Kick Off Meeting and Day 1

Yesterday (Monday) morning we had our kick-off meeting with IBM Ukraine and all four of our team clients.  Introductions were made, scopes of work explained and after a lovely lunch, we broke out into our teams to head off to our month-long work offices.  Well, almost all of our teams went to work.... During the first two weeks of May in Ukraine there are four holidays so many people take those first two weeks off for family vacation and many offices are closed.  Ours was no exception and being that we are working for a Governmental Agency, extra paperwork and security passes are required, so we didn't go to the office, we will start today.  That said, Paul, Shiva and I had the afternoon off so we met for coffee, discussed our own experiences with e-government and got to know each other a little bit better.  It seems that India and Australia have a better interconnected e-government system then the States.  Sure we can do a lot of e-commerce and online government needs (register your car, pay taxes) but what happens on one site does not kick off action on another.  It might seem dull to the reader, but it was all very interesting on this end.

Dinner was down the street at a local spot and I enjoyed watching everyone go home from work, except for the language, it could have been any street in any city.  I have been pleasantly surprised by how well and how much English is spoken here, it has been very helpful.  I am doing my best to say Pryvit (Hello), Tak (Yes), Bud'laska (Please) and Diakuyu (Thank You), it can't hurt to make an effort.  Of course I wanted to try something typically Ukrainian for dinner so I had the Chicken Kiev with Spicy sauce (that's in the bowl) and asparagus - yumm.

Managed to be home by 8:00 p.m. and got in 30 minutes of Skyping with Randy.  It's an amazing tool and I don't feel so far away from what is happening back home.  Got some blogging in and managed to get a good night's sleep, so hopefully I am over the jet-lag (fingers crossed).  We leave in about 30 minutes to go to the office but our normal work day will be 9 - 6 with lunch from 1 - 2.  That will take some adjusting to do but I think that will give me mornings to check email and blog.  Oh, on Fridays we knock off at 5.

That's all for now, I know it's not real exciting but at least you are all current and up to date on life in Kyiv (pronounced Keeev).