U.S. Embassy

Yesterday was our trip and meeting with the U.S. Embassy and USAID agency.  USAID is in partnership with IBM on some projects here in Ukraine, two of which our CSC team is working on.  They have a building on the U.S. Embassy compound and yes it's a compound, big walls all around it.  When we pulled up and I saw "United States of America" and the flag, my heart did do a little leap of pride.  I pledged the flag in silence (dorky I know), but I am proud to be an American (Lee Greenwood anyone).  The flag was at half mast and despite asking everyone I saw why it was, no-one could tell me, that didn't sit well with me, someone should know.

Of course getting into the Embassy is not as easy as it looks in the movies and sadly, there were no Marines in crisp uniforms waiting for me.  Sigh.  The first step was to hand over my passport through a glass window so it could be scanned.  Then it was returned to me and I was let into a door where I had to hand it over again and take out my phone (we have been given cell phones to use among the team while we are here) and my camera - it's strictly a no pictures allowed inside kind of place.  These three items (passport, phone, camera) are held for you in a little box and you are given the corresponding number to hold during your time inside.

Next came the metal detector and scanning machine, just like the procedures at the airport.  I put my purse on the conveyor belt to be scanned and walked on through.  No problems with me, but there was a problem with my purse.  Seems I forgot about the Swiss Army knife that was in the bottom of my purse that I take with me everywhere.  Nice job, Sam!  So we take it out and they add it to my box of goodies that they're holding and I'm on my way. 

The meeting went well, as you can imagine we were asked the standard quetions of "how do you like Ukraine, what are your projects about, etc."  We will go back at the end of our assignment and present a summary of our projects so that the U.S. Embassy and USAID can continue to work with US companies (like IBM) in building better relations, business and diplomatic, with the companies and government here in Ukraine.  I just need to remember to either take the knife out when I take out my camera or leave it at the hotel all together.

The interesting fact for the day came at dinner.  There was a little red "bell" looking thing on our table and we couldn't work out what it was, so we pushed the button to see what would happen.  The bell lights up for a second or two (which was cool in itself), but it actually sends a signal to the wait staff that our table needs assistance, a flashing table number lights up in their "wait" area.  It was very cool, because as soon as we pushed it, over came our server who asked us what we needed.  No shouting across the restaurant or trying to catch someone's attention, just quiet, discrete, immediate.  We need these in the States.

Oh, and I had a bag of chips yesterday.  When I went to the market for a little snack I saw the chips and was looking for plain or BBQ and one of the guys with me said "these are good, taste like bacon".  So to coin a phrase in our house - everything tastes better with bacon, I grabbed a bag.  It's not bacon, it's wasabi and BBQ.  It took me two chips to figure it out and surprisingly it was quite tasty, but of course the farther into the bag you ate the more wasabi you got.  Good thing I had a huge bottle of water with me.  I'm going to have to figure out a way to bring a bag of these home for my brother, he would love them.