Here Come's The Bride !!!

My first Saturday night in Uzhgorod on this trip I thought I would spend a quiet night having dinner and drinks with my brother Sergei and his wife Maryanna. I show up in jeans , tee shirt and slip on ratty ass ed shoes. I should have known that some thing was up when they were dressed to the 10's. As a rule much don't get by me. This time it did.
Patrick we are going to a wedding !! Say what ? Da, we will go to wedding. Sergei I am not dressed to go to a wedding. No problem , we go to your flat and dress you. So, Off to the flat we go. I get dressed in the finest dress clothes that I had with me and off we went.
Another rule that I have is when I go to a wedding I like to know at least one of the people getting married. This was one that I had no idea who was who. All I knew is that I had a wedding to attend and with no gift.
I was introduced to everyone and all seemed to be in a good mood with one exception. There was one man that seemed ho have a problem with Americans. The more he drank the bigger the problem got. I like problems. I truly do. I have always had a thing for people with problems in general, and people that have a problem with me in specific. He would take a drink of vodka look at me and slam the shot glass on the table. Sergei said , Patrick that young man seems to have a problem with you being here. Yeah, I know.. Watch this. I walk over about 10 feet, pour a large shot glass full of vodka, down it and slam the glass down. He did not know what to do. Is this big American crazy ? I could see his small brain having this thought.It was showing through his small pointed eye's. To add insult to this, I went over to his table , poured him a drink and just smiled.
To make a very long story short, the war was on. I have a few photos of the wedding that I will share. I hope that you like them.
I will leave you with the same words that I had for the crazy young man as they carried him out of the building. Ya'll come back now, Ye Hear !!

Can Ya'll Say

Party ? Man o man. I went to one hell of a good one the first weekend that I was in Ukraine. Our pal's Irina her husband Andre along with pal's Eugene his wife Yulia and the rest of the family had a "welcome to our house, we are glad to see you" party.
I was blown away by the amount of food and drink at the cookout. I met Irina's Mom and Dad. Her Babushka came by later on so I got to see 4 generations of family all at one setting. It was a honor to be at this party. I have new pal's. Her father Viktor who is a retired Soviet Union Army Officer and who can consume large amounts of Vodka when toasting his friends was my new best friend and yes I did get drunk. Way too drunk. It was not the amount of Vodka that I drank. It was the short time that I drank it in. The Vodka, beer, wine and of course my favorite Soviet bubbly drink of all time and yes we had several bottles of that as well, along with some home made Vodka that I would not wish on anyone.
I will attempt to post a few photos. I have to go. I have a tax audit tomorrow and I have to try to find some kind of proof that I did not make up all of my tax deductions
I will leave you with the same words my new best friend Viktor said to me as I was passing out.. Ya'll come back now Ya Hear !!!