The backstory The application The interview The permanent residency visa Any migrant knows what a daunting task is to wrap up everything in one country in order to start a new life from scratch in another country. First of all I needed an exit visa. Russian citizens were not free to leave the country without […]
From Russia to Australia by freighter: departure Read More »
Day 1, Munich Day 2, Füssen The jet lag caught up with me and I only slept until 3 am. After a blissful sleep on the previous night in Füssen,” I thought that my body clock already switched to the local time. Well, it did not. I tossed and turned hoping to get another hour
Three days in Bavaria: Augsburg Read More »
Day 1, Munich Day 2 I opened my eyes with a start. My phone showed 6.58 am, time to get up. Füssen is the home base for visiting two castles that were built by the royal Bavarian family. After reading travel reports about people standing for hours in line to buy tickets to the castles
Three days in Bavaria: Füssen Read More »
As it often happens before a trip I did not want to leave home. It was a little over one month since I returned from my last trip to Bulgaria and I was flying to Europe again, this time to Munich. The night before the departure I checked if everything was packed. The backpack felt
Three days in Bavaria: Munich Read More »
Watching the solar eclipse was on our calendar well before the event. My husband Sergey who is an atmospheric research scientist wouldn’t miss it for the world. The question was whether to watch a 93% of obscuration of the Sun in Boulder, Colorado where we live or to drive to the neighboring state of Wyoming
The total solar eclipse on the 21th of August, 2017 in Wyoming Read More »
Trip 1 Trip 2 Hurrah, I was going to Bulgaria again! The flights were the same: Denver – Washington, D.C. – Vienna – Varna. The airport in Varna is small with only a few regular international flights. During the high season there are dozens of charter flights from European cities, but I fly from America
One week after the hike to Chasm Lake with me being in a better shape and state my husband and I went hiking to the Rocky Mountain National Park again. As the sign says there are a number of lakes there. We chose to go to Ouzel Lake. We were at the trailhead at
A hike to Ouzel Lake, Colorado, RMNP Read More »
It was only 3 days since I returned from a solo trip to Europe when my husband Sergey decided to revisit Chasm Lake that he saw last time 25 years ago. ‘Can we do something easy first? Give me time to adjust to altitude after 2.5 months at sea level’, I asked Sergey on the
A hike to Chasm Lake, Colorado Read More »
My flight home from Varna was via Istanbul with a 9-hour layover. I never was in Turkey before and instead of sitting at the airport decided to see a little bit of Istanbul. The flight to Istanbul was scheduled to arrive at 5 am. Tourist attractions open at 9 am. The boarding for the flight
Half a day in Istanbul, July 2017 Read More »
‘HOWDY’, the inscription on wings of a Spirit airplane cheered up its passengers as we were flying from Denver to Fort Lauderdale. Not everyone on the plane was in a good mood. The flight was almost 2 hours late. Spirit did not have a pilot in Denver to fly our aircraft. The airline sent one
Washington, D.C., March 2017 Read More »
