Don't try this at home

[remiel6]

So here I am finally going to write this and hope that telling this will not somehow get me in trouble. Let me start out by saying this
1. Do not try this at home  This stupid, crazy stuff, only works with me 
2. Did I mention do not try this at home 

[remiel6]

hit the wrong button anyway to my story.
If there is a way not to do this journey. This is it. I think I broke every rule in the book. Didn't break a comandment though
I will start out by saying that I met A... thru what may be one of the most disregarded websites there is. There are not a lot of good things to say about it, other than I met A... there.
Okay so I am delayed a bit perhaps in posting this little tale, but for those who may be curious to know of the who, what, where, when, why, and how of my trips to the Ukraine I will inform. You may wind up concluding that I am completely insane, but nonetheless. I should begin by saying I am an intuitive and impulsive person. These I suppose are not good traits to have when engaging on this little adventure, unless of course you are always right.
   I got the idea to start this adventure from some past experiences I had with Ukrainian women. I met the first girl while attending my first university (Minnesota) as an undergrad. She had moved here with her mother, this would have been in the early 90’s. It was wonderful. She had been in the United States for two weeks and her English she struggled with, but it turned out to be wonderful. When we found things we did not know the words for we would draw little pictures to help explain what we were trying to say. Things never went very far with her, but she left an impression in my mind that has stayed with me. Later I met another Ukrainian girl while in Australia. She was at my university and was one of several Ukrainians there at the time. I enjoyed their company and their views. I think at the time I didn’t realize that perhaps she wanted more from me than my friendship, but we all pass up on opportunities sometimes. So having had nothing but good experiences with Ukrainian women and nothing but bad experiences with American women, and with my dating prospects at home having shrunk to the point of oblivion I hopped on the web and started looking around.

[remiel6]

man do not type in the dark lol.
I went to dating sites, opened up profiles on Date.com and places like that at first. Not Russian sites, but strangely I got emails from several different Russian women and read fascinating letters. One girl I chatted with for a few weeks and she talked about “coming to see me” all she needed was some money for the airfare. The alarm bell (that little intuitive thing) went off and I started looking around and abracadabra I was introduced to scammers paradise. Fortunately for me I found scammers paradise before it found my wallet. I took a break and stopped my search completely. Then not having completely learned by lesson I started looking at the famous and much maligned Russian dating sites. The ones that you can all pull out your hat and list. I won’t bother here. I did read the terms of agreement and I joined one, not a good reputation as I learned later, but I joined. I liked it because they did not charge me to translate every letter. I thought this could get expensive. I didn’t like it because after spending money every month on membership costs I had to pay more money to “qualify” to get contact information. I played the game. I will admit I liked the feeling of being pursued a bit. I liked that when I logged in I had emails waiting for me. I like that when I logged in I had beautiful women waiting to chat with me. I did not join the chat scam as I call it. I wrote and if they constantly asked to chat with me I wrote them off, questioning their motives.
   I didn’t plan on doing anything right away. I figured that the odds of finding someone in life in general were slim so the odds of finding them online were probably even less. Then it happened. It was August 1st. I liked the letter because I could tell right away it was not a form letter. It was short, it was simple and she wrote something that stuck with me. She wrote that the stars are in our hands, we don’t have to reach so high to touch them. I liked that. I liked the idea that we could make our own fate. At that moment in my life in general it was exactly what I needed to hear. She said to me she was looking for someone who could see the kitten in the tiger. It did not talk about walks along the ocean and other such things. So I wrote back “but tigers can be so much fun.”
   So we engaged in our little on going chat. It was what we did. Our letters were full of on going conversations about tigers and other odd things. They were not conversations about what we wanted in a partner or other things. We did eventually discuss these things, but they never dominated the letters at all.
   I wanted to go. I wanted to get on an airplane the next day and alas I am in Law school and for those who have never engaged in the wonders of Law School, it is consuming to say the least. I was honest. She never once requested we chat in the pay per minute chat feature the website had. I liked that. We wrote everyday. I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I would do is check my email. I would read her letter and write back and then head off to class. I was excited to wake up. I started thinking. How do I get to the Ukraine? I hadn’t really thought about the actual travel. I knew I had to go there to meet her, visa requirements and such. I also knew I was in law school and had not budgeted a trip to the Ukraine in my planning. So I did what any good American should do. I got a job. A job in law school is not advised, but I blew past that stop sign because the big head and the little head were in agreement. When the big head, the little head, and my intuition agree, the world better move over because I will find a way.    
   Then a Friday came and I got no letter. Hmm…? Do not over react, I thought. Then Saturday, and Sunday and then another Friday. I was heart broken. I didn’t know what happened. Everything was perfect and all of a sudden poof. It was gone. I was depressed, but everyday I went back and waited for my little letter. Everyday I went and everyday my heart broke a little more. What kind of a scam is this? I thought, perhaps a scam to get my monthly fee. I don’t know. I didn’t want to think the worst, but as the heart and intuition can lead to good things it can lead to bad things as well.
   Three weeks went by and I had stopped checking my box of mail everyday. I didn’t wake up anxious. Then one evening as I was about to log off I went to the site to check my inbox and there was a letter. My heart got curious, but I was still feeling burned. She wrote that she was sorry. The agency’s computers went down and it took them all this time to fix them. She was so sorry. So we started writing again, but although I was crazy for her, now I was cautious. I had now read every forum I could find, and was full of strange things in my head. I heard all the advice, good advice actually, about not putting all your eggs in one basket, and being logical.
   Soon we started our daily writing again. Then in early December as the end of my term approached I got a sad letter from her. She told me that she was sad to know that our correspondance had to end because she was leaving the agency. I hurried off a reply begging her not to. I could get her contact information if she just gave me more time. She replied right away, telling me not to spend the money. Then she told me to read the letter very attentively. She had encoded a private email address into her letter. There would be a problem however as the readers of this forum may know. I don’t speak Russian, and she knew very little English. How to overcome? So I went to the free online translation sites and translated the letter into Russian and sent it off to her. She gave me her reply the next day. She told me that she was moving and it would be too far for her to go to the agency everyday to read the letters. She had no personal computer of her own, even the email address was a friends email address. She in the time I knew her had changed jobs and with the economy things were not well. She never once asked me for money. Not for internet fees or anything. So she got her own email address and we would continue like this for the foreseeable future. She would write in Russian and I would translate the letters using the software. The letters were less personal, because of the limits of the software. Then in one letter I told her that I wanted to send her a Christmas gift. She replied that the best gift I could give her was myself. So I planned it out. My coupe de gras so to speak. I would surprise visit her over Christmas.
   Now the sheer stupidity of this is immense, but heart, plus intuition equals sometimes stupid things. Every ounce of reason I could muster in the big head, heck even the little head told me I was dumb, said you can not fly 6000 miles to surprise someone. To quantify the sheer volume of risk I was taking. I didn’t want her to think I would actually come over. I didn’t want to get too much information from her because it would tip her off. So I bought my plane ticket to Kiev and in the middle of December took off to the Ukraine.
   When I landed in Kiev I did not have her telephone number. I did not have her address. I had her email address and her name and the city she lived in and other basic biographical information that she had given me over the course of the months. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I thought, I will email her and let her know “surprise I am here.” And I would at most have to wait a day. This was the plan.
   So I landed in Kiev and found a place to send email. I sent her a letter and browsed around to find someone to help me translate. I sent him, Alex, an email and told him basically that “Hello, my name is ….. I am going to be in Lugansk tomorrow and need your help finding someone.” I didn’t even have a place to stay. I wrote down his telephone number and was off. Of course given the time of day it was and when I landed my only option to get from Kiev to Lugansk was by bus. So I climbed on the bus and traveled to Lugansk
   This was educational to say the least. The problem with buses is that I get sick on them and I am diabetic. It is hard to schedule eating times while on buses in foreign countries. So I decided not to take the chance that my blood sugar would go low on a bus in the middle of nowhere and I opted to not take my shot. It was a logical choice. I could take extra insulin when I arrived to bring my blood sugar back down. None of that however solved the problem that I always get sick on long bus rides. I can ride in a car forever and not get sick, but for some reason you put me on a buss and poof. I will get ill. Needless then to say I spend all day sick on a bus going to Lugansk.
   I arrived early in the morning and went into the station, by the by why don’t they heat those places, it was cold in there. I sat my bags down and tried to use the card for the pay phone I had gotten. I reached into my pocket and all of a sudden realized. I had lost the translators telephone number. So now here I am, knowing no Russian, with no one around me who knows English stranded at a train station. So with little choice and armed with my trusty Russian/English dictionary I wandered over to a cab driver and managed to convey to him that I wanted to go to an internet café. He called someone on the phone. He sounded like he was asking where the closest internet café was. So I climbed in and he drove me to the café. I paid the money and 1st checked my email to see if A… had responded. She had not. Disapointed, but not undaunted I found his phone number again and went to the grociery store next door to use the pay phone. I called the translator and we shared a laugh at my losing his phone number. He came and met me at the store and took me to a flat I rented. Then I told him of my crazy idea and he I think admired my romantacism and at the same time told me I was crazy. He asked me what I knew. I told him that I knew her name and email and a little else. No telephone number. I thought perhaps there would be a telephone directory where we could look it up. Alas no  telephone directory in the Ukraine. So we went to another internet café. He had an idea. We would go to the Russian facebook type pages and do searches for her. There we would contact all her friends trying to find one that had her telephone number where we could call her. So we were off. After about thirty minutes of looking we found her. We sent her another message thru the system there and started to message all her friends, none of whom were online. We would have to wait for a reply.
   The path was like a mystery movie. How to find one girl in a city when all you have is an email and a name. No one replied to the requests and those that did reply did not have her new contact information as it had just changed because she had moved. So I started going thru all the letters in my mind. She went to the university only I didn’t know which one. So Alex asked me what she studied and I told him it was psychology, a good major to have if one is going to spend time with me. He said he knew where this university was where she would study this and they were in exams. So we walked to the university and after asking several people where the department was we found it and the exam schedule on the wall. They even had a list of classes and names on it. He asked if I knew what year she was in. Alas, I knew, it seems, nothing useful. So we went thru every list and did not find her name on it. So alex called a friend. He then asked me if she was in regular class or if she came in and took classes a few weeks every term and then took exams. I told him it was the latter. I knew this much. Then he told me that she would not be at the university then.
   I kept checking my email, still no reply. This would be the second longest time she had ever gone without  writing me and it would come at the worst possible time. We checked everything. We went thru all the places she had mentioned in the letters. She mentioned she worked doing something, but did not state where. I started to wish I was a sickler for details, which I am not. Time went by and it seemed my chances at this hopelessly romantic encounter would be dashed. I was running out of time. I had only a few days left and was very distraught. I went to bed thinking I had blown this chance all because I had to try to me mister hopeless romantic. I couldn’t sleep more then a couple hours and so I would lay down and wake up every two hours or so. I woke up at four in the morning and the idea I should have had before suddenly dawned on me. The first letter she sent me was sent from someone elses email address. Then I asked myself, who do I give out passwords to check my email to. No one, ever. So this means that if this person, whoever they are, gave her access to their email then they trusted her impeccably. I was suddenly giddy. I wanted to call Alex right away, but it was four in the morning. So I waited till later and called him. I then went to the internet place and went thru the mail I saved in my folder, and thanked god that I saved every letter I had ever gotten from her. I still had no reply from her though. I called alex with the email address and he wrote the person explaining the story and leaving his telephone number for them to call him. Then I went back to the flat. Nervous and anxious a couple hours later I started to walk back up to the internet café in the snow when the phone alex had lent me rang. It was alex. He told me that the lady whose email address I had called him. She had already called A… and he relayed the conversation they had to me. She called her and told her that she had received an email from a translator telling her that I was here and wanted to meet her. “here?” she replied. “In the flesh?” She was surprised and shocked. My goal had been achieved. She called her mother and told her mother. Her mother replied. “he’s here, in the flesh?” So it was arranged. She was in Krasny Luch and would take a taxi into Lugansk to meet me. I of course paid for the taxi. She would meet me at five o’clock at the agency and we would leave then to go somewhere together.
    I was now very nervous. I had alex take me to get flowers and once the time had arrived we walked over to the agency. It was cold, it was snowy, and there are no addresses anywhere. Very frustrating to an American. As a side note when Alex was showing me around he pointed and said this is the main road and it goes this way and down there it intersects with the other main road. Never thought I would miss a street sign so much. Anyway. We went where they had given directions and could not find the door. So alex calls them and  they tell him which door to go into. We go in and go up three flights of stairs and find ourselves staring at two more unmarked doors. We look at each other and shrug our shoulders and he calls them again and they tell him which door to go in and we go. The door leads to a very narrow hallway and the door we wanted was at the end of the hallway. Alex led the way and I followed. I was very nervous now. My hands were sweating and I was getting scared. He opened the door. Then it hit me. You know growing up all those movies that your girlfriends make you watch and you go along hoping that it will put them in a frisky mood. You know how in all those movies they tell you that when you meet “the one” you will just know. What the hell does that mean I would ask. Well Alex opened the door and there were three or four people there, but the first person I laid eyes on was her. We looked straight into each other’s eyes and I knew. I can’t explain. It sounds hokey and silly, but I knew. She walked over and gave me a big hug. Being there felt like a victory. After several hundred pages of letters to each other, I knew before I left that I really liked her. I knew less then a second after the door opened I was in love with her. The first thing I told her was that I wanted to prove to her that I would go anywhere, at any time, across any distance I had to travel. I would overcome any odds I had to overcome along the way to be with her. It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life.
   We went to dinner at this small little Italian place. The waiter spoke English and I could read the Italian menu. J She made me order for her. Which was a new experience. I had never ordered for anyone before. Alex of course was with us. I ordered food for him as well. It was a beautiful time I won’t bore by going thru the details of the conversation except one part. I asked Alex if he had any paper. He gave me a small piece of paper from his planner and a pen. I then asked Anna how much English she knew. She said a little. I then told her, via alex, that I was going to write something to her and if she needed alex to translate it he would do it. So I pulled out the pen and paper and wrote I love you on the note. J There was no need to translate that. She took the note from my hand, blushing, and took my hand as well. She put the note in her purse. A momento to keep, call it proof that in this bizarre cold world amazing things do really happen.
   We walked around the city. She took me to the central square where I saw the Lennon statute. No big deal to them, but to me. I told her, I don’t think there is a single Lennon statute in all the united states. It was a beautiful triumphant night that sadly came on my last day there. I had to leave in the morning.
   I would learn Lesson number one in the Ukraine. I cannot leave A… without some kind of trouble. Alex woke me in the morning and drove me to the Lugansk airport where I was to fly out to kiev to catch my plane later that day. We got there, my ticket was paid for with the last of my money (I know I told you I was stupid right away, and even dumber because I don’t carry credit cards, the whole trip was paid for with real money.) Only when we arrived we found out that the flight had been cancelled. Shit, what to do. I could not get a refund until the office opened at 8:30. They only other way I could possibly get to Kiev was a flight out of Donetsk. The only way to get to Donetsk was by taxi. Several which I did not have the money for. Ahh, kind Ukrainians to the rescue. A nice gentleman who ran the public transport system in Lugansk and was also needing to get to kiev offered to give me a ride to Donetsk where I would hopefully refund my ticket or exchange it for another one. So he drove me to the airport there. On the way we chatted and discovered he was two years younger then me and His father and my father were both in the military at the same time. The stranger thing about it was that his fathers job in the soviet military was to blow up the boat that my father was a sailor on. It is a small world.
   We got to Donetsk and he helped me with the women at the ticket booth, only the airline that sold me my ticket out of Lugansk does not operate in Donetsk and I would have to get to kiev to get the refund, but how to get to kiev without the money to get there. A supervisor was called over. Another supervisor was called over. Four more nice Russian men stood around arguing with the three airline people about how none of this was my fault. Finally one of them told me to pay for whatever I could pay of the ticket and he would pay for the rest. He refused to take his money back in Kiev. He told me. His son had been to the united states and had the exact same problem. There a very nice American came up and paid for his ticket. He was returning the favor to me. The sad thing to me was I had money. Sitting at home in my mailbox waiting for me to arrive. So I was off to Kiev, the man even bought me lunch.
So there is my first trip. I will continue the tale in the next post.

[remiel6]

So to recap, at this point in the story I have spent moer than 6 months writing letters to someone. I think this is called being a keyboard romeo. I left on a trip to the ukraine without any idea where I was going. (still can't believe I had the kahuna's to try or the luck to pull it off). I met a girl thru the "wrong" website. The only thing I did right was to not fall in love with a picture. (I waited till .95 seconds after I met her to do that)  .
I do not prescribe to the "right" way of doing things. The "right" way is the way that gets you married to the woman who loves you for you. There are things you should be aware of on this journey, as I've learned. There are websites where it may be harder than not to undertake this task, but in the end it is still about a boy and girl, or a man and a woman who want to meet and hopefully fall in love.
So i came home giddy as a schoolboy and once again we continued our writing. This time with the help of others we would now have someone to help translate letters. I started paying for english lessons for her and gave her money to buy a computer. Not all at once of course. We would write and I would drop hints about getting married. She would drop her replies. I would ask her about how men were suppose to propose in the Ukraine. After a while we decided that was what we both wanted. The next trip over there I would propose. I had not plans on trying to suprise that one. One suprise was enough. The second trip was much less stressful than the first.
Still it would have to wait because, well I am in law school and cant just get up when I want to fly to Europe. So It was planned that I would come back in the end of april and there we would do the engagement. I had people (the friend with the email) who helped me plan the whole thing. They told me everything that had to be done for a traditional engagement party and the whole thing sounded wonderful to me so we planned it out.
I bought a ring and then contemplated how to get it past the customs people. It turned out to not be a problem because I just put it in my bag and they never asked another question.
I had arranged this time for a train. I had written someone who was supposed to get me a train ticket and alas the day before I was suppose to leave they tell me that the tickets are all sold out. So with no time to make other arrangments I contact the friend who is suppose to meet me at the train station and tell them that I will be making arrangments when I arrive in Kiev and will contact them then. (Why is nothing in the Ukraine ever easy) So cutting things as close as possible, on my last day I take my Property 2 final which is from 9-12 pm and then catch the Michigna flyer which takes me from east lansing where I live to the Detroit airport. I get on the plane which flies to kiev thru Frankfurt and land in Kiev with not enough time to catch the early train and the tickets to the later train are sold out so this once again leads me back to the bus. I send an email telling them of my arrival time in Lugansk and wait for the bus. Once again I get sick on the bus, this time worse than before and they have to stop the bus and pull over and let me "take care of things". I get to Lugansk in the morning and there is no one there to meet me. I am not suprised by this because I sent them the email late in a saturday afternoon and they may not have read it yet, and I was a holiday at that. So I call Alex. Alex to the rescue again who comes to meet me and takes me to a flat and I call the lady who will meet me and Anna and everything is arranged. I take a nap, shower, clean myself up and for the first day there, because we are going over details we have the translator there with us. We have a wonderful time and they want to eat and order Pizza. This was interesting, because A... is very proper. So I watch these two beautiful Ukrainian women attempting to eat Pizza with a knife and a fork and the thing is kind of funny to me, so I tell them. A... tells me with a smile that her mother always told her that if it jumps, flies, or swims, then you can eat it with your hands. I find that cute. Anyway. So we have our engagement plans and I am impressed at how her english has improved in such a short time. we chat almost everyday on Skype. So the next day I will take the bus to her town and after she is done with work will spend the afternoon and evening with her. I am very excited as it will be the first time we will be together face to face without a translator.
She is very nervous, but we both brought our trusty dictionaries so we are prepared in case we have trouble communicating. I wont bore with the details, but I have a wonderful time.
We finalize our plans for the engagement, and I leave her knowing I will not see her the next day because she and her mother, whom I have not met yet, will be getting ready for the engagement party.
So on the day in question I get up and the translator meets me at the flat and takes me around town, first to buy a new tie because stupid me forgot mine. Then we travel to buy new shoes because mine will not do. Everything has to be perfect. Then we go to buy flowers and I have to be reminded again about not buying an even number of flowers. The have arranged everything and we go down to meet everyone and the photographer who takes pictures of the evening. There we will travel buy limosene to her mothers house where we will meet them and from there we travel back to Lugansk for a dinner at a nice restaurant where there will be dancing.
They explain to me what will happen. They tell me usually the man would go to the brides home with his parents and grandparents who would present him. Seeing as my family is not here they substitute for them. we drive out to her mothers and they meet us outside (after an adventure with the limosene getting stuck in the muddy roads). I meet her mother and they take us inside where we go thru this strange little adorable ritual. They acting for me tell the mother about how I am looking for this beautiful woman I have seen in a vision and they ask her if they have seen such a woman. They show me a woman, who is not A..., and ask if this is her and I say no. They ask if there is anyone else there. We then go on a search through the house and I find A.. in a back room. Where we hug and laugh. We go back out to the front room and everything is a lot of fun. Then as I propose I tell a story I will tell you. A... had already heard the story from my letters, but her family had not. Years ago when my grandmother died after the funeral we went back to her apartment and started to go thru her things. In the closet I found a bundle of old letters. No one had ever seen them before and she had never told anyone about them. I looked thru them and discovered that they were from my grandfather. As it turned out my grandmother met my grandfather by writing him while he was in the army during wwII. Here after her death we would find the letters that they shared. As I found them I never imagined that I would one day have my own set of letters to share with my kids, hopefully, one day.
So I asked, and she said yes and I gave her the ring and we were back in the limo and off to Lugansk for a wonderful dinner and dancing. It was an incredible time. I spent the next two days with A... before I had to leave early on the last morning. I had delayed deciding how to get back to Kiev and in the end decided that I would try to brave the airplane again. This allowed me to get an extra day with A... So Alex took me to the airport and this time the flight was not cancelled.
remember. I cannot leave A... without problems. So I got to Kiev and discovered a huge line at the Delta terminal. As it was my flight was delayed, Six hours. This meant that I would miss my connecting flight at JFK to Detroit. So Delta put me up at a hotel in New York for the night and put me on an early flight to detroit in the morning.
The fiance visa application was submitted on July 10 
thanks for reading and I hope the tale is at the very least inspirational

[Az1]

Congratulations remiel6. I hope everything works out for you. It's not the most conventional way of meeting women but at least you had the kahuna's to do it your way.

[remiel6]

Thank you. Kahuna's and luck  are always a good combination

[Faux Pas]

remiel6
I gotta tell you, that is one set of big brass gonads you pack in your skivvies. Great story. Most that defy the convention you have, have a much sadder ending before now. Congrads, sometimes it pays to go against the grain. I am curious though, with your lack of detail, how good of a lawyer will you make? 

[remiel6]

Yes, it defies convention, which is the story of my life it seems and why I titled this "dont try this at home". As for Law school, let us just say that my ability to find heart of the matter has helped and hindered at times. The discipline needed to sort thru the details has been good for me. I'm doing okay. on a side note, I am better at more abstract concepts like property and contracts then solid fact and element based areas like criminal law.

[Faux Pas]

Yes, it defies convention, which is the story of my life it seems and why I titled this "dont try this at home". As for Law school, let us just say that my ability to find heart of the matter has helped and hindered at times. The discipline needed to sort thru the details has been good for me. I'm doing okay. on a side note, I am better at more abstract concepts like property and contracts then solid fact and element based areas like criminal law.

My lawyer remark was tongue in cheek. Actually, two of my very best friends are lawyers, one is now a Judge. I sometimes wonder how he gets out of bed in the morning but, there is no one I trust more in the area of law. 

[remiel6]

that reminds me of a comment a friend once said to me. This coming after berating me for an hour on my decisions in life  He said to me S... if the world was going to end and they came to me and said I could chose one person to make the right decisions to avoid its ending I would chose you because when it mattered most I would always make the right call, he just wouldnt chose me to make any other choice at any other time 

[janic]

Wonderful story! Thanks for sharing!

I wish the two of you the best of luck and happiness for the future!

j.

[Ulysses]

Yep.....amazing TR......and law school should make you a great stickler for details......just don't take it too seriously...     (and my son's an attorney, BTW)!!!    Keep us posted on developments.

[JR]

An amazing approach and an adventure into romanticism not to be soon forgotten.

[remiel6]

thank you and I take that as a compliment