On Oligarchs and Caucus Coalitions

Six days remain and drawing closer. So stoked! Finally figured out where we are meeting at the airport and the address that our prof will be staying at in Kiev. It'll be really interesting to see how the program runs and such with all the prelim bits of information trickling in slower than my hand-eye coordination after five pints and four shots. Maria Georgievna - our Russian prof the last three semesters - wasn't exactly suprised at any of it, its all recurrences of the Soviet system. Almost everything is going through in straight cash when we are in Ukraine. Not just that there aren't a multitude of ATMs dotting the horizon, but that is just how everything is done around Eastern Europe. The cash has to be crisp as counterfitting is about as well paid a job as accounting, if I had more time I would borrow somebody's iron and sit around ironing the cash I have saved from tips for this trip. After watching that scene from 'Lock, Stock', I sort of decided that is what I want to do if I retire rich some day. Wake up every morning with Kiera Knightly in my house floating on a lake, have some coffee, watch some BBC, iron some money.
Setting this post out from Nolte, the wireless is down in Bordertown again. Probably in hindsight better for everything as I would give into buying a scone or something if I had spent more time around there today. Had their soup and sandwich thing again. Soup is hardcore underappreciated in society, especially by myself until around a week ago. Is this really what I have digressed into talking about? Fuck.
I really am hoping my plan of landing an mp3 player in Ukraine works out, I'm not sure my pension-recieving CD player will last the 11 something total hour flights on the way to Kiev. I have to burn off some music to actually play in it, and then remember batteries and such. Realized sometime last night in my cascading apprehensions of the trip that whatever I pick up in Kiev will probably all be programmed in Ukrainian or Russian or some sort of crazy mix with an English or Flemish word thrown in to spice things up, so I sort of have to lock down Ukrainian to listen to music in a week. Listening to mostly acoustic Russian reggaeish lately - this group called 5'nizza, pronounced Пятница which is 'Friday' по-русски. Sort of crazy random noises every few tracks but the beats are all really sweet and beatboxed, and the guitar lines are great. Russian copyright laws aren't exactly solid and you can download most of the shit for free, another upside of reading Cyrillic. I'm going to land an incredible amount of Slav music over the ocean, haven't figured a solid budget on anything that I should limit myself to but maybe that is all for the best playing it off by whatever comes around. After the USD 250 to my host family and the USD 500 to Vira - our prof - , everything else is going to my part in picking up the Ukrainian economy. The Ukrainian Grivna is at around 5.1 USD now and from some Ukrainian friends I can sort of figure costs of things from prices of alcohol. Half a liter of domestic light or dark is around 3 GRV, imported light or dark around 4 GRV. Again, 5.1 USD to the Grivna. За здорове!
Finals are looming and I am dropping way too short an amount of concentration on them. Starting Thursday around 6.30 I launch into the bucket of fun which is 3 finals within 24 hours. After that it's chilling around with my Russian class at our prof's house for most of Saturday, work the last shift at the 'Buck for a month on Sunday afternoon, pack that night, hit up the physician for the first time in a few years Monday morning to fill out a form for studying in Russia, fax it, shake hands with the Starbucks regional manager and reassure him that I'll email him pictures and Lenin statues and whatever the fuck he wants from Kiev, kick it back to my apartment, sit around and act paranoid over leaving anything, then Ayaka - our ASM at the 'Buck - picks me up and drives me to Lindbergh around 3. The flight leaves at 7 and we all meet as a group for the first time at 5. So there's a few hours between meeting the group and my arrival at the airport, which I sort of planned. I fucking love airports. Especially hanging around the international terminals. It's intensely relaxing watching the shifting crowds for me. Figuring that within hours all of the varied faces will disperse thousands of miles apart and never reform in the same way as in that specific lingering light. Amsterdam is going to be incredible. The airport is supposed to be a massive hub for most of Europe, and we have a two something hour layover before we take off for Eastern Europe. Shots, brownies, Euro, flurrying people and possibility and all concentrated in my short acquaintance with the Netherlands.
I could use a sip of that now - or some Thompson and tequila within a fortified compound on the sea, even if without a camera. Oi, Jancsi? That's an experience close enough to call a conflict between the entirety of Magyars and those gun carrying non-bag thieving heathenistic bastards. Take to the hills!
Looming storm clouds make the day too possibly incredible to sit in a room constructing contentless discourses any more than I have already. The only solid excuse for standing under a solid roof today would be ironing bits of paper. Brilliant.