Yep,

hard to believe, but I was there. His house is on the right, and a church is in the background. My wife got an invite, and I was allowed to attend as her guest. Man, did I get a look at the table from the secretary checking off names. I even “dressed up” for the occasion — but obviously we were under dressed when compared to the fully adorned dignitaries in attendance: virtually all of whom were wearing their best stuff — crowns, jewels, cuff-links, pins, wings, hats, regalia, etc… Moreover, only the rabbi and some Greek orthodox dude had beards, . Anyhow, I was miffed at the idea that some American secretary would even smirk at my attendance. Whatever.

So, we enter the compound (I mean, Ambassador’s residence) and begin waiting in a long line to pass the gate. Various officials kept passing us in line and letting themselves in. I’m wondering what we’re waiting for? Ahhhh… I see.. To greet (introduce) and shake the American Ambassador William Taylor’s hand. As soon as I saw that, I bailed outta line. “Where’s the beer? – there’s supposed to be free beer…” I asked my wife. We skedaddled over to the beer line, and I obtained a frosty summer beverage (Славутич, on draught), and began to mingle.

We passed by the cake table, and I had to snap this picture. I did elicit just a bit of homesickness, I have to admit. So we meandered up to the top, fairly large lawn and grabbed a little pulled beef BBQ sandwich, some salad, and some salsa. Good stuff. Our family doesn’t really eat much beef, so it tasted extra good! Before too long I needed a bevvy refill, and we headed down to the salmon tent. Whoa — AWESOME fish. GIANT salmon were baked on wood planks in huge BBQs — and they came off steamin’. I think I had 3 portions along with my second beer. Just as we began feasting on the Pacific Northwest delight (we were conveniently perched right in front of the salmon line), the Ambassador began addressing the 300-400 person gaggle of American semi-royalty (not really).

Nice guy, that Mr. Bill. The other guy (on the left) was the interpreter, though Willy tried to speak (and somewhat successfully, I might add) a bit of Ukrainian to the people. Looking out to the right (not shown) were ~3 or 4 levels of lawns and shrubs where people were eating, drinking, and watching the Ambassador’s address. The first picture shows a mid-level view. So we helped ourselves to the fish while everyone’s back was turned towards the serving tables. Damn good stuff.

We then walked around a bit and ran into a couple of people that Helen knows. We met a Marine and his wife, an Air Force Major and his wife, a Navy guy and his wife, and several others that were consular attachés. Funny — I never thought I’d find a reason to use that those words in print, but there you have it. It was fun… we chatted, talked about typical American stuff, and how it is to be an American living here. Of course, all of these folks are really quite isolated in their experiences. I won’t go into it, but they pretty much have their lives planned for them — where to live, where to work, when to travel, where your driver is supposed to take you, etc… I, on the other hand, live in Troeschina; my favorite white ghetto this side of the Mississippi. I get to see real life in Kiev

So we chatted for a while, and enjoyed the July 4th BBQ and the American colleagues. Mmmmmm M&M’s. We passed out some business cards to try to drum up business for Helen (God knows there’s plenty of need), and we called it an evening after about 3 hours.

Definitely my first 4th of July in a former Soviet block country!!!