vkramer515 - Vince Kramer

Summer has pasted and now it is winter here in cold dark (short days with little sunshine) Russia. For those that did not hear, I signed on for another year so I will be living here in Obninsk until January 2009.

It is finally summer here in Russian so thought I would change the picture. Enjoy the stories, adventures, blunders, etc. as I live and work in Russia.

I do not want to loose any of my emails and stories, so I am just going to add to this existing one. I am chaning the picture since those who know me at work know I can be all too serious and through multiple processes, I have learned to laugh more at work; but I still get excited so do not think I have changed that much...lol. As most of you know, things are going pretty well for me here so I extended my contract until January 2008. Living in Russia took a little getting use to, but I am starting to feel more like home so I decided to stay on until the end of January. Thank you to all of my old friends as well as all of my new friends for your continued emails and support! It is because of friends like you that I could do something like this and I am proud to have each of you in my life!

Original posting: Hello to all of my friends and family. Thank you for supporting me in this adventure to Russia. I know it is going to be an exciting time, but also a sad time as I leave many of you. This will be a great opportunity and a very rewarding adventurl. It is July 9, 2007 and I have my "list" (for those of you that know me well...lol) of things to do before I go. After a recommendation from a good friend in San Diego, I thought this would be an excellent way to share my stories and adventures, both good and bad so stay tuned, plenty more to come!

Vince
I just extended my contract so I will be in Russia for another ...

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Joined on: July 10th 2006
Last Login: July 24th 2008

Blog Entries: 154
Photos: 911

TB Code: [blogger=20286]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by vkramer515, order by Date newest first.

By vkramer515
July 24th 2008

Things Are Changing

Europe » Russia

Holding Up the Leaning Tower of Piza

First, I am still alive and well but have been busy doing all sorts of things and have not made the time to update my blog with pictures and stories from the cruise. I started the blog entry but have not finished nor have I uploaded the pictures. Believe or not, I just got them organized today and only because I am meeting with some of the people from cruise are live here in Moscow on Sunday and they wanted to exchange copies of each of our pictures. I knew they did not want 2 GB of pictures so I cut [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
June 29th 2008

Bologna, Koln, and football

Europe

You Think You Look Russian?
I tried so hard to dress up in all the right colors and outfit to blend in, but my friends told me I looked like an American thinking he looked like a Russian fan.

Not a lot to report from any specific country, but a few stories and pictures from last week that I thought I would share before heading on my cruise next week, which I am sure there will be many pictures and stories from there. Last week I had to go to Bologna, actually Vignola, which is near Bologna to oversee the first production run of a new film/print we ordered but did not have time to generate a proof before we went to production with it. We sat on the runway forever, but had a good flight. The customer picked us [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
June 12th 2008

Trip to Piter

Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg

Train Station
Leo and I waiting on the train in Moscow.

It has been a week and I still do not have the blog updated from our (Leo's and my) trip to Saint Petersburg Russia and since I was late for volleyball anyways, I decided to just come home, eat a little dinner and get my blog updated. I am not making excuses, but I did come back with a bad cold and tried to go to bed early all week. Yesterday, Wednesday, I felt a little better but met up with the gang so tonight is "blog night.". All of the Russians think it is funny/weird because I usually refer to [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
June 1st 2008

Bike Trip to Borovsk

Europe » Russia » Centre » Borovsk

On our way home
.

I most of us have heard the old saying from our parents about having to walk miles to school, in the snow, and uphill, BOTH ways, well, that was sort of my story today, but Freddie and I rode from Obninsk to Borovsk, 44 km, uphill, into the wind, both ways! No, just kidding, but we did have a good day trip by bike to Borovsk, a small town north of Obninsk. I went there before with Freddie, Leo, and Andrey, but that time it was by car and a lot easier I must say! I am not as young as [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
May 17th 2008

Back in Russia

Europe » Russia » Centre » Obninsk

Le Reve
Alexander and I went to see Le Reve at the Wynn's Hotel/Casino.

Hello to all of my readers and thank you for your support! I can not believe I was home in the States for almost two weeks; it flew by and now I am back in Russia. It was good seeing and/or talking to the few of you that I did and sorry to all of the others that we were not able to connect. April 30, I tried to help Misha out by staying in a hotel close to the airport on Wednesday night, but I think I made it worse. I knew May 1 was a Holiday so I wanted [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
April 25th 2008

Business Trip to Germany

Europe » Germany » North Rhine-Westphalia » Düsseldorf

Dusseldorf along the Rhine
In Old City

It was at the last minute and right before I head home to the US so I was not all that excited about traveling, but my boss and I went to Dusseldorf for business convention. It was supposedly the largest packaging show in the world; I am not sure it was that big, but it was big! The bad part was a lot did not relate to the food/meat industry. Although we did not spend much time in places like the medical devices/packaging area, we still had to go through it to get to other halls. On Thursday we landed in [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
April 14th 2008

Strange Email

Europe » Russia » Centre » Naro-Fominsk

Start Up Company
Specializing in services for Americans, especially those that can not read Russian!

All of my readers may not find the humor in this story as I did, but it just made me laugh so I had to post it, if for nothing else, for me and the stories I want to remember.... I get this email at work and I am not paying much attention to it because of the Russian name on the "From" line. I never tried to read the name, but assumed it was spam especially when I saw the "Dear Sir". Before I automatically delated it, I see the first words "Elinar-Broiler" so now I am curious and at [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
April 13th 2008

Trip to Venice

Europe » Italy » Veneto » Vicenza

Vince in Venice

It has only been a week since I returned and you would think I could get something posted before now. I did download the pictures earlier in the week, but never got the text typed. I did not have the best weather, but overall, it was a very good weekend. I would have to agree with those that say you can do Venice in a long weekend. It is not a place I would want to go for more than a few days and now that I have been there, it is not real high on my list to go back. [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
April 5th 2008

Eye Exam

Europe » Russia » Northwest » Moscow

Glasses
This is not photo but wanted to add it to the story. Photo was obtained from http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=slv8-msgr&va=glasses&sz=all

For about a month now, my eyes have been bothering me. I am getting a lot more build up in my right eye all day long and particularly in the mornings as well as cloudiness in my right eye and headaches in the evenings. I was trying to wait until I came home, but it is really starting to bother me so I decided to see a doctor. I asked around and everyone said there were some in Obninsk but could not recommend any and all of them had real old equipment. So I kept looking and finally found one in [View Full Entry]

By vkramer515
April 1st 2008

New Grandpa Bike

Europe » Russia » Centre » Obninsk

Me on my new bike
We rode to the river, it was not the cleanest river, but it was fun seeing parts of the city that I have never seen.

I know it has been awhile since I posted anything, but not too much exciting going on here. It is finally spring and like most of you, we go from snow, to rain, to fog and everything in between; but I must say, the past week or so, it has been very nice with sunshine and temperatures reaching the lower 50's. We also had time change last weekend so Moscow is back to being 8 hours ahead of Eastern time zone. With the nicer weather, Leo asked me if I wanted to get a bike so I could tour around the [View Full Entry]

TravelBlog » vkramer515

vkramer515 | Vince Kramer | Travel Blog

vkramer515 - Vince Kramer

Blogs & Travel Journals

Things Are Changing

Bologna, Koln, and football

Trip to Piter

Bike Trip to Borovsk

Back in Russia

Business Trip to Germany

Strange Email

Trip to Venice

Eye Exam

New Grandpa Bike