Ukrainian Visa!!!!!!!

My Ukrainian student visa arrived today with almost a week to spare before we leave! Despite the disorganization of my university in Ukraine and the drama, the consulate has been quite helpful in this process. I think the fact that my husband and I went to visit the Ukrainian Consulate when we were in Chicago last March has helped tremendously because Victor the consulate officer knows who we are now and answers the phone when I call to ask more questions. I am very relieved that it arrived in time for our departure but also nervous about the next steps of the process since they seems less clear than this first step which as I discussed in a previous post took about six months. To the right is a picture of me at the Consulate General of Ukraine in Chicago.

Other than my visa issues we are finishing all of our final preparations and tying up all of the lose ends before we leave. Since we will be gone for 11 months I had to cancel our mobile phone service and I wanted to have a number that I could leave with people in the US just in case something happened with our debit cards or storage space. Skype charged $60 a year and so I decided to go with google voice which allows people to call a US number and leave messages for us. Then I receive an email to my gmail account with a transcript of the message. I can even customize a voice mail greeting so it seems like a pretty great idea and best of all it is free!