I wore a red felt poppy today and it kept falling out of my sweater :c also uh Americans sorry about your Fort Hood thing but stop saying it was a terrorist plot please. I mean the logic I've seen so-far is
Guy shoots up army base = crazy guy
Muslim guy shoots up and army base = terrorist
which is er. Very dumb. To be fair it comes from the right and Fox News so I suppose I shouldn't expect much sense. Speaking of which why did Fox News call Mr Rogers evil when he died seriously. I mean hey man I didn't grow up with the guy but you don't fuck with Mr Rogers okay. I'll rip your beating heart out.

So anyway, I got my report card! And it's decent this year, I still need to up my grades a bit (I have an 8.3 average right now and I need 8.5) but overall it's not bad:
Portuguese: 6/10 (groan)
Comment: Must work more on the proposed activities. Lots of absences.

English: 8-9-10 column (in our first and third report cards the teachers just put a cross in the right square instead of writing (my school's stupid), and the columns are: 10-9-8, 7, 6, 5, 4-3-2-1-0, so you're never really sure what you have when you're in one of the extreme ends of the spectrum :v)
Comment: Super work! Well done! (ilu sir <3)

Maths: 7
Comment: Good work.

Biology: 7.5
Comment: Still hasn't done the first B test (I did it today btw, think it was alright but nothing spectacular) but has been participating very well in class.

Geography: 8-9-10
PE: nothing, because my teacher was switched around so often and I was ill a lot so I only attended like three classes with ANOTHER teacher. Sports doesn't count for the overall grade though and the teacher said this report card won't be counted by her :v phew
Comment: Never seen! (haha)

Ethics: 8-9-10
Comment: I hope to see a more active participation. Excellent content!

4 Hour Philosophy: 8-9-10
Comment: The instability created by the changing of classes has perturbed Vlad, but I've got trust. Good luck!

History: 8-9-10
Comment: Outstanding student. Well done.

Art: 8-9-10
Comment: ...something in German. 'Gut und ????', the Germans told me it meant 'romising'. Hooray!

Ap. English: 8-9-10
Comment: Vlad works well in class - alas, homework is another matter!!! (ehehe)

Sociology: 8-9-10
Comment: Bom travail. :I (no smilie written but I can imagine his face writing it :v)

That's all from me. Also gj on the house passing the health care bill even though you had to make that weird abortion amendment. Conservatives in your country would be considered far-right here ahaha

PS guess who's going to the Morrissey concert on Saturday that's right bitches. It'd be cool if he sang some The Smiths songs but I haven't got my hopes up.

Hello!

I've been back for about... a week. I know, it's terrible of me to not have updated you guys with a full account of my trip immediately but I just kept like. Putting it off. And things.

So um. Here we go. It turned out hella long, sorry :c you should probably just skip to the pictures.

After spending about an hour aboard Malev air, we touched down in glorious... Hungary? Yes, we had a tiny stop-over which would be a bitch on the trip back, but that's a story for later. We weren't to leave the airport (we didn't really have time anyway) but we didn't have to to see we were in an ex-Communist country. The weird-ass architecture told us as much.

Another hour passed and we landed in Kiev, Ukraine, which most Americans probably think contains dragons and a lack of escalators. Well, maybe in the country, but I can guarantee you that there are escalators. We rode on them a solid five minutes at a time to travel from the metro to the surface and back. They're very deep underground because there were originally built to serve as nuclear bomb shelters, as is the case in many Communist countries. Quick interlude in the time-line to say that the metro there is excellent and awesome, there's a train every couple of minutes and it runs like clockwork (you can even tell when you're approaching a station because the lights flicker and go off for a few seconds, haha). Nearly no one talks either, a left-over habit of the time where KGB agents lurked in the carriages trying to pick up subversive talk. The stations themselves are exquisite, with marble and chandeliers and other things that should look tacky but don't. The prices are great too, twenty trips for about 4 euro hell yes. And once you put in your jetton you can stay in the station all day, which is what many beggars do (the only low point of the trip were all the beggars, who were almost exclusively old women. It was pretty heartbreaking, but the pensions are pretty shit there). There are also a lot of shops in the subways and metro stations, which is very handy if you want to pick something up or be a tourist and shop around.

Okay, now that I've finished advertising Ukrainian public transport, back to the story (kind of). We met our host, Gennadyi, and managed to start his car after the alarm sounded two times for no readily explainable reason. The alarm made me stifle laughter because it had a variety of tunes that played at about two-second intervals, including a Christmas jingle.

After an intense ride (most Ukrainians don't really drive very much. We also saw a fun graffiti that said 'Tanya - I love you!' in Cyrillic, with a little 'Us too!' added behind it by someone else) we got to the apartment we'd be staying in for the next couple of days and I had the biggest meal I've ever had in my entire life. It was so delicious but Jesus, Ukrainians are worse than the Portuguese in terms of stuffing people. I also had a little bit of vodka (of course) and a glass of whiskey Gennadyi assured me mother was 'just like water.' Ukrainians drink interesting water.

I looked out of the window after the meal to see another graffiti, this time on the parking lot, that said 'KATYA I LOVE YOU'. And someone had used the sand from the children's playground near it to write BORYA I LOVE YOU.
I'd only been in Kiev two hours and I already liked it here.
We flicked through the television until I found my new favourite show, DOKTOR XAUSS. Dr House entirely dubbed over by the same two guys and one lady with monotonous tones. It was awesome.

The first thing I noticed when we went out is that Ukrainians aren't very shy about their Communist background. I guess they can't be bothered to take off all that stuff but still, it was fun to see. That Lenin is apparently a popular meeting spot ('under the Lenin' too. The architecture there is pretty obviously Soviet but very beautiful too, as you will be able to tell from this picture dump:
[link] (contemporary art museum)
[link] (old USSR headquarters, now converted into flats, which is awesome because you get a great location (smack-dab downtown) and a pretty easy way to give directions to your place in one go)
[link] (monument, hotel behind it)
[link] (the sign proclaiming BANK is a horrible lie. This is a market. Proof: [link] there's a before picture of a similar market my stepdad took in the 80s, but I don't have it handy. Imagine this exact setting but with no food whatsoever)
[link] (opera)
[link] (inside the post office)

We were all disappointed in the abundance of shitty foreign cars and hummers, but it was fun to see some ol' Ladas rolling around and we even found this gem parked near the market.

Something we did a lot during this trip was visit churches. We visited a lot of churches. A lot.
[link] (St Sophia's)
[link] (her entryway/bell tower. We went all the way up there. Great view even though some people had etched their initials and things around the metal railings (at least they left the actual church alone). One of them was, I kid you not, Puka + Dima <3. One letter short of being awesome)
[link] (St Michael's from St Sophia's spire)
[link] (weird MySpace angle-ish picture of St Sophia's from her bell tower)
[link] (St Michael's. You're not supposed to take pictures inside the cathedral grounds but we're rebels)
[link] (mural outside St Michael's. What do angels do when they're not posing and holding branches and feathers anyway?)
[link] (back of the church that was on a HUGE monastery ground. We have like a million pictures of the grounds haha, like this one [link] notice the wedding going on behind. There were two couples going around at once, one of which had a pregnant bride. Hardly surprising with all the love going on in that city)
[link] (nice street view and a little bit of church peeking from behind the houses)
[link] (St something's. The inside was amazing. We went in during a service but they ignored us, which was cool. Their services are a lot cooler and more intense, if my family were Russian Orthodox I'd probably mind going to church less the rare times we have to go :v)
[link] (example of sweet interior decoration. I think there's a dead guy in there, but he was covered with blankets to it was hard to see. There was a foot covered with a slick red shoe sticking out but. You know.)
[link] (chuuuurch on the water)

This is already very long so I won't bore you much with details of our excursions. Suffice to say I came back with dead feet and eyes full of stars. And pretty cold-proof for a few days too since it was a lot chillier over in UA (about 2° the last day with a horrible wind that felt like someone was stabbing your face).
Okay, one little detail: Communist statue that I think symbolized the Russia/Ukraine relationship. But just. Just LOOK at it. The poses and the guy on the right's open shirt and ripping pecs and the fact that this was under a giant metal rainbow and the techno music emanating from the tent behind it was just too intense for me.

Also [link]
Yes, I am that much of a faggot. And I don't care because at least I'll have a warm head. My baby.
Group picture of everything I got in Ukraine: [link] Notice the belt, it's an old soldiers' belt. Got the hammer and sickle on it and all. Pity I have to life my shirt to show people since I never tuck my shirts in unless I'm wearing waistcoats, and then I usually wear braces since my formal trousers have no real belt loops.

Also, that Putin magazine has an anecdote attached to it. We were walking along the streets when I saw the magazine and pointed it out to my mother, who immediately went SHOULD I BUY IT
No mum, it's okay thanks
OKAY I'LL BUY IT
And buy it she did. She asked my stepdad, who speaks Russian, to get it from the shopkeeper. He seemed very taken aback and asked Onno several times whether he was sure. We eventually got it and I was disappointed upon finding up it was a book about warships or something, which wouldn't be too bad except it's like 230 pages of Ukrainian with about six pictures on the subject. Yeah. I also don't know why they picked a picture of Putin where it looks like he's more chronically depressed than usual but there you go. They have the usual ads for other books/things by these guys and one of them has Medvedev's name and picture on it but it's probably about fighter planes or something.
So later on we're eating dinner (normally, because Gennadyi wasn't there. Bless that man a hundred times but good god I don't think I could have survived four straight nights of eating that much food) and Onno suddenly asks 'you know that thing we bought earlier?'
'Yeah.'
'Is it a gay magazine?'
'WHAT'
So apparently 'brat' (:v), the magazine's name (and not 6pat as the title might lead you to believe if you don't know Cyrillic), means 'brother', and this, couple with Putin's picture and the shopkeeper's amazement, made old stepdad think it was maybe a magazine for 'the brothers', wink wink. But wait.
'Why would they put Putin on the cover of a gay magazine?' I said, ignoring the first question on my mind, 'how in god's name would I know Ukrainian gay magazines (if they exist), I don't have a sort of mag-detector yet.'
'Well maybe he's a bit of a gay icon.' says my mother.
'Erm, well, I guess in the RUSSIAN gay community, but-'
'See?'
We continued our meal in thoughtful silence, my soul crushed and defeated by her logic. I'll get you someday, mother.

The last night of the trip, our host took us to a self-service restaurant (preface: AMAZING FOOD NGGHHH also borscht), along with his wife and a wommon friend of theirs and my stepdad, Igor. He was really kind and excellent at English (he teaches it), and he told us interesting stuff ('Over here in Ukraine, and in all old USSR countries, we are scared of Russia, because they are so big and have such a big army, so we don not know what they could do. But I have a friend there I correspond with who said 'Do not worry, the army officials are so corrupt they would never be able to organize something to big'', haha) but every time he spoke I kept staring at him because he had these three gold teeth on one side of his mouth and it kind of like people with huge moles: you want to look away and not be rude but... ghngh. They also told us there is so much militia (police) in the streets because most young men just join the army out of family tradition or to find a direction or some discipline (or all of them) when they get out of school, and tradition is largely why there are very few women police officers. There are a couple (Igor's wife was a Captain iirc) but they're pretty well-hidden. I wonder what their uniforms are like. The men's were just grey and boring but topped with cool ushankas/chapkas. They're sort of similar to Russian police uniforms except they don't have a huge OMOH tag on the back so I didn't get to giggle childishly.

On the way back, my mother bought two little cases with mini vodka bottles flavoured with things like peppermint, etc in the Duty Free in Kiev. They were sealed in a clear plastic bag in a shop that said KIEV DUTY FREE. The boxes with the bottles and the bottles themselves were also sealed.
So of course in the Hungary stop-over they make us stop and tell us we have to throw them away or pass through the check-in again.
Wait, what?
Yes indeedy, the man at the metal-detector machine thing told us he was sorry, but those were the rules. Even though they make no goddamn sense. Anyway, we decided to re-do the check-in, and were made to pass through another metal-detector thing and had to put our carry-on luggage and coats in little plastic boxes, as per usual. What we didn't know is that the Budapest airport has some fancy-ass technology and that the plastic containers would actually go along the beltway, through the x-ray machine to a little robot arm that would grab them and take them back to the beginning. I'd never seen this, and neither has anyone else I think, so our first reflex is to grab our box before it gets taken back to the start.
Apparently, there's a sort of robotic eye in front of the claw that sees whether the box is empty or not and stops the beltway if it is not. We were informed of this when the man sitting next to the machine yelled PUT IT BACK at my mother.
'Oh, is it automatic?'
'YES PUT IT BACK PLIIZ'
Okay, rude asshole, but whatever. Then an old man (old. Like 80 or something) passes the gate and tries to get his things only to get a DON'T DO THAT from the man.
Old man unintelligibly mumbles, guy glares at him and shouts YEAAAH, YES, SIR.

And that's my last impression of Hungary, a young asshole shouting at a frail old man.

The title of this journal refers to the fact that although I made a bomb and a swine flu joke (and a swine flu bomb joke) in the airport and laughed at some policemen, I did not, in fact, get shot.

In non-Ukraine news, I'm thinking of getting an early-Beatles John Lennon haircut but with a short back. [link] y/n

See you in like ten hours if I get a good connection (probable) or in five days if I don't have a connection/don't get shot/overfed. Let's see if I can spot that guy Putin poisoned or the lady with the freaky hairdo!

kisses 2 my bitches

PS for a pretty cool meme: Post a picture in my comments of what you think describes me when you think about what/who I am. Give no written explanation. Just an image. (Post this in your journal and see what images you get).

That's like. Approaching middle age in Gay Years™. I can now legally drink and smoke but I go against my Chap/Dandy persona by doing neither so um.

I've also got a 38° fever. Super.

Also, we're doing Heath Ledger for our English project (just saying it makes it sound crappy already) and I got lumped with talking about Brokeback Mountain and homosexuality during the time. Shocking, I know. So, I was thinking of briefly covering the film and the fact that it was based on a short story by Annie Proulx and then dedicating the remaining minutes to discrimination in America during that time and in the present in relation to other first world countries. Stuff like 'yeah and there's all these laws and things like DADT and Prop 8 and things but attitudes vary a lot. The more South you go, the more you travel back in time. And even then cities like Austin provide a relatively safe place for things like marches whereas in other first world countries like Russia they still let these lovely people around and the police brutality is just appalling.'

The good thing is I'll probably the member of the group to get the least questions on the team so I'll be able to draw or something for twenty minutes.

Either way, help me with this and I'll be your friend!

Happy 155th birthdaaaay.
I shall celebrate by watching Wilde and listening to witty songs. I'd read some of your things but I got comics to go through man.

In other news 40% of Russia said they didn't want Democracy. Well. That's awkward.