25 November 2000 was the day: Victoria (Vita), senior economic assistant to the Embassy, was getting married to her Ivan (Vanya). The wedding was to take place in the hometown of bride and groom, Ternopil in Western Ukraine. Andrei, industrious Embassy driver, was in charge of hiring a comfortable yet not too expensive bus to get us there....
...and, well, no, it was not expensive...of course, Ukraine picked exactly this day for a snow blizzard, and in the middle of all that, a flat tire increased the fun...
...and I almost forgot to mention that the heating in the bus did not work...all in all, it took us 9 hours to get there...
...but it was worth it! The bride looked great, the groom a little nervous, and it was a really traditional wedding, including dances, speeches, old customs, and a lot of food and wodka of course.
All it missed was that genuine Dutch party flavour, so we kindly volunteerd to perform the classic "Van voor naar achter van links naar rechts"("Forwards, backwards, to the left, to the right"), always a big hit, and from now on a Ternopil classic as well.