Украинская подруга

Not two full weeks after moving into our new home, my dear Ukrainian friend, Nastya (pronounced "nah stya"), came to visit. I could not even believe it.

Nastya and I met six years ago, not even a week after I arrived in Ukraine. I was thrilled to meet her because a) she spoke English and b) she lived across the street from my apartment building. I had no idea that she was going to become one of my dearest friends. At the time, she was a university student studying international business at one of the schools that I was working at, and she became a helper at the English clubs I facilitated at church. She also became my tour guide, transportation instructor, cultural interpreter, and general buddy. We spent a LOT of time together over the two years that I lived in Poltava, and I am so thankful for those years. I was able to watch her make some big steps as a believer, including baptism, which were beyond encouraging to me.

As long as I've known her, she has been an avid student of English and has translated for countless (countless, I tell you) groups of and individual Americans who visited (or lived in) Ukraine and has wanted to visit the States for years. She has friends in so many states and has learned so much about American culture that it has been a dream of hers to see it in person. The struggle for so many Ukrainians in her bracket of life (young, educated, professional, speaks good English) is acquiring a visa. The embassy just doesn't give very many visas to that demographic, knowing that many want to emigrate. So, when Nastya told me that she had received her visa, my jaw hit the floor. I kind of thought she was joking (mean joking). She wasn't, and thankfully, we were able to finagle a visit to North Carolina.

She arrived late on a Monday night and headed out on a Thursday afternoon, so we did our best to cram in as much hanging out as we could. We visited the Duke chapel and garden, Target/Ross/Old Navy, Chick-Fil-A, the Q Shack, watched Duck Dynasty for some culture (followed by Downton Abbey for some more culture), played with Claire, took walks around the neighborhood, and talked for hours. It was a wonderful and encouraging visit. 

Headed out!

At Duke. I believe her comment was, "This looks like Harry Potter!" She's right, by the way.

Claire, wondering why she isn't the main subject of the photo shoot. That's a new feeling for her.

BBQ, fried okra, hushpuppies, and macaroni and cheese. Baptism by Southern food fire.

Playing with Fifi (the wolf). Fifi can speak Ukrainian, apparently.

Very first CFA experience.

Culture. All kinds.

Cow hats.

Claire's trying to figure out if she likes the hats or not.

Goodbye kisses.

I just love her to pieces and am so thankful that we were able to make it happen. Люблю тебя, Настя!

Eating our way through town.

Read anything about the Durham social scene, and you'll sooner or later read that Durham was voted by Southern Living as one of the "Tastiest Towns in the South." That was one of the things that I held onto to keep myself encouraged and motivated about moving from Boston. (Do not misunderstand: Boston has EXCELLENT food. I wasn't expecting Durham to be superior; I was just encouraged that it should at least be good.) Brad, Claire, and I dearly love our food. 

I grew up in the Huntsville, AL area, which primed me for a particularly demanding palate. Huntsville is chock full of amazing local cuisine. I am not even kidding. Without even meaning to, I grew up as a person who naturally shies away from chain restaurants (with a few exceptions: Chick-fil-A), and naturally gravitates toward local eateries or LOCAL chains (Huntsville/North Alabama has quite a few awesome local chains: Rosie's...can I get an "AMEN!!"?) One time, Brad, Claire, and I were flying South (from Boston, obviously) for some holiday or another, and as we landed in Huntsville, I overheard the two businessmen in front of us talking about where to eat in the area. The first guy said something about finding a <insert generic chain restaurant name here> to eat at for dinner. The other guy said, "I hear Huntsville has really good food. We should look up some local place." If the hustle and bustle of deplaning hadn't already started, I had a list ready to reel off to them, whether they were ready or not.

Brad wasn't quite so picky about this kind of thing until we lived in Boston. I've mentioned it before, but Boston is very anti chains (except local ones: Boloco, Dunkin Donuts- that's right, it's originally from Providence, Home Goods). So, outside of a few carefully selected chains that make modest appearances, you don't find too many chain restaurants, which leaves GOBS of awesome local places. If you're ever visiting Boston, you should check in with me. I can make you a nice list. 

Anyway, we were very excited about trying local places in Durham. So far, we have had some good experiences. We haven't been to too many, but the ones we have been to have been worth mentioning:

1. The Q Shack. Not unsurprisingly, this is a barbecue place. Happily for me, it's not Carolina-style bbq (I'm sorry if you love Carolina-style; I'm not so into vinegar-y bbq). It's definitely more along the lines of Memphis bbq, which I definitely prefer. The first two times we had Q Shack, we ignorantly ordered pulled pork. This is a mistake. You must always order either the ribs or, better yet, the brisket. It is fantastic!

At the Q Shack with Nastia (blog on that to come!)

2. Bull City Burger and Brewery. First of all, I'd like to mention that this one is downtown and has parallel parking. And when I say "parallel parking," what I mean is that the clearly delineated parking spaces are so big that Boston drivers would wedge two cars into a space meant for one. They are shockingly big. The burgers at Bull City Burgers (Bull City is a nickname for Durham) are really unique and specialty. They come with interesting toppings like pimento cheese and tomatillo salsa (not on the same burger). We really enjoyed the food, but the BEST part was the CORNER FULL OF KIDS PLAYING APPARATI. It was awesome. We snagged a table right next to the little play kitchen and the bookshelf full of books and toys. It made for a very peaceful meal; we ate, Claire played. Glorious.

Play area. THIS IS GENIUS.

3. Foster's Market. We were invited to join some acquaintances for a Labor Day brunch at Foster's. It's definitely a local place that uses primarily local produce and meat. In fact, Foster's provides land to a local CSA (community supported agriculture) in exchange for produce. They serve regular Southern breakfast dishes plus some more interesting/gourmet style options. For example, I ordered an English muffin topped with two fried eggs, pimento cheese, and tomato jam. It was de-licious. My dad would have hated it; he hates pimento cheese AND tomatoes. Isn't that sad? I'm definitely looking forward to a return visit. I hear their chess pie is fantastic.

4. Jimmy's hot dogs. The hot dogs aren't necessarily worth writing home about, but the BANANA PUDDING. Whoa. It's a dollar for a big individual serving, and it's the best dollar that you could spend. It's so good. Mm Mmm.

5. Kipos. Technically, Kipos is in Chapel Hill. It's Greek, and it's awesome. We ordered a bunch of dishes, so that we could try several things. We made total pigs of ourselves, loved every bite, and can't stop thinking about it. Also? Claire had a total crush on our waiter. That girl.

We plan to keep eating our way across Durham. It's a good thing that Brad's program is five years; we'll need it to get to all of the places we want to try. I'll keep you posted.

Flashback Friday: Kayaking.

Seriously. Those of you who know me: would you ever have thought I would go kayaking? In all honesty, though, it's something I've been intrigued by for a while. I think water sports are fun and interesting, and as long as I don't overturn in alligator-infested waters, kayaking seems like a fun adventure to me. Thankfully, our water of choice in Boston- the Charles River- isn't known for its alligators.

Before leaving Boston, Brad and I were determined to squeeze in tons of Boston fun, which decided should include kayaking the Charles. So, we started our adventure in the Newton-ish area of town (where there wasn't too much going on, river-wise). When we checked in, we were greeted with really encouraging news of "since it's been raining, the e coli levels have the potential to be higher than normal. Were we sure we wanted to do it at our own risk?" 

Yeah. We did want to.

We spent about two hours paddling our way down the river, getting to see the city from a new perspective. Boston was on our right, and Cambridge was on the left. We went under about seven different bridges, and I am still kicking myself for not getting pictures of the graffiti. There were some really interesting (and not inappropriate) messages and images. We passed by churches and old apartment buildings and BU and the Esplanade (a long walkway that runs alongside the river). We paddled into a little lagoon along the esplanade and say ducks and lily pads and also passed by where we sat for our 3rd of July Independence Day celebrating. 

Tower at MIT.

The Esplanade Lagoon.

Proof.

Brad even got this shot of Boston's famous Citgo sign.

By the time we finished, we had gotten to see so much of our favorite city from such a fun and different perspective. We also had really tired arm muscles...So, obviously, after burning off all of those calories, we had to fill up on burritos in Kendall Square. We had never spent any time in Kendall, so even that was a fun Boston experience. We were there on a Thursday, and there was live music on Thursdays during the summer. We also got a little bit of an unplanned tour around Kendall while we were trying to find our T station. We may have walked in the wrong direction for several minutes. 

All in all, I'd say it was one of my favorite Boston experiences. I'm not one for the outdoors; I'm a city person. So, kayaking through the city was a perfect combination for me. Plus, it felt like we were on the Amazing Race. Not sure why. It just seems like something contestants would have to do. 

If you go to Boston and have the time, I recommend it! It's a neat way to see such a wonderful city.

Sorry for the blurry pictures...not sure why they are so blurry.

6 Weeks in our Life: You're lucky if there's toilet paper in the bathroom.

The past six weeks have been very busy for us. I counted that in the weeks since we moved into our house in Durham, we have had ten (10) different people stay with us. We also squeezed in a 9-day journey to the beach with Brad's family. So, you can probably imagine the state of our house for the past month. It was only after the last round of guests that I actually got a bedskirt put on the guest bed. Don't even talk to me about the bonus room...Brad's office side of the bonus room is pretty well put together, but my part of the room- the sewing machine/craft side- is really frightening. There is no telling when that will get resolved. There are still a couple of boxes that need to be unpacked, but the problem is that I need to reshuffle a couple of closets around so that I can put more stuff in them...the stuff from the boxes, in fact. What a conundrum. Most days turn into me frantically saying, "WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF! WE NEED TO THROW AWAY EVERYTHING!" Brad usually talks me out of that.

I think I've written about the quirks of our Boston apartment, things like our sound-proof room and the faux rock wall. I thought I'd tell you a little about our new place. First, I should wax eloquent about how much we love our new house. We have a PARKING PAD that fits both of our cars. This means NO SCOURING FOR PARKING SPOTS when we get home. Or parking a mile away (in a literal sense). It's awesome. 

Also, 4 bathrooms. Two full and two half. Four toilets. And, there are only two of us that are toilet-users currently. That quadruples the number of toilets we had in Boston. If we ever get a stomach bug at the same time, we are set. We live in the lap of luxury, for sure.

We have a guest room. To all of our friends who visited us in Boston and slept in our "guest room," we invite you to re-visit us in Durham. We can offer you a real bed. With no weight-bearing column right square in the middle of your room. How fun would that be for everyone? 

In a similar vein, Claire has a real room. To those of you who never visited us in Boston, you might not have known that Claire's room was, shall we say, "multipurpose." It served as her room, the guest room, a storage room, and the walkway to the basement/laundry room. It was sound proofed (don't worry- we used monitors and regular check-ins to make sure everything was safe) and did, in fact boast a weight-bearing column in the middle of the room. That column, combined with the wraparound, built-in desk, made turning that room into a more functional bedroom nearly impossible. Oh, and the fact that it was our pathway to the laundry made things complicated. We "decorated" her room a smidge to make it feel jolly and happy, but there was no way around the fact that it wasn't a real room. So, it is nice to have a proper room for her. Although, I will say, our Boston experience made me realize just how not significant an adorable nursery is; she surely didn't care, and we were able to function just fine. 

In Durham, we also have a washer and dryer. That we don't share with anyone and that we don't have to pay quarters to use. This is amazing and quite possibly my very favorite thing about living here (it's a tie with the parking space). I love it. I can do laundry whenever I want, however many times a week I want. And, I can dry any and everything. (In Boston, I would do two loads of laundry per week- one light and one dark. I would then combine the things from both loads that I most wanted to dry in the dryer, and everything else air dried. I truly hope I never take laundry for granted again.) 

Some other favorites about our new place: our neighborhood is lovely (the plants around here are gorgeous), we are in a great location for getting most everywhere (including Duke, which is very important), and we have a back deck. It's just a super great place to live.

Some of the quirks of our place are really interesting. For example, we have an area off of our kitchen that we refer to as our "coffee bar." We aren't entirely sure exactly what it was originally intended for, but it kind of looks like a large wet bar (without the sink...because the sink is about 6 feet away). The counter section of the "bar" is kind of odd, as it's not really quite deep enough for stools. The whole thing is cordoned off with a set of low-hung, saloon-style swinging doors. We eventually plan to remove them, but for now, they keep the bear out of that area.

On the wall behind the coffee bar is a massive mirror. It's probably 9' by 5'. Or something around there. It gives the illusion that our living room (that it faces) is HUGE. Claire loves it. We have gotten used to it. Need a hair check? Just step over to our coffee bar.

Another quirk is that we have no pantry. I never really paid attention to the fact that the two other places we have lived as married folks have had dedicated pantry space. I didn't have any in Ukraine, but I guess I forgot about that over the past four years. So, we actually turned quite a few of the cabinets in the coffee bar into pantry space. It's really handy, although not ideal, as you sort of have to stand on your head to get to the lower shelves. I've decided to squat every time I need something and turn the whole thing into an exercise.

Our kitchen is incredibly tall, which we love. It has those chic sunken lights and pretty crown molding...and the cabinets go reallllly high. For most of the cabinets, we store infrequently-used serving pieces, but one of the cabinets is used as pantry space, so I literally have to get out the step ladder to reach some of our food. Fortunately, there is an odd, 6" space between the edge of the kitchen cabinets and the coffee bar, so I can stash it there.

I'll try to get some pictures of our house up for you sometime. Things are mostly in there proper places (outsides of the bonus room and various walls where we haven't hung art yet), so it shouldn't be too traumatic for anyone. The question is how quickly I will manage this. I have actually been writing this blog post for four days, but haven't been able to get it finished, thanks to the toddling bear. Sheesh. Parenting is hard. Why doesn't anyone ever warn you? Oh wait...they do...Bless us all.