84. My wife visits

100 days after moving to St. Petersburg, I will have my first visitor arriving from the United States this weekend: my wife! We've had a long-distance relationship before but never been apart for so long. When I lived in El Paso, Texas in 2002-2003, she lived in Denver, Colorado - so it was possible to drive between the two cities or fly either direction for a quick weekend visit. It's not so easy to traverse nine time zones on the journey from Colorado to Russia, though. Scheduling time off from work and meeting the visa requirements has taken some time and planning. Fortunately, the budget isn't really an issue because several such visits are part of the package for international assignments with my company. We've been talking a lot on Skype during these last three months, as you might imagine, but that's a poor substitute for being together in real life.

We'll be doing some sightseeing while she's here, of course - a mixture of the main tourist destinations (most of which I've already been to at least once, so the tourist will become the guide) as well as other sights that I haven't been to yet or have been specifically saving to do together. But I don't imagine we'll be out running around for 10-12 hours every day, either. Mostly, our goal will be to reconnect and enjoy spending time in the same place, finally. She will be here for two weeks, so it might be a little while before you see another flurry of blog posts. But who knows, with 10 days off from work I might have even more time for blogging than I normally do.