"Come va il Fax?" "Bene, grazie! Escono! O! Scusi...!"

Ordinary life in the embassy...
My boss asks me "How's the InterFax?" (russian press agency whose journals I had to read and write reports about), but I understand "How's the Fax?".
I was searching the net for fax numbers of italian universities that were needed by the consulate, and so by brilliant association of ideas I promptly answered "Fine, thanks! They come up!" (meaning fax numbers).
You can imagine my boss' face... :-)

The days are bright, the women almost naked and heart-attackingly beautiful, and I'm just so, so tired... am attending a intensive course of russian now, for my teacher will leave tomorrow, and I'm having 2 hours per day of lesson, during lunch break and after work.

Plus, my bosses will have to write the evaluations for me and my collegue, and we both are pretty scared... I even dreamt of the ambassador yelling at me for my bad work, and then yell my bosses too, and then they all just gave me a more-than-embarassing evaluation... ouch! :-)

Luckily, the Posol, the ambassador left yesterday, so the bosses are relaxed and easy going, and may even be show pity of us! :D

Time to go to work, my mind is full of badly learned and even more poorly understood russian, my english is getting as bad as Zio's one, and I would just want to lay on the beach on the Dnepr...

HELP!

UPCP

(In Ukranian:)
Ucrainska Radjan'ska Sozialisticna Respublika

(In English: )
Ucrainian sovietic socialist republic



What a name eh?
And for the ones of you that didn't know, there was once a MCCP, Moldovan sovietic socialist republic... can you imagine moldovans... socialist??? :D
As to now, another CCP still exist, the TCCP, TransDniestran CCP; TransDniestra is a separatist republic, roughly half of Moldova, a state into a state where to avoid civil war with the mother Moldova the russians hold a force of 2000 soldiers.
Good habits not easily go away ;-)

As to everyday life here, I have some funny stories, the latest being one about a taxi driver that, once known that I don't have a girlfriend, enquired about my age, and after that proposed me his niece.
When questioned about "what does she do", he's voice betrayed surprise in answering "She does everything"... it's obvious, no?
Go explain him I just wanted to know wether she works, or studies, or what...

On other sides, I'm leaving the city... hopefully!
I am so fed up with Kiev, it is just *so* tiring.
I long for a wasted week somewhere, just some time rest and forget about everything, possibly in a small place where the longest distance is 300m to the sea!
Everything in Kiev takes loads and loads of efforts, unless you're willingful to spend money on taxis, or on "local" means of transportation, like private cars.
Everything has a price here, but usually, you can get reasonable bargains, even though prices for foreigners are always higher than for locals.
But I'm rambling... I need a week somewhere, Crimea maybe?
Let's say a small city, wonderful girls, cheap food and discos, and, most of all, no more underwear and socks to wash!

Yes, I am really rambling, but I had lunch at a snobby place, courtesy of one of the italians working here, and the grappa at the end of the meal dozed me off a little.

Seìchas pjom sza Rjevolutsju, a potom mj bjpjom sza Rjevolutsjeì!

Lory