New to the board, but sort of an "old salt" to this endeavor TR

[myrddin]

Chris59,

I'll publicly echo some of FP's sentiments: no need to respond to every single comment.  This is your thread.  Do with it as you wish.

Early on you said that even a relationship that didn't end up as marriage can be among the best of your life, or something similar.  I'm not sure my first relationship with an FSUW was similar to that, but it was certainly educational, interesting, and had its own rewards.  I think it was also necessary for my own development.

Reviewing your own TR in the light of subsequent experience can be a window to important personal insights.  Now, since I firmly believe that the Trip Report section should contain for the most part reports about trips, I'll be quiet and let you continue.   

[Doll]

The more I read this TR, the more I get confused- what is the message in it?
1.Do like I did.
2.Don't do like I did.
3.Don't do but get some advises from me.
4.I am posting it (one more time!) to hear some more comments and understand I was right/I was wrong
5.I am posting it to inspire myself to do it again.
6.I am posting it as a grand finale of my attempts.
7. Other

( Actually I know why Chris does it, but what are his "official" motives?)

[Faux Pas]

The more I read this TR, the more I get confused- what is the message in it?
1.Do like I did.
2.Don't do like I did.
3.Don't do but get some advises from me.
4.I am posting it (one more time!) to hear some more comments and understand I was right/I was wrong
5.I am posting it to inspire myself to do it again.
6.I am posting it as a grand finale of my attempts.
7. Other

( Actually I know why Chris does it, but what are his "official" motives?)

Doll

Maybe he is just telling his story and hopes to gain from doing so. Throwing the poop against the walls to see what sticks. Perhaps you show quit showing your fangs long enough and offer him some of your expertise? 

[JR]

The more I read this TR, the more I get confused- what is the message in it?
1.Do like I did.
2.Don't do like I did.
3.Don't do but get some advises from me.
4.I am posting it (one more time!) to hear some more comments and understand I was right/I was wrong
5.I am posting it to inspire myself to do it again.
6.I am posting it as a grand finale of my attempts.
7. Other

( Actually I know why Chris does it, but what are his "official" motives?)

To me a T/R is all of those things. Actually it is whatever the reader gets from it. And hopefully it is inpiration to many to do more than type away the years

Great job Chris!

[Doll]

Doll

Maybe he is just telling his story and hopes to gain from doing so. Throwing the poop against the walls to see what sticks. Perhaps you show quit showing your fangs long enough and offer him some of your expertise?  Grin

Well, so it is #4
As for my opinion I gave it many pages ago and also told the story with my older son  who was in same situation (but much younger- 26)
Chris fears life- that's all.

[Doll]

I am just telling you- my son was very sincere and said that he feared to be a husband, to be responsible for the family. It is not easy- to be a husband.
Yet he is married now with a baby, doesn't regret a bit of it.

[Faux Pas]

I am just telling you- my son was very sincere and said that he feared to be a husband, to be responsible for the family. It is not easy- to be a husband.
Yet he is married now with a baby, doesn't regret a bit of it.

Thats understandable and completely natural. It can be a scary thought for many. If it's not what they "want" to do, chances are they won't be any good at it

[Doll]

Thats understandable and completely natural. It can be a scary thought for many. If it's not what they "want" to do, chances are they won't be any good at it

I don't think so- one needs to have a faith in himself, to grow up.
We all live in the same society with same problems- some go through them, some fear to do it.
I was driving today and passed the sign in our mental hospital ))))))," The best way to get out is to go through it"
Not so?

[Chris59]

A trip report is just that, a trip report. There is no "official" message in it. There may be some more subtle messages, but this is just a detailed account of my experiences. I really don't think that my account is all that unusual. I'll have some closing thoughts when I get finished.

[Doll]

Come on, Chris, post the rest of it.

[Doll]

There is no "official" message in it.

This is how we, Russians, put the words together. By "official" I mean what you tell us why you post.

[SANDRO43]

This is how we, Russians, put the words together. By "official" I mean what you tell us why you post.

Doll, any family connection to Torquemada ?

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o[/youtube]

[Chris59]

........... You want more? ..............


The following day was Thursday, and Nina R. and Phil had invited Nina S. and me to dinner at their apartment. In the early part of the day, Nina S. came over to my apartment, and we had our usual coffee and kitchen table chat. My flight back to the States was scheduled for Saturday, so I only had a couple more days to spend in St. Petersburg. I do not remember exactly how our conversation transpired, but it was sometime during the early part of the day, that I told Nina S. that I just didn't think that things were working out between us. If I honestly believed that in my heart, than I had a duty to tell her. There is absolutely no reason to string her along any further. I reminded her about our dinner invitation at Phil's and Nina R's place. I told her that I still wanted her to go, but if she declined, I would understand. She said that we'd go together, and she asked me to agree that neither one of us would make a big deal out of anything while we were there. I told her that I would not, as I still considered her to be my good friend.

We were going to go downtown to take some photographs of the city, during the early part of the day. We were walking in the direction of Nevsky Prospekt, and I thought that both of us seemingly had control of our emotions. I noticed that Nina S. was wiping a tear away from her eyes. We stopped walking long enough for me to give Nina S. a tissue, and I helped her wipe her eyes. Honestly, I felt miserable too, and I also began to wipe a tear away from my eyes. We both tried to be strong, and even chuckled that we were both crying. Pedestrians were even staring at us, as we were walking down Nevsky. I was no longer in the mood for sightseeing, and Nina S. wasn't either. We headed back to the apartment for some more afternoon tea. By the time we reached home, we both had regained our composure. The rest of the afternoon was spent just watching TV together on the sofa.

That moment that we both had just shared back on Nevsky was one of the most emotional moments that I have experienced in a long time. I don't think I even felt that miserable at my sister's funeral back in 1994. My sister died after a year-long bout with cancer, so maybe in a sense, I had time to prepare for her passing. Seeing the feelings hurt of a lady that you have been seeing and writing to for almost a year, made me miserable too. Just a few short days earlier, I had arrived back to St. Petersburg to visit Nina S., and see where these next few days would take us. I never would've envisioned that my trip would begin coming to a close like this. All during the last few days, I suspected that Nina S. really did not have feelings for me,....that she was just playing the good hostess to me while visiting St. Petersburg. However, that did not now appear to be the case. It appeared that Nina S. WAS emotionally involved in our relationship, and knowing that made me feel that much more miserable.

Note: This might be a good time to interject a thought about this whole process. Most of us agree that Russian women, or any woman for that matter, can be very jealous and protective of their men. If you travel to the FSU and choose to visit more than one lady, keep in mind that you might be jeopardizing the feelings of one or more of the women that you are traveling to visit. In my case, it got me into a bind, and eventually ended up hurting somebody, or both of us to be exact. I suppose honesty is the best policy, and that's the only logical approach I could take, once I managed to mess up my trip with two women.

In the early evening we needed to take the metro over to Finlandia Station, and catch a small bus from there to get to Phil and Nina R.'s place. Once aboard the bus, it only took about 15-20 minutes to reach their neighborhood. It is mostly residential, with the usual Soviet-era 10-12 story apartment buildings. Fortunately, Nina S. had been here some months earlier, and she remembered how to get to their apartment.

The night went as well as could be expected, as Nina R. and Phil played good hosts to us, and they served us a delicious chicken dinner and ice cream for dessert. During the evening, Phil entertained us with some tunes from his guitar. I can't sing a lick, so I never gave it a try when offered. The two Nina's had plenty of time alone in the kitchen to chat. I could only wonder what was being said. If Nina S. did have any complaints about me, I had hoped that she would at least tell Nina R., because at least later, I would have a chance of hearing what her concerns were. In all it was a very pleasant evening, but I knew what awaited us later, as I still had to escort Nina S. back to the Ligovsky Prospekt Metro. Upon departing back towards town, we caught the small mini-van-type bus back to Finlandia Station. The ride on the bus was somewhat quiet, even though Nina S. and I continued to hold hands. There was not much conversation, but I had noticed that about Nina S., whenever we were in public transit, she hardly ever said a word, or showed any romantic emotions.

Upon arrival at Ligovsky Prospekt, I walked with her down to the train platform. I don't think that either one of us wanted to drag on the moment. We both turned to each other teary-eyed, and she gave me a big hug, and said "take care of yourself". I said the same to her too, and she turned away and walked towards the train platform. I knew that she was hurt, and I was feeling hurt too. This was a very emotional moment for me too. Afterall, this was the first Russian woman that I had traveled to meet. We had some good times together, and some not so good times together. When I look back in retrospect and ask if I think that the two of us were in love,...I'd have to say, probably not. I just don't think we ever got to spend enough time with each other to call it true love. There's many things to her credit about her though that I loved and admired. She didn't have to be so sweet and tender all the way to the bitter end. She could've turned into the bitch from he11, but she never did. I do not know if this is a common trait among Russian women, but I'll tell you, I don't know many AW's that would've been that sweet in the end. I will always love that about her, and she will forever have my respect.  

 

[Chris59]

The following day was Friday, and this was to be my last complete day In St. Petersburg. This day I would spend the entire day with Elena. This would allow us a chance to get to know each other better, without any particular scheduled activity to adhere to. We could just take the day as it comes, as see what progresses. Elena and I met at our usual corner of Pushkinskaya Ulitza and Nevsky Prospekt. Elena was dressed in a light, lime green business suit, and a light green scarf to match. In fact, my avatar photo was taken on that day. That is Elena in the photo with me. It was a cloudless, sunny day and for early May, the temperature was warm, probably in the upper 70's.

The landlady of my apartment, "Nadya" had called me late the night before, and asked if I wouldn't mind being ready to leave the apartment by Friday night. She offered to vacate and put me up in her apartment, so that she could get the apartment I had been staying in, ready for another arriving tenant. I didn't mind really, as Nina R. and Phil had told me that Nadya has a very beautiful apartment over in Petrograd, and I could use it for the 1 night. So, she said that she would come over to my apartment at about 7:30pm, and about 8:00pm, she would pay to have a taxi take me from my apartment, over to hers. So, I somehow communicated to Elena that I had to be back at the apartment by about 6:00pm or so, to pack, and be ready for Nadya's arrival.

Elena asked me what I had seen of St. Petersburg, and I pointed westward towards the central historic area. She then asked if I had been to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra Cathedral, and she pointed in the opposite direction. I told her that I hadn't. We took the metro to the Nevsky stop where the cathedral was directly across the street from the large Moscow Hotel in St. Petersburg, which I knew of in all of my studying of the city.

One of the oldest architectural ensembles of Saint Petersburg, Alexander Nevsky Lavra, was founded in 1710 on that very place where according to the legend Alexander Nevsky defeated Swedish troops. The construction works lasted for almost a century and was finished only by 1790. On the grounds of the cathedral is a military graveyard, with what appears to be some high-ranking military people buried there. This weekend was Orthodox Easter, so this would've made it Good Friday. There was a huge line of people waiting to get inside the cathedral. Outside by the gate, there were several seemingly needy looking folks asking for spare change. I instinctively reached into my pockets to try and help the poor souls with some spare change, but Elena quickly scolded me for trying to give them some money. When I questioned her as to why it was so bad giving them a few coins, she said something to the effect that its "bad energy", or something like that. I was a bit perplexed by this, and we continued to try and discuss it later, and we used my dictionary to try and dicipher what she really meant. She used other words such as "bad karma", and "theatre". The impression I got from her attempted explanation, was that these people pan-handling were just patsies, and they weren't really the ones who'd benefit from any money given. It wasn't that big of a deal to me, but I wanted to know if maybe she was superstitious or something.

After spending some time inside the cathedral, we walked back down Nevsky towards downtown. We periodically stopped into a couple stores, one of which was the Lomonosov Porcelain store. This place had beautiful porcelain china, that is made locally, at the Lomonsov Porcelain Factory, somewhere right in St. Petersburg. If ever I wanted to buy a beautiful, heirloom quality porcelain china set, this is the place I'd go. One other thing I would also notice about "window shopping" inside some expensive Russian stores is, the clerk will approach you, and even if you tell them that you are just looking, they will continue to stand quite close to you and stare while you browse. This happened at least a couple times, while Elena and I were browsing through stores.

Elena and would walk back all the way down Nevsky Prospekt into the central, historical part of the city again. We saw many of the sights that I was already somewhat familiar with. We stopped at a small park, and sat on a bench drinking mineral water. We laughed and had a good time with each other, and Elena mentioned that were were carrying-on like children. Later on, I told Elena that I wanted to buy some Russian chocolate. She found the perfect store right in the heart of Nevsky. My mother likes chocolate, so I wanted to send her some, when I returned home. Now, I had a rather heavy bag of chocolate to tote around. It had a handle on it, much the one that I used to carry back from the rynok, when Nina S. scolded me for carrying it the way I did. This reminded me of that, so I used this opportunity to wrap the handle around my hand, thus carrying it a bit higher, like I did with Nina. I asked Elena if it was ok with her if I carried the bag like that. She replied, "of course, what kind of a question is that?" Ok, so now I knew that it couldn't just be some cultural thing, and carrying the bag the way I did last Sunday, really shouldn't have been something for Nina S. to complain about.

By now, it was about 4:00pm, and I told Elena that I wanted to take her out to a nice dinner, as a goodwill gesture, and because it was my last night in Piter. She agreed, and we found a nice restaurant somewhere in the heart of Nevsky. Now, for a Friday night, either we were very early, or this place was really expensive. When we were seated, we were the only occupied table in the place. There was a small band and singer playing on the stage at the end of the dining room. Geez, it was romantic, but I felt guilty that there were no other patrons in the place to enjoy their music. Elena and I had a quiet dinner together, and once again the service was a bit on the slow side. Elena and I were both keeping our eyes on the time, as I had to be back at the apartment to meet Nadya. We still had plenty of time, but it was time to start thinking about getting a move on. We were waiting a while and our check still had not arrived. Elena then said something very sternly to another waitress, who wasn't even our waitress. I don't know what she said, but I could tell the other waitress wasn't thrilled with what she said. Maybe Elena was just looking out for me, and maybe it was nothing at all, but it sounded a little harsh in my opinion. This was the first time I had witnessed Elena exhibit a bit of a temper, and considering the circumstances, I was a bit taken aback by it. Our check arrived about a minute or so later, and we promptly paid and headed for the apartment.

Nothing much noteworthy happened at the apartment. I had time to get packed, and Nadya arrived with her teenage daughter to help cleanup the apartment. She taxied us to her apartment, and indeed it was a very nice place to spend my last night in St. Petersburg. By now, Elena and I have become quite comfortable with each other. Considering that I was leaving for the airport in the morning, I invited Elena to stay with me in the apartment if she wanted to. She said it would be ok, as the apartment is much larger than the one I had just left. As the evening grew late, we took a walk over towards the Peter and Paul Cathedral, which I had yet to visit, on both of my trips there. We were both tired of walking that day, so before we made it to the cathedral, we turned around and went back. I wanted to take a shower before going to bed. Later we turned in for a normal nights sleep, without any hanky-panky. By now I had decided that I wanted to return to St. Petersburg to spend more time with Elena, thus I wanted to remain a gentleman, and not instigate a situation that might make us both uncomfortable.

[Chris59]

 .......... Comin' down the home stretch ...........


Saturday was my day to depart for the U.S. Elena had stayed with me in Nadya's apartment overnight. About 10:00am , Phil arrived with Slava (Nina R.'s son in law). Slava would be my ride to the airport, this time accompanied by Elena. I couldn't help but feel guilty in front of him, because when he picked me up at the airport on Saturday, it was with Nina S. Elena would later tell me that she overheard Nadya tell her daughter that Elena was some prostitute that I must've picked up somewhere. Afterall, Nadya had dinner with us on Sunday night, so its understandable that she might think that, but I was not comfortable knowing that others may have that thought about Elena.

On my way to the airport with Slava and Elena, it was a relatively somber ride, just as it was when I departed last August. This time though, I couldn't help but reflect on my recent visit, and how events had changed so suddenly. I arrived to spend time with, and learn more about Nina S., and I end up riding home with another lady, who I've known for much less time, but she just may be an even better lady than Nina S. was. The only way I was going to know for certain, would be to return to St. Petersburg, and spend more time with Elena.

                =============================================================


In late December, I would return to St. Petersburg again, to spend time with Elena, and only Elena. This time, I had no other lady that I had written to. Elena and I spoke on the phone 2-3 times per month, and exchanged a few e-mails, but Elena did not have a home computer. So, e-mails were few and far between. During our phone conversations, dialogue was a bit difficult, as Elena still knows almost no English. Somehow we were able to communicate, albeit in a very basic manner.

This trip would have me in St. Petersburg for New Years, so at least, as I understood it, there would be some festivities to partake in. This was my third trip to St. Petersburg, and all previous trips were made in late April, into May. The temperature during my stay was no warmer than -18 C. It got as cold as -30 C. on New Years Eve. I needed to buy some new winter boots immediately upon departing the airport. I knew I could buy some boots in St. Petersburg, and there were many open shoe stores on Vladimirskaya Prospekt. It was not very far from my new apartment at Marata Ulitza, and Nevsky Prospekt. Right across the street was the Mayakovskaya Metro station, that was most convenient for Elena.

This trip however, Elena would stay with me in my apartment for the week+ that I would be in town. She hauled over a lot of her clothes and nicer china for us to eat on. Elena is a very formal lady, as she likes to wear nicer outfits, and more expensive cosmetics. I've never seen Elena wear jeans, and if I had to guess, she probably doesn't even own a pair. It's probable that Elena could even be considered a "high maintenance" lady,...which really doesn't mesh well with my personality. I'm considerably more laid back about my appearance, and can even be somewhat frugal when it comes material possessions.  

Even though the temperatures were always sub-freezing, that didn't keep us from going places and doing things. One day we boarded a bus for Pushkin, and toured both the humungous Catherine's Palace and Pavlov's Palace. Both of these places are museums that have as much of the original settings, as it was in the late 1700's. I highly recommend a day-trip with your lady to Pushkin, which is only 15 miles from the center of St. Petersburg. You can buy tour tickets at the excursion kiosks, near Gostiny Dvor, and catch the bus right there.

Elena and I would host 2 parties on back-to-back nights. Our guests the first night would be 2 of her friends, a married couple Sasha and Elena, and the next night, we hosted Phil and Nina R. Elena seems to enjoy playing hostess, and is meticulous about the food that she serves. We had many salad dishes, red caviar on buttered bread, and Elena made this mushroom and onion stuffed chicken breast, which I have always enjoyed. Elena's friend Sasha, drank a whole bottle of vodka while they were there. Also, her friends didn't leave until about 7:00am. After a long night of partying, I started to wonder at about 4:00am or so, what time her friends would go home. Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, but I never party all night long, and could only hope that this was the exception for Elena, and not the rule. The last thing I'm looking for is a party girl.

This trip would at least allow Elena and me a chance to live together, and get to know each other better. I would learn that Elena can be on the demanding side, and can be a bit fussy at times. I suppose that this is a somewhat typical feminine trait, so I guess I cannot complain too much about her in that respect. In all, she is still a quality woman who is worthy of being somebody's wife, but whether or not she was for me, I still needed more time to decide. Afterall, there was still a huge language barrier between us.


                   ===================================================================

I would travel to St. Petersburg again in April to spend more time with Elena and getting to know her. This time, she helped me find a lesser expensive apartment off Vladimirskaya Prospekt. Letting her book the apartment saved me a ton of cash, and for that I was very appreciative. We spent another week or so together, and on this trip, we took the overnight train to Moscow for 2 days. In all my previous trips to Russia, I had yet to see Moscow, and I knew that traveling to Moscow would be a good time for me to evaluate Elena away from her own turf.

We booked 2 nights at the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow. I knew of this hotel, because it was here that European Connections Tours used to put up the groups of men who traveled to Moscow on their group tours. I had seen it in many of EC's videos. It's supposed to be about a 4-star hotel, but in reality, it was probably no better than 3.5 stars. In my opinion, it was certainly adequate, but Elena would later say the Cosmos "was horrible". It was originally built by the French for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. It had lots of amenities, such as several bars, restaurants, a bowling alley, and numerous gift shops. For Moscow, it really wasn't all that expensive at around $120/night. That was about 5 years ago though, so rates are probably higher now.

Elena and I arrived at Red Square about an hour before they were going to close Red Square for several days. The annual Victory Day Parade was only 2 days away. I'm just glad that we got to spend the hour there that we did. I would've been very disappointed going all the way to Moscow, and find Red Square closed. At that time, directly adjacent to Red Square was the huge Soviet-era hotel "Rossiya". That place was absolutely huge, and I believe it was the largest hotel in Europe. They've since torn it down, I have heard.

Our trip to Moscow was awesome, but I'm certain that there's a ton more to see. You can't possibly see it all in 2 days, but we did take the river cruise a couple times, and a city tour by excursion bus. We also did a lot of walking, including up Tverskaya Ulitza, which is one of Moscow's central shopping streets. I remember feeling like a kid in a candy store, whenever Elena wanted to browse inside one of the many women's boutiques that line Tverskaya Street. If a western man really wanted to get an idea of what those beautiful slavic Moscow women look like, just hang out downtown on Tverskaya Ulitza inside one of those crowded boutiques.

My time spent with Elena over the last 2 trips, really helped me feel closer to her. She really is a beautiful, proper, family-oriented lady (she comes from a large family in Belarus). Elena has a rather large circle of friends in St. Petersburg. I'm "practically" an only child, as my only sister was much older than I am, so she was pretty much out on her own, when I was growing up. Thus I am a bit more on the introverted side, where Elena is more of an extrovert.  

By now, this should normally be enough face time to determine if a lady is worth pursueing as a life partner. I honestly had to ask myself many times, am I in love with this woman? There may be many things that I love about Elena, but at that time, I couldn't honestly say that I was in love with her. She seemed more like a good friend than anything else. You might even say that my fire for her had even diminished somewhat. I guess that's why you call your gal, your "flame", because many times, the flame eventually burns lower or burns out. I'm convinced that this is a perfectly normal human emotion. Love comes and love goes. It's those cases of love that stands the test of time, that truely makes love worthwhile. True love cannot be forced in my opinion, and that's what I think happens with many of these inter-cultural marriages. I really believe that you need to take the time to become good friends first.

That would be my last trip to Russia, as by then, I had come to the notion that Elena and I were mostly just good friends. I have gotten way past any issue of trust with her, as there was never any issue of mis-trust between us. Being good friends in my opinion is a good prerequisite for futhering a relationship. One barrier that I might cite though, is the language barrier. When people do not share a common language, it can be difficult for 1 party or the other to fully express their desires, fears and ambitions. This is probably more important for a woman, especially one considering leaving her family, country and culture. Elena had been taking English lessons for a while, so her English had improved during the course of our "relationship".


                      ========================================================================


We would continue to keep in touch over the course of the next year. When the topic of worldly travels came up, Elena had mentioned to me that she had never traveled outside of the FSU. I began to research where a FSU woman could go, without all the hassles associated. Turns out we agreed to meet in Barcelona, Spain. I know some basic spanish, so I thought this made sense, as we could stay near the beach, and enjoy seeing a new country that was foreign to both of us. I sent Elena some money to help pay for her trip, but she actually paid for a lot of her own way. She had to book with a group tour, so she actually had to book me on the tour with her, but not including her flight from St. Petersburg.

I did a lot of research on the area, and found that an area up the (Costa Brava) coast from Barcelona offered good resort-style accomodations, for much less than what you'd pay in Barcelona. For example, most any hotel that's decent in Barcelona was going to run about 150 Euros/per night. However, if you stayed at any of the many beach resorts in Santa Susanna, about 50 kilometers up the coast, 2 people could get a room with breakfast and supper (half board) for about $75 Euros/night. The best thing is, there is an "elektrichka" train that stopped right behind our hotel, and goes right into Barcelona in about 70 minutes. So, getting into downtown Barcelona, or further on to the airport, is a piece of cake by train. I highly recommend one of the dozens or so 4-star resort hotels in Santa Susanna, Spain. Oh, did I mention, these resorts are right on the Mediterranean beaches.
Elena loves to swim, so I think she really appreciated the choice of destination that I suggested.

In all, Elena and I spent almost 2 weeks together in Santa Susanna, Spain. I was hoping that this trip would help enhance our relationship. While we had a very enjoyable time together, I just didn't sense that our relationship was growing. On our last day at breakfast, I wanted to roam the dining room, and thank the various people who I had chatted with during my time there, and at least thank them for their great service. Elena followed me around the dining room, saying, "No, Krees-toh-fair, it's not a good idea!". She was making a scene in the dining room, and for what reason, I could not understand. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what, but I've always been taught to thank the people who gave me good service during a vacation. I especially liked the "eggs-to-order" chef, and I wanted to say thanks to him, and "bueno suerte". We often made small talk as best as we could when he was cooking my eggs at breakfast everyday. I think maybe it was the fact that I had a $10 bill that I wanted to give to the guy. This really ticked me off at the time, but I remembered back to St. Petersburg where she scolded me for wanting to give some spare change to the beggars outside Alexander Nevsky Lavra. This was no way to carry-on when we only had a couple hours left together.

[Chris59]

 ................ We're nearing the end folks, really we are! .................


Note: One thing I would like to say is, I can't believe I wrote as much about my FSU ventures, as I did. Thanks for tagging along!


My flight from Barcelona back to the States, left several hours before Elena's flight back to St. Petersburg. So, while Elena had a tour group that would pick her up at the hotel later, I had to take the elektrichka train right behind our hotel, into Barcelona, and on to the airport. It would be only 1 simple transfer in central Barcelona. Elena walked me to the train station right across the street, and when the train arrived, we gave each other a big hug and a kiss, and I was on my way back home. She stood there on the platform, and waved goodbye to me as the train departed the Santa Susanna station. That was back in May of 2005, I believe. To this day, I have not seen Elena again. We continued to call each other a couple/few times per month. Where I work, was a young Russian gal named "Alla", and I let the two ladies speak on the phone for several minutes. Alla mentioned to me that Elena told her that she didn't really feel like I completely loved her, and regretably, at that time, she may have been right. Elena is a terrific gal, but there was still something missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Like almost every relationship I've ever had in my life, it starts out like a house-afire, but the flames eventually die down. I'm not going to say that they burned out, but they just weren't blazing like they used to be. It may have been that we never made a complete emotional connection, probably due to the language barrier.

In subsequent weeks and months, Elena would eventually reveal to me that she had gotten married. She apparently had traveled to one of the Scandinavian countries, met a man there, and was now married to him. One part of me was actually quite happy for her, as the country that she would now be residing in, in my opinion, has to be one of the best places on earth to live. I envision it to be clean, natural, virtually crime-free, and the quality of life there, I imagine, probably even surpasses that of the United States. I was really happy to know that she was going to a better place than Russia, and hopefully a much better life awaited her there. During our conversation, I did not ask any questions about her husband, how they had met, or how long thay had known each other. At that point, it was none of my business, and I wished her well. I did have a sneaking suspicion though, that the two of them probably did not know each other very long. Elena even mentioned to me one time, that "maybe in a year or so, I can learn to love him". Again though, that was not any of my business.

I thought that was probably going to be the last time I'd ever hear from her, but much to my surprise, she would call me on my birthday, and at Christmas time. We would chat for a while, and wish each other happy holidays. Over the last few years, it almost became routine that she would call me on these dates. Not once, had I ever called her, or asked for her phone number in Scandinavia. It just wasn't my place to be calling a married woman.

Last December, she called me again, and this time she stated that she wanted to come to the U.S. for a holiday visit. I told her that if she ever came to the States, that I'd meet with her and her husband, and give them a short tour of SW Florida, if they ever arrived. At that time, she then mentioned something about wanting to come "odna" (or alone) if I remember my Russian correctly. I thought it a bit odd, but again, if she ever decided to come to the U.S. on a Tourist Visa (which I presume she could more easily get as a Scandinavian resident), I'd be happy show her around. Her intended arrival would be this upcoming October, when I guess as most Europeans do, she gets 3-4 weeks holiday from work.

We spoke again recently, and she told me that things were "bad" with her husband, and that they were now living separately. She spoke of wanting to go somewhere during her holiday time, Spain, Turkey, Europe, someplace. I think she has since ruled out the thought of coming here. I then told her that I'd been wanting to see Russia again. So, she mentioned that if I wanted to go to St. Petersburg again, she'd be willing to go there too. She still has her small apartment in St. Petersburg. I would definately like to see her again, as I believe that over the years, she became my good Russian friend, and I do still have feelings for her, which I've always sensed was mutual, even after she recently got married. I suppose I am curious as to why her short-lived marriage didn't work out. Did her fussy, demanding demeanor eventually drive him crazy, or was he just an ogre that drove her out of the marriage, or some combination of the two? I guess I'll never really know or care, but the possibility exists that I will return soon to St. Petersburg to see my good lady-friend, Elena. If nothing else, I want to see that she's well, and I want to know that she's happy. 


  ............ This concludes my Trip Report .................


I'll have some closing thoughts about this whole process momentarily. 

[Doll]

And?

[JR]

Now that's a story

Thanks for sharing it.