I’m writing this post sitting at the cafe in Vienna, Austria. The flight to here went smooth. I almost went crazy of boredom even though I had iPod, laptop and my PDA serving me all the time.

There’s something I don’t like about airport in Vienna. Maybe I’m just tired and frustrated…. We’re waiting for the connecting flight to Odessa. We’ll be checking in in about 20-25 minutes or so…

By the way, prices here are crazy. I just bought two coffees and paid $15 (7 EUR = $15 here. WHAT??). We’re hungry but something tells me that I shouln’t buy anything here — donnut is gonna come out to 150 EUR ($400?) probably. :) The only thing I want at this point is to pass customs in Odessa and get home. Everybody’s smoking here and I already feel sick of it. People don’t look any nice, walking with severe faces. And something stinks horribly… Verdict: airport in Vienna sucks. USA rules!

 

Just installed the cool new feature for this website — image captions. Installation took 2 minutes. Everything works well… Try to hover over the image and you’ll see what happens. Thanks to Daniel Rubin! :)

 

Daniel pointed me to some validation issues that this site had. So I decided to spend some time fixing problems. Now this site is a valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional

I like doing things in a right way. Do you? :)

 

Collage

I just finished sorting out photos that I had in many different places on CD’s, DVD’s, my computer, Darya’s computer, mail. I used to think that we didn’t make enough photos. Well, I was wrong, we have quite a bit of them. :) It took me almost 3 hours to sort photos by categories so it doesn’t look like a mess anymore. It’s much more convenient to have them centralized. The next step would be to buy an external hard drive and store all photos, music and videos there.

Actually, I had a lot of fun watching through old photos. I’ll probably spend more time soon picking my favorites and uploading them to Picasa.

 

By the way, I discovered podcasts for myself (I know geeks will laugh at me). And along with that, I started leaning Spanish again. I used to know basics, but completely forgot everything I studied before. Actually, I’m really thrilled with the idea of learning something new while driving to work, for example. We’ll see if it works in a long run, though :)

Мар 122008
 

Cute boxer pup

I’m dying… Just look at this cute puppy!?

I always wanted a dog. My parents never agreed to get one for me. And now it’s time to say that it’s decided: we’re getting a boxer puppy in Odessa. Why boxer?

First of all, boxer makes a great family dog. They are loyal, they love kids. They love playing, these dogs are very active (that’s something I need after a long working day where I’m sitting motionless and starring at computer screen). They are very strong and can be challenging. But that’s something I’d like to see in my dog. I don’t really like small and fragile dogs. Boxers are somewhat sturdy and you can literally box with them while playing if you want. Boxer can be a tough guys when it comes to defending his family members. And although you may think that they look kinda mean, most people say that their personality is quite opposite. They are really nice fellas!

I can’t wait to get a puppy. I love him already!

 

It’s been quiet on this blog for awhile. Well, this is mainly because the fun is over and we’re preparing for the trip back to Odessa, Ukraine. There are so much things we need to take care of before we actually leave the country. We’re planning to go to New York tomorrow and address some of those issues I’m talking about. First, I need to take the car to the shop and fix the damn «Service engine soon light». Then I need to go to DMV Traffic Violations Bureau and beat off the «No insurance» ticket. I don’t want troubles in the future so I really have to deal with it now even if it’s not the most pleasant thing to do… I really hate annoying problems like these :-\

We went to Salem, MA on our last weekend to visit my uncle. He recently bought a nice townhouse in the park area and so we definitely wanted to see it before leaving the country and East Coast in particular. The house is really nice, we liked it a lot! It’s very spacious yet cozy.

Otherwise, I’m already looking forward to see my friends in Odessa. I’m getting emails saying: «So, WHEN ARE YOU FINALLY COMING BACK?!?». Very soon, my friends, very soon! :)

 

My friend has just sent me another cool youtube video about another one day in cat’s life. I think it’s very hilarious! :)

 

I was thinking of buying some external USB (or possibly firewire) hard drive for awhile now. So I was looking at different options and found this puppy. I kinda like the idea of having all-in-one features, but:

  • It’s a bit pricey
  • It looks bulky

I’m not really sure if I need a DVD since I don’t use it that much. Does anyone know anything really worth spending $$$?

 

This is a list of states where we’ve physically been to:

  • New York
  • Connecticut
  • Massachusetts
  • Rhode Island
  • Vermont
  • New Jersey
  • Pennsylvania
  • Delaware
  • Maryland
  • Virginia
  • South Carolina
  • North Carolina
  • Georgia
  • Florida
  • California

We’ve also been to Texas once when changing flights, but that doesn’t really count. So, we’re pretty much all set with the East Coast and ready to explore new lands! Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Los Angeles is already on the «TOGO» list :)

I have to admit that I really love this country! It has been nothing but pleasure to live here so far.

 

Daniel has been playing with this blog’s template and tweaked sizes and proportions of elements a little bit. I think it came out pretty well and I like it better than the previous version. Thanks for help, Daniel :)
Please, let me know if there’s anything that looks annoying to you and if there’s anything that I can improve. Constructive critics is really appreciated!

Мар 022008
 

Hello everybody! Pretty much all day yesterday and the day before yesterday we were driving home from Key West, Florida. The trip took 30 hours (26 hours of pure driving). We made 3220 mi (5184 km) in total. Was it easy? Hell, no! I think next time we decide to go that far we’re definitely flying. Although, it was worth doing it once for fun, no question. As they say in Japan: «If you never climb Mt Fuji you are a fool, and if you climb it more than once you are a fool». I can’t agree more about this :)

Few words about Key West: it’s a paradise. Beautiful sunny place on the earth with myriads of tourists from all over the place! We’ve spent two days there and I felt sorry about leaving the place (or not spending more time there). The drive to Key West from Miami was no fun considering that when you’re driving you’re driving through small towns with 35-45 mph speed limit and tons of stop signals. One thing that I liked though is when you’re driving on the highway, you have Atlantic Ocean on the left and Gulf of Mexico on the right. If you just think about it, it’s truly amazing. And the view is gorgeous too. How did those folks manage to build the highway over the water at all? That’s something I was asking myself all the time. Also I liked the sign: «Use caution: crocodiles crossing».

When we arrived to the hotel, I felt tired. And considering that it was chilly outside, we’ve spent the rest of the day at the hotel, drinking beer, watching TV and posting to this blog :)

The next day we took the map of Key West, car and went to downtown. We ended up on Duval street (the main street in Key West). There, we parked the car for 40 minutes at the meter (we ran out of quarters quickly) and went to a french restaurant to have a breakfast. I ordered some fancy omelet with tomatoes, cheese and sausages and Darya got Crocodile’s legs with African elephant’s blood and melted cheese (nah, just kidding, we can’t remember what it was now).

After satisfying hunger, we took the car again and we were trying to find Hemingway’s house but ended up at Southernmost Point accidentally. Took pictures, of course. One of them:

Key West - Southernmost Point

If you go to the south, you can go no further than this point in US. Read the sign, it says: «90 Miles to Cuba». Do you want to go to Cuba?

Coconuts are everywhere The next thing was Hemingway’s house. We went there and tried to find the parking for the car but had no luck. So we proceeded to the old town area and found all day parking for only $15. Then we ended up at Front St and saw an ad about jet ski rentals. Remembering that I wanted to do that, I asked about the price. And then the man who I asked told me that we could also try para-sailing. Darya hesitated but I decided to give it a try. I’m I glad I did so! Because it was so much fun to see the island from 600 feet above the ocean. The views were unbelievable! And Darya enjoyed it too after all. I knew what I was doing :)

After that we rented a scooter for the whole day. You can see many scooter drivers in Key West because it’s a relatively small town, it’s hard to find the parking and scooter solves all those problems.

Do you like coconuts? Well, you can find them pretty much near every palm tree! Thanks to scooter, we were at Hemingway’s house in no time and parking wasn’t a problem. Nowadays the house is a museum and you can take a guided tour if you want. But we decided to explore it ourselves. I can spend another hour or two describing the house. But let me just say that I was really thrilled with what I’ve seen and read.

Sitting on the bench at Hemingway's garden. He probably used to sit here too.
After attending this exciting place we continued exploring Key West by scooter. At this point I can say that we have seen every street and every place possible there for like 10 times, not less! :)

After we had enough walking, we went to the food store and bought beer there. Then we ordered pizza at some restaurant and went to the hotel (by that time we felt tired and happy). We had to be driving the day after so I needed to have enough rest. What happened then? Driving… a lot of driving… And so I’m finally at home writing this post. Vacation is over and it was fantastic!

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