Published July 30th, 2010
in Interesting / Other.
I just came back from a two day trip to Moscow where I was meeting some of my old friends by high school. I say “some” because most of my friends didn’t make it even though many were going to. At the time I went to the school I lived with my parents in Chukotka, Russia. It is a region in far east Russia, very close to Alaska. Sara Palin could probably see my town from her backyard :)
We met during the first day and then I went to my friend’s house for the night. He lives with his wife and a 2 y.o. son in a 2-bedroom apartment on the 9th floor of a high rise building in the northern Moscow suburbs. My friend is currently unemployed but soon after he got laid off he started a small motor oil distribution business which fairly quickly picked up and currently pays his bills. My friend’s wife doesn’t work.
Continue reading ‘Schoolmates reunion in Moscow’
Published July 22nd, 2010
in Interesting / Other.
Today is our last day in Crimea. Overall we spent more than a week and went to several places around Alupka, the town we stay at. The place we went the most times to is Vorontsovsky Palace and park around it which is just 10 minutes by foot from our house. We would usually stroll around the park enjoying the views. On one of the days we took a tour of the palace (40 grivnas per person) but it turned out a complete waste of time and money. It took the guide about 30 minutes to walk us through all the rooms and spit out enormous amount of dry facts about the place none of which we remembered by the time the tour was over.
The one fact about the palace that I did memorize is that it literally has two faces. The Northern side is built in western style while the Southern side (pictured above) carries distinct Eastern elements like “There is no Conqueror, except Allah.” engraved above the entrance. This fact symbolizes multicultural nature of Russian Empire of 19th century.
Continue reading ‘A week in Crimea, Ukraine – Part 2’
Published July 19th, 2010
in Interesting / Other.
I am taking time off my daily routine and the place is nothing else but my home country, Ukraine. We left on July 7 and after arriving in Kharkiv spent there one week at my in-laws home. The city hasn’t changed much since my last trip 3 years ago so I will skip that part of our trip. I am in Alupka, Crimea right now. The city is located on the south end of the peninsula and is surrounded by mountains on one side and the Black Sea on the other.
The climate is sub-tropical. During the 6 days we have stayed so far we had sunny weather with around 30’C temperature and just an occasional short rain in the morning or afternoon. The sea warms up to 26’C during the day. The heavenly climate and gorgeous landscape has been the reason why Crimea attracts crowds of tourists from Russian and Ukraine and was the place for summer homes of some high ranking Soviet officials before the regime collapsed.
Continue reading ‘Taking a week off in… Crimea, Ukraine’
Published July 5th, 2010
in Popular Sites Series.
This is June 2010 revision of the Popular Deal Sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.
The change in rating shows the difference compared to May results and includes all deal sites from my database that meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement. A total of 32 sites have made it this month which is the same number as the last month
The average deal site lost just 0.85% in Alexa rank this month. The top gainer this month is again dealsofamerica.com (9.08%) and the top loser is again deals.com (-20.31%). Please enjoy the complete list below.
Continue reading ‘Popular deal sites – June 2010’
Published July 1st, 2010
in Shopping Coupons.
Amazon has just released a new set of grocery coupon codes and the variety is about the same as in June. They added some more Free Shipping offers but what we really need is more discounts. I am posting them as usual in a list sorted by discount so it is more convenient to pick those with the best value. All coupons below expire July 31, 2010.
The discount in parenthesis is what you will get if you use Amazon Subscribe & Save program. If you like these Amazon coupons, I also recommend you to check out these Amazon discount codes. The best part is that these codes don’t have an expiration date!
Continue reading ‘Amazon Coupon Codes for July 2010’
