This was a really unexpected turn of events for us, but we’re going to Odessa, Ukraine in 9 days for a week. The whole thing came up as a business trip for me about a week ago, since I have a team of programmers there. And we just bought a ticket for Alena ourselves. Originally we thought that visa for her is going to be a problem. Turned out that you just have to pay a travel agency of choice, and they’ll do all the work for you. Alena picked up the visa yesterday, so we’re good to go now.

In Odessa we’re going to meet up with Alena’s mom and her sister. She hasn’t seen them in over 4 years, and I have never seen them at all. So I’m going to meet them all a month before our wedding. This is exciting and scary at the same moment.

As a part of the business trip, I have a co-worker friend going with me – Geoff. The interesting part about it is that Geoff has never been outside of United States (maybe Canada?), and he doesn’t speak a word of Russian. It’s going to be interesting to see his reactions / impressions. If I’d be Geoff, I’d be scared, but Geoff is looking forward to the whole trip.

What’s even more interesting is that we’re going to come back with another guy, who used to work for us in Odessa before. Now he was officially hired by our company here. He received a visa to enter U.S. last week, so we bought a ticket for him as well. That’s going to be another interesting thing. He hasn’t been to United States yet, and it should be a cool experience for him. He’s going to stay here for 18 months.

I, myself, am still not sure if I like this whole idea, but it’s not like I have much choice at the moment. Hopefully it will be more fun and less scary then before.

P.S. U.S. citizens don’t need visas to enter Ukraine anymore, but I still have one from my previous trips there.