlier appointment. Worth a try I thought. Well another 30 min and 3 tubes of lubricant later I finally did in fact have an earlier appointment, although not much better. The new appointment is next Friday which is 4 working days from my departure. While slightly relieved I'm still very nervous cause the first instruction they gave me a month ago ended up loosing a month worth of time for me. So I'm not sure how much stock I can put into their statement of a 1 to 3 day turn around. Plus I have to take extra time off work to go there.

Long story short...errr...to late, I found a place in SF that is a private company which specializes in expediting the passport process, and they are even open on Saturday for 4 hours. Supposedly their promise of a 1 to 3 day turn around is something that can be trusted cause, well I'm not really sure why it can be trusted, I have no other option. I guess what I was looking for was some place I can walk into and not have to drop personal documents + money into a mailbox and wish for the best. There is an extra charge beyond govt fees of course, their services aren't cheep. But compared to other ones I found that are not local to me and some that only take applications via mail, they are the cheapest.

Well I'm breathing a bit easier now and worst case I still have my appointment at the regional office as back up.

Ok so remember earlier I mentioned to pay close attention to something? This is where it comes into play. If you need a passport to travel internationally, you absolutely must apply more then 10 weeks before. If you can't or for any reason you do not have that much time. DO NOT wait until 14 days before your departure. When it asks you if you are departing within 14 days to press 1 to confirm, or press 2 otherwise, just roll your eyes and press 1.