Wow, the countdown has begun! I will be back in America in about 3 months, but only about 2 months of Ukraine left! The last two years have gone by faster than I ever thought possible. While there have been weeks that have seemed to slowly struggle along, months seem to flash by.
As I think I said last year at about this time, summer in Ukraine is amazing. My sister had decided to come visit Ukraine last June, and she had talked to my parents about their trip to Lugansk, and they had said that it was kind of dark and depressing, so it was great to hear Morley say, “Lugansk is not so bad” by the end of the trip. Of course, it helped that the weather was beautiful every day and we saw a bit more of the country then when my parents visited. The rest of the summer was again spent traveling around the country doing summer camps. There were 4 camps, in 4 different parts of the country, lasting a total of 6 weeks, so my summer was over before I knew it. The camps were great, and made me realize that it is something I really enjoy doing, and may try to pursue a career in environmental education or something else working with kids in the outdoors.
As my time is coming to an end, I had a look back at projects I wish I had started, or lesson plans I wished I had made better, but overall, I am still satisfied with the work I have done and hope that at least a few Ukrainians feel the same way. As I am sure you realized, I have been able to travel a lot Ukraine doing different camps and seeing different volunteers. One place I had not had the chance to visit was Crimea, which, besides Lviv and the Carpathian Mountains, is one of the most highly suggested places to visit in Ukraine. Because it takes 18 hours just to get there, it isn’t simply a weekend trip. I had a few offers to go with different people, including my counterpart and her family, but hadn’t followed through on these plans, so didn’t think I was going to have a chance. But about a week ago my friend Brad, another volunteer who lives close to Lugansk said that he had plans to go to Crimea for a week and try to see some of the sights down there.
I decided to tag along; so we took the long, slow train ride down to Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, which is its own autonomous republic , meaning that it is still part of Ukraine but has a lot of its own laws and keeps to itself a lot. We hopped off the train and were struck by how many people there were. We had thought that half-way through September there might be less people, and if this was true, I would hate to be there when there are a lot of people, it was crowded. Brad and I both agreed we needed to get out of there as soon as possible so we hopped on the 1st bus we could find to Kacha, the town we were going to stay at for the week. We had to stand the entire hour and a half, but it wasn’t too bad. We arrived in Kacha Saturday afternoon and Yuri, our contact in the town showed us a bit around. Kacha used to have a Russian Air-Force base until last year. Our ‘hotel’ was about a 10 minute walk to the Black Sea, and about a 45 minute bus ride to Sevastopol, which is where the Black Sea Fleet is based. (The Russian fleet that patrols the Black Sea, and which Russia rents part of the Sevastopol Bay from Ukraine. It is an area of dispute for many Ukrainians since the mayor of Moscow even said that Sevastopol still belongs to Russia. There are Russian sailors all over the streets and Russian flags flying everywhere.)
Saturday afternoon Brad and I went and got some lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea, then went down and swam a bit. The water was pretty cool, but since everyone said it was supposed to be cold all week we felt pretty lucky that it was 80 degrees, and so the water felt good. Sunday we headed into Sevastopol to meet up with another volunteer who lives just outside the main-part of the city. We first headed to a panorama of the Crimean War which was fought in the mid 19th century between Russia and a coalition of Turkish-British-and French soldiers. Even though it was all in Russian, with the help of Brad’s wonderful translations and the occasional English plaque I learned a lot about something I had no real previous knowledge. It was an incredibly bloody battle and many poems and books have been written about it. We went to a wonderful Tatar restaurant (an ethnic group specifically from Crimea, which Stalin tried to purge over 2 million of them in the 1950s,and only 200,000 of them still remain in Crimea) and then walked around the city and saw a bit of the port and the Russian ships stationed there.
Sunday morning Brad and I got on a bus to Bakchisarai, a town about an hour north of the sea, which holds one of the largest Tatar palaces in the world. It was really interesting learning about the khans (Tatar kings) that had lived there and how they had shaped Crimea’s history. We walked 45 minutes up a rode to try to find the path up to a very famous fortress that is built on top of a huge bluff and is riddled with caves. After a very hot walk up and a few unexpected ticket booths we got up to the top and were treated to some incredible views of the valleys around us. Overall it was a wonderful day, even though Brad and I both were pretty tired by the end of the day. Tuesday morning we woke up early and jumped on a bus to Yalta, which is probably the most famous city in all of Crimea. Yalta is one of the most popular resort towns in Crimea, and just driving along the spectacular coast-line rode with sheer cliffs to your left and right, you could see huge hotels which reminded you of any other beach-town in the world. It made it hard to remember that Ukraine is still a developing country.
We got off the bus and hiked straight down a hill to find the Livadia palace, which is famous for two reasons. One, it is where the Romanovs ( the ruling family/Tsar in Russia from the 17th-early 20th century) held their summer residence, and where the Tsarina went to get over TB. The upper part of the palace is dedicated to their memory, and it was interesting to see pictures of Tsar Nicolas II and Alexi his son, as well as pictures of many of the royal families throughout Europe which in those days all seemed to be related. (King George and Tsar Nicolas were cousins and the Kaiser of Germany was their uncle.) The lower part was dedicated to the Yalta conference, which was where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in February of 1945 to decide what would happen to post-war Europe. This is the main reason why I wanted to see the palace, and was very interested to see the way everything was set up. There were pictures everywhere of the conference, and many of the rooms were set up the same way they were during the conference. The 3 representatives of the different countries all stayed in different palaces near Yalta, but Roosevelt stayed in the Livadia, so there was a lot of information about him specifically. After the palace we went down to a wonderful board-walk that is filled with tourists from all over, and then hiked our way up hill to find Chekhov’s (famous Russian author) Yalta residence. We finally caught a bus back at 7 and were pretty exhausted when we got back to Kacha at 9:30 that night.
Wednesday was spent mostly relaxing and a little more time at the beach.
Thursday Brad and I decided to hop on two different buses to reach a marina town called Balaclava, just south of Sevastopol. Balaclava is famous for 2 things. It is where the term balaclava (like neck-warmers or ski masks you put around you entire head. They were designed by British women who sent them to soldiers stationed there in the Crimean War) came from, and it was the home of a secret nuclear-submarine base during the Cold War. We arrived in Balaclava and decided to hike around and just see what there was to see.
We eventually headed to the submarine base, where we were allowed to just, “walk around.” This is very strange since if you speak Russian you are almost always with a tour group and have to go at their pace, so it’s nice to be on your own.
The submarine base was designed in the 1960s as a secondary-strike response to the American nuclear threat. It was built in the side of a mountain, in the bay of Balaclava. There are two entrances, so the submarine could go in one door, have repairs done or missiles put on board, and then go out the other door. It was also built so that an entire group of workers and military personnel could live there for up to a month in case of a nuclear strike. It was very interesting to see how prepared both sides of the war were for a nuclear attack. The base was only shut down about 15 years ago, so it was interesting to see the pictures from not so long ago.
After lunch, Brad and I decided to hop on a sort of water-taxi (a small boat with a slow engine and some characters for captain/workers) out to one of the most spectacular beaches I have ever seen. The beach was surrounded on all sides with mountains, and when Brad and I decided to walk back to town, we were treated to some of the best views of Crimea there are.
Overall, the trip was amazing, and as my time comes to an end, it again shows me what Ukraine really does have to offer!
Hope to see you all soon,
Seth
Monday, September 14, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
4 months left!!
I am currently sitting in my room, with the air conditioning blasting because its been over 100 degrees the past 4-5 days!! But its nice to just be relaxing after 3 weeks of summer camps.
I started off with my 2 week Survivor Camp in Western Ukraine, in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains. Again, it was a great 10 days; hiking up and down the mile climb to our camp site, cooking over a fire, and enduring the huge thunderstorms that rolled in every 2 days! I was also able to join the campers when we went to hike Mt. Heverla, the highest mountain in Ukraine, around 2,036 meters. Not that high, but still a good climb up! It was a very surreal experience, because as we reached the top the clouds that had been slowly building collapsed on top of us and we were enveloped in a mist that surrounded the mountain and made you feel as if you were in another planet.
Overall, the weather was great, with one or two huge storms rolling through and flooding our fires and most of the students cheap tents. The classes went great, and we spent most nights around a campfire after playing some great American camp games. Another highlight was firing off REAL fireworks (the big ones are easy to buy and cheap here) and hearing the booms echo off the mountain sides for July 4th! By the end of the camp all of the counselors were dirty, exhausted, but glad that we got the chance to spend 10 wonderful days in the mountains, doing some actual camping. It made me realize how different the landscape around Ukraine can be. It was a great time!
After that I headed to Ivano Frankivsk, which is a city in western Ukraine, and reminds me more of Europe than any other Ukrainian city with its big boulevards and beer tents everywhere. It took me 2 days to get to Lugansk from the west, and I had only one day at home before I headed to Kreminna, a town in northern Lugansk Oblast ,for Camp IKNOW (a ecological-based camp that had been done in other parts of Ukraine but never in The East before). On the 13th we got all the counselors and kids (7 Americans, 16 students, and 2 Ukrainian adults) to the camp. It was set in a beautiful red pine forest, yet was a little dirty because it was near the main city beach, so there were tons of beer bottles everywhere. The point of the camp was to teach students about the importance of the environment, and to learn how to plan and implement environmental-based projects in their communities. So the days were spent having lessons, and then after lunch playing some games and going to either the dirty lake nearby or the great river about 40 minutes walking away. Due to a misunderstanding (by me) we didn’t have a cook to help us at the camp, so we did all our cooking (again) over a far using very, very dirty pots and a grate. The meals took a little longer, but after some awesome chili and Shashlik (Ukrainian kebabs/barbeque) I thought we did a good job. The students also put together a community clean up for the rode to the lake, and after we were done I think they were pretty proud of themselves. I put some pictures up on face book of both these camps, and will put a few on my blog as well.
These camps usually fly by, and with another two camps coming up, my summer will be gone before I know it. I have left then 4 months left, and my anxiety about coming back to America and what to do when I get there is slowly growing… but for the moment I will relax, take in the heat, and enjoy the wonderful Ukrainian summer (with some watermelon of course! Less then 2$ for 12 pounds!)
Talk to you all soon!
With love,
Seth
I started off with my 2 week Survivor Camp in Western Ukraine, in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains. Again, it was a great 10 days; hiking up and down the mile climb to our camp site, cooking over a fire, and enduring the huge thunderstorms that rolled in every 2 days! I was also able to join the campers when we went to hike Mt. Heverla, the highest mountain in Ukraine, around 2,036 meters. Not that high, but still a good climb up! It was a very surreal experience, because as we reached the top the clouds that had been slowly building collapsed on top of us and we were enveloped in a mist that surrounded the mountain and made you feel as if you were in another planet.
Overall, the weather was great, with one or two huge storms rolling through and flooding our fires and most of the students cheap tents. The classes went great, and we spent most nights around a campfire after playing some great American camp games. Another highlight was firing off REAL fireworks (the big ones are easy to buy and cheap here) and hearing the booms echo off the mountain sides for July 4th! By the end of the camp all of the counselors were dirty, exhausted, but glad that we got the chance to spend 10 wonderful days in the mountains, doing some actual camping. It made me realize how different the landscape around Ukraine can be. It was a great time!
After that I headed to Ivano Frankivsk, which is a city in western Ukraine, and reminds me more of Europe than any other Ukrainian city with its big boulevards and beer tents everywhere. It took me 2 days to get to Lugansk from the west, and I had only one day at home before I headed to Kreminna, a town in northern Lugansk Oblast ,for Camp IKNOW (a ecological-based camp that had been done in other parts of Ukraine but never in The East before). On the 13th we got all the counselors and kids (7 Americans, 16 students, and 2 Ukrainian adults) to the camp. It was set in a beautiful red pine forest, yet was a little dirty because it was near the main city beach, so there were tons of beer bottles everywhere. The point of the camp was to teach students about the importance of the environment, and to learn how to plan and implement environmental-based projects in their communities. So the days were spent having lessons, and then after lunch playing some games and going to either the dirty lake nearby or the great river about 40 minutes walking away. Due to a misunderstanding (by me) we didn’t have a cook to help us at the camp, so we did all our cooking (again) over a far using very, very dirty pots and a grate. The meals took a little longer, but after some awesome chili and Shashlik (Ukrainian kebabs/barbeque) I thought we did a good job. The students also put together a community clean up for the rode to the lake, and after we were done I think they were pretty proud of themselves. I put some pictures up on face book of both these camps, and will put a few on my blog as well.
These camps usually fly by, and with another two camps coming up, my summer will be gone before I know it. I have left then 4 months left, and my anxiety about coming back to America and what to do when I get there is slowly growing… but for the moment I will relax, take in the heat, and enjoy the wonderful Ukrainian summer (with some watermelon of course! Less then 2$ for 12 pounds!)
Talk to you all soon!
With love,
Seth
Thursday, June 11, 2009
summer strikes again
Well… as summer approaches, I felt I should stop and take a bit of a look back over the last few months and the craziness that has ensued. I believe the last time I wrote I had just returned from a great trip to Egypt with my girlfriend Megan. When we returned Ukraine was still tightly in the grips of winter, but soon the spring showers and budding trees that Ukraine allows for about a week showed up. School was crazy for the last two months of school, with constant schedule changes and confusing as to whether I even have class at that time. But I have been able to get around Lugansk Oblast a bit and see more of the area and where other Peace Corps Volunteers live, so that’s been nice.
Probably the biggest thing that has happened is that I was able to go back to America for about 9 days. My grandfather had been sick for quite a while and my family decided it was time to come home, and shortly after that decision he passed away. While my family was of course very sad, it was very nice that we were all able to get together and celebrate his memory again. While home I was able to get up to the Brule for a day, and have a great burger and some beers at the Brewhouse in Duluth. It was nice to have a little R&R, but it did make coming back to Ukraine a little bit harder.
Since then, I have had my sister Morley come to visit, which was great! She arrived on Sunday and I was able to pick her up at the airport, when we then headed to the train station to catch a train to Lugansk. I had not been able to buy the second-class tickets that we had used when my parents had come, so we were in third-class seats where there is no privacy and it was very, very hot! We arrived tired and a bit frazzled in Lugansk on Monday, and were able to take a bit of a walk around my neighborhood and downtown Lugansk, when we then headed to Indian food for dinner. Tuesday was filled with seeing a bit of an actual Ukrainian village, and having some great Armenian food. Wednesday we head to Slavyansk to see where Megan lives, and Thursday we headed to one of the most famous Ukrainian monasteries, where we got a tour from a Ukrainian priest. Thursday we headed to Kiev and Friday Morley got a great speed-walking tour of Kiev, with most of the main attractions being hit up. Morley headed off to Budapest again on Saturday.
Megan heads home in about a week, and the rest of the summer will be filled with summer camps and traveling to visit friends.
Hope all is well!!
Miss you all,
Love,
Seth
Probably the biggest thing that has happened is that I was able to go back to America for about 9 days. My grandfather had been sick for quite a while and my family decided it was time to come home, and shortly after that decision he passed away. While my family was of course very sad, it was very nice that we were all able to get together and celebrate his memory again. While home I was able to get up to the Brule for a day, and have a great burger and some beers at the Brewhouse in Duluth. It was nice to have a little R&R, but it did make coming back to Ukraine a little bit harder.
Since then, I have had my sister Morley come to visit, which was great! She arrived on Sunday and I was able to pick her up at the airport, when we then headed to the train station to catch a train to Lugansk. I had not been able to buy the second-class tickets that we had used when my parents had come, so we were in third-class seats where there is no privacy and it was very, very hot! We arrived tired and a bit frazzled in Lugansk on Monday, and were able to take a bit of a walk around my neighborhood and downtown Lugansk, when we then headed to Indian food for dinner. Tuesday was filled with seeing a bit of an actual Ukrainian village, and having some great Armenian food. Wednesday we head to Slavyansk to see where Megan lives, and Thursday we headed to one of the most famous Ukrainian monasteries, where we got a tour from a Ukrainian priest. Thursday we headed to Kiev and Friday Morley got a great speed-walking tour of Kiev, with most of the main attractions being hit up. Morley headed off to Budapest again on Saturday.
Megan heads home in about a week, and the rest of the summer will be filled with summer camps and traveling to visit friends.
Hope all is well!!
Miss you all,
Love,
Seth
Saturday, March 28, 2009
spring warmth!
March 29, 2009
Well, its only 7am and I am already awake, on a SUNDAY!! Not usual for me, but it may be because for the past week I fell asleep at about 9 and woke up as the blazing sun worked its way through our curtains as it climbed over the mountains of Saudi Arabia…
Yes, I just got back from Egypt for a week! It all started about 3 weeks ago when my girlfriend and I started to discuss what we should do for our spring break. Egypt was thrown out there but I wasn’t very serious about it because of money, logistics, etc. We also thought about Norway but we didn’t really want more winter. Eventually, after confusion about where to reserve tickets for Egypt, etc. we booked a week-long trip to Nuweiba, on the Sinai Peninsula for 7 nights, at a 3 star hotel right on the beach. We had friends that had gone to this hotel back in December, and they had only good things to say about it. I went to Egypt about 4 years ago with my parents, so I sort of knew what to expect, but was a little off.
So on March 20th Megan and I headed to Donetsk where our flight was leaving at 6am Saturday morning. We stayed with another peace corps volunteer who lives close-by to the airport, which was nice because the weather had decided it didn’t want to be spring quite yet and was snowing and windy… we were ready to head to Egypt. Our first snag was when I tried to go through passport-control on the way out of Ukraine, and found out I didn’t have the required departure-form which you fill out when you come IN to Ukraine. The immigration officer kept asking in Russian where it was and I stubbornly kept saying, I don’t know, but I have a visa… After I went through he told Megan that he had noted this and I might have problems in the future…
So we arrived into Sharm Al Sheik after a 3 hour flight south, and started driving… (we thought North-west, but again were a little off) Megan and I had originally thought we would arrive at an airport only 40 minutes from out hotel, but I think due to not enough people wanting to go there we went to an airport over 2 hours away. We got off the plane, bought our visas, and headed out into the glorious Egyptian sun. We found a guy with a sign for our tour company, and he directed us towards a bunch of tourist buses, which of course we thought we were going to get on. Oh no, as we headed over a guy with what looked to be a brand new Audi, asked, are you the ones going to Nuweiba (in Russian), after we said yes he directed us to get in the car. Both megan and I were thinking, “what the heck?!” We realized that no one else was going to where our hotel was so we had this fancy car all to ourselves. After briefly talking with a tour agent in the front (who spoke very little English but excellent Russian, which was common there and which I was VERY surprised about) and driving over 200km an hour as I held tightly onto the “oh crap” handles in the back, we got to Nuweiba.
We pulled up to our hotel and they showed us to our room. The view was amazing, with beautiful shades of blue in front of us and mountains in all directions. I was a little confused though, since I thought Hurghada and the rest of Egypt would be straight across from us. After looking on a map of Egypt, Megan and I found out we had not gone north-WEST of Sharm, but north-east, and were now looking at Saudi Arabia, with Jordan and Israel less than an hour away. Very cool!
Our first trip out was to find some water, and of course the hotel didn’t have a place close by or cheap. We kept asking for bazaar, bazaar (international word for market) and kept being directed to single shops with very over-priced merchandise. We then wanted a taxi and first asked a worker at the hotel how much it would cost. 50 pounds round trip he said. That was almost 9 dollars so we then asked the front desk how much it should be and they said no more than 10 pounds one way… we needed to get into bargaining mode!!! We headed into the small town of Nuweiba, and found what we needed. Water, snacks, and snorkeling stuff. We walked the hot, dry 5 km back to our hotel and immediately went to the beach. At first I thought the beach wasn’t that cool because it seemed very shallow and it wasn’t easy to get out to deeper water, but as I explored more and more, I realized that we were incredibly lucky to stay at a place with such a great reef only 300 feet from the shore. Over the 7 days that we were there, I spent about 3 hours a day swimming back and forth along the beach, seeing all sorts of fish, corals, Moray eels, and what I am really hoping WASN’T a Sea Snake! The water was cold at times, but over-all it was great to swim and then come back on-shore and get warm but not too hot.
Most of our days evolved around the schedule of waking up at 6:30 due to the very bright sun, slowly moving around till 7 when we headed straight to the buffet breakfast, then back to our rooms for a bit of reading, getting ready for the beach; then snorkeling, sun-tanning, maybe a little beach volley-ball till about 11, then back inside from a break from the sun. We would then play some cards, read, take a nap, eat some food, then maybe take a walk into town and buy some more snacks, then repeat the beach excursion till 5, when it was time for showers, clean clothes, and another buffet dinner! Then maybe a movie, and falling asleep by 9:15!! Megan and I both got a lot of sun, but she was a little smarter about applying the sun lotion, so I eventually ended up burning my forehead, the top of my head, somehow my lip, and the back of my thighs when I wore a new Ukrainian ‘speedo’ which left some pretty white skin exposed!!
This was our life for a week, except for two very exciting exceptions. When Megan and I first decided we were going to Egypt, we talked about different things we wanted to see there, and we finally decided that we had to go to Cairo and see the Pyramids, since you can’t go to Egypt twice and not see them, and also do a sun-rise hike up Mt. Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God.
So our first job was to find out how to get to these places and after some research on the internet we had thought the trips would be VERY expensive, but upon arriving in Nuweiba we were flooded with offers for taxi rides and other one day trips to both locations. We settled on an actual tour-group for Cairo because we wanted to feel more secure about this trip because it was expensive, long, and in Cairo, a CRAZY city! Tuesday night we woke up at 2 and headed out in our private mini-bus (not sure why we had such a big vehicle for only 2 people) with our driver and a ‘tour-guide’ whose Russian and English were incredibly hard to understand. After 6 hours of driving through desert we arrived on the out-skirts of Cairo, and it took us another 90 minutes to get to the Cairo History Museum. (We heard about 5 different numbers, but it seems that there are around 17 million people who live in Cairo, with another 3 coming in every day for work, and over a million cars on the road!) We had a great guide from Cairo nick-named Cassanova, who had worked as a tour-guide for over 25 years, knew everyone and carried a plastic gavel which he used to hit people on the head so they would get out of his way!! Pretty funny. The museum was huge, with pieces from a bunch of different Pharaohs, and some pieces over 5000 years old!
We then headed west towards the pyramids, and as we crossed the Nile we got out for a quick photo shoot. After another crazy drive though horrible traffic we could see the pyramids in the distance. Of course we had to stop at the papyrus factory and do the usual tourist thing of pretending you are interested in buying something when you are not at all! After another huge buffet lunch we finally headed to the Pyramids. As most people, Megan and I of course had seen the pyramids in tons of pictures, but you really do have to be there to truly understand how amazing it is that something like that could be created without modern machinery so long ago!! Breathtaking. We walked all around the 3 pyramids, took a brief tour down into one of them, then down to the Sphinx (which for some reason I thought was far away from the pyramids, not less than a kilometer away) and of course took hundreds of pictures. Definitely a worth-while experience. After that we were both exhausted, but we had another stop at a perfume shop, which Megan I were both leery about because we didn’t really expect to buy anything and we both get uncomfortable in these positions. But after some great tea, good sales pitch and smelling over 6 different scents I bought Megan a VERY small bottle of Sweet Pea extract for baths and stuff. I know my dad would have loved it, as we sat on plushy cushions and there were hundreds of bottles with all different scents which were eventually sent to Perfume companies all around the world! After another 6 hour ride back, taking a tunnel under the Suez cannel, he made it back our hotel around 11pm.
24 short hours later we woke up and headed out on a 2 hour drive to Mt. Sinai/Moses (whatever you want to call it) for a supposedly 3 hour hike up to see the sun rise over the mountains. We had hired a local taxi driver so we didn’t have a guide and didn’t really know what to expect from the whole experience. Megan and I arrived at the base of the mountain at 2am, and started climbing. Within 10 minutes we were asked by another tour-guide, ‘where is your guide, you have to have a guide or you will get in trouble with the police.’ This is the first we had heard of it so we chose to ignore it. We had been told by others that had climbed it that it was very cold so Megan and I were bundled up in everything we had brought with us.
As we sluggishly followed the numerous paths up the mountain, with only my head lamp and the lights of other groups above us to follow, I got warmer and warmer and started shedding clothes. We had to occasionally get out of the way for groups of camels coming down the mountain, and it was a challenge to not get run over by them or pushed off the trail. We slowly worked our way up, passing other, larger groups, and only stopping for some water and to turn of the light so we could see all of the stars. The view was amazing and it was probably the most stars I have ever seen. Megan said it was one of her favorite moments of the trip. After two hours of switch-backs and loose gravel, we realized we were almost at the top and it was only 4 am. We stopped at a tea shop (which there were over 20 along the trail almost the whole way up) and got some hot chocolate and tea. We decided to rent a blanket since by this point Megan and I were both freezing. At around 4:30 we headed to the actual top of the mountain, which was slow going because by this point it was single-file up the stairs to the small monastery on top of the mountain. We got up there and right away found a good place that we could see the sun rise. About 5 min. after we got there we could see light on the horizon, but it took over an hour before the sun was actually visible. It was a pretty cool experience, as he huddled to keep warm, and listened to a group of Russian Orthodox priests sing as the sun rose!!
A difficult climb down, but overall, awesome. After we got back we only had another day and a half left, and it flew by. On our flight home, which was delayed over 30 minutes, the captain announced in Russian that it was only 33 degrees F back in Ukraine. Both Megan and I thought he had to be joking, but when we finally landed, we looked around us and saw wet, slushy snow and fog, a great welcome back to Ukraine!
Sorry this was so long, hope you enjoyed it, will post pictures on facebook soon!
With love,
Seth
Well, its only 7am and I am already awake, on a SUNDAY!! Not usual for me, but it may be because for the past week I fell asleep at about 9 and woke up as the blazing sun worked its way through our curtains as it climbed over the mountains of Saudi Arabia…
Yes, I just got back from Egypt for a week! It all started about 3 weeks ago when my girlfriend and I started to discuss what we should do for our spring break. Egypt was thrown out there but I wasn’t very serious about it because of money, logistics, etc. We also thought about Norway but we didn’t really want more winter. Eventually, after confusion about where to reserve tickets for Egypt, etc. we booked a week-long trip to Nuweiba, on the Sinai Peninsula for 7 nights, at a 3 star hotel right on the beach. We had friends that had gone to this hotel back in December, and they had only good things to say about it. I went to Egypt about 4 years ago with my parents, so I sort of knew what to expect, but was a little off.
So on March 20th Megan and I headed to Donetsk where our flight was leaving at 6am Saturday morning. We stayed with another peace corps volunteer who lives close-by to the airport, which was nice because the weather had decided it didn’t want to be spring quite yet and was snowing and windy… we were ready to head to Egypt. Our first snag was when I tried to go through passport-control on the way out of Ukraine, and found out I didn’t have the required departure-form which you fill out when you come IN to Ukraine. The immigration officer kept asking in Russian where it was and I stubbornly kept saying, I don’t know, but I have a visa… After I went through he told Megan that he had noted this and I might have problems in the future…
So we arrived into Sharm Al Sheik after a 3 hour flight south, and started driving… (we thought North-west, but again were a little off) Megan and I had originally thought we would arrive at an airport only 40 minutes from out hotel, but I think due to not enough people wanting to go there we went to an airport over 2 hours away. We got off the plane, bought our visas, and headed out into the glorious Egyptian sun. We found a guy with a sign for our tour company, and he directed us towards a bunch of tourist buses, which of course we thought we were going to get on. Oh no, as we headed over a guy with what looked to be a brand new Audi, asked, are you the ones going to Nuweiba (in Russian), after we said yes he directed us to get in the car. Both megan and I were thinking, “what the heck?!” We realized that no one else was going to where our hotel was so we had this fancy car all to ourselves. After briefly talking with a tour agent in the front (who spoke very little English but excellent Russian, which was common there and which I was VERY surprised about) and driving over 200km an hour as I held tightly onto the “oh crap” handles in the back, we got to Nuweiba.
We pulled up to our hotel and they showed us to our room. The view was amazing, with beautiful shades of blue in front of us and mountains in all directions. I was a little confused though, since I thought Hurghada and the rest of Egypt would be straight across from us. After looking on a map of Egypt, Megan and I found out we had not gone north-WEST of Sharm, but north-east, and were now looking at Saudi Arabia, with Jordan and Israel less than an hour away. Very cool!
Our first trip out was to find some water, and of course the hotel didn’t have a place close by or cheap. We kept asking for bazaar, bazaar (international word for market) and kept being directed to single shops with very over-priced merchandise. We then wanted a taxi and first asked a worker at the hotel how much it would cost. 50 pounds round trip he said. That was almost 9 dollars so we then asked the front desk how much it should be and they said no more than 10 pounds one way… we needed to get into bargaining mode!!! We headed into the small town of Nuweiba, and found what we needed. Water, snacks, and snorkeling stuff. We walked the hot, dry 5 km back to our hotel and immediately went to the beach. At first I thought the beach wasn’t that cool because it seemed very shallow and it wasn’t easy to get out to deeper water, but as I explored more and more, I realized that we were incredibly lucky to stay at a place with such a great reef only 300 feet from the shore. Over the 7 days that we were there, I spent about 3 hours a day swimming back and forth along the beach, seeing all sorts of fish, corals, Moray eels, and what I am really hoping WASN’T a Sea Snake! The water was cold at times, but over-all it was great to swim and then come back on-shore and get warm but not too hot.
Most of our days evolved around the schedule of waking up at 6:30 due to the very bright sun, slowly moving around till 7 when we headed straight to the buffet breakfast, then back to our rooms for a bit of reading, getting ready for the beach; then snorkeling, sun-tanning, maybe a little beach volley-ball till about 11, then back inside from a break from the sun. We would then play some cards, read, take a nap, eat some food, then maybe take a walk into town and buy some more snacks, then repeat the beach excursion till 5, when it was time for showers, clean clothes, and another buffet dinner! Then maybe a movie, and falling asleep by 9:15!! Megan and I both got a lot of sun, but she was a little smarter about applying the sun lotion, so I eventually ended up burning my forehead, the top of my head, somehow my lip, and the back of my thighs when I wore a new Ukrainian ‘speedo’ which left some pretty white skin exposed!!
This was our life for a week, except for two very exciting exceptions. When Megan and I first decided we were going to Egypt, we talked about different things we wanted to see there, and we finally decided that we had to go to Cairo and see the Pyramids, since you can’t go to Egypt twice and not see them, and also do a sun-rise hike up Mt. Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God.
So our first job was to find out how to get to these places and after some research on the internet we had thought the trips would be VERY expensive, but upon arriving in Nuweiba we were flooded with offers for taxi rides and other one day trips to both locations. We settled on an actual tour-group for Cairo because we wanted to feel more secure about this trip because it was expensive, long, and in Cairo, a CRAZY city! Tuesday night we woke up at 2 and headed out in our private mini-bus (not sure why we had such a big vehicle for only 2 people) with our driver and a ‘tour-guide’ whose Russian and English were incredibly hard to understand. After 6 hours of driving through desert we arrived on the out-skirts of Cairo, and it took us another 90 minutes to get to the Cairo History Museum. (We heard about 5 different numbers, but it seems that there are around 17 million people who live in Cairo, with another 3 coming in every day for work, and over a million cars on the road!) We had a great guide from Cairo nick-named Cassanova, who had worked as a tour-guide for over 25 years, knew everyone and carried a plastic gavel which he used to hit people on the head so they would get out of his way!! Pretty funny. The museum was huge, with pieces from a bunch of different Pharaohs, and some pieces over 5000 years old!
We then headed west towards the pyramids, and as we crossed the Nile we got out for a quick photo shoot. After another crazy drive though horrible traffic we could see the pyramids in the distance. Of course we had to stop at the papyrus factory and do the usual tourist thing of pretending you are interested in buying something when you are not at all! After another huge buffet lunch we finally headed to the Pyramids. As most people, Megan and I of course had seen the pyramids in tons of pictures, but you really do have to be there to truly understand how amazing it is that something like that could be created without modern machinery so long ago!! Breathtaking. We walked all around the 3 pyramids, took a brief tour down into one of them, then down to the Sphinx (which for some reason I thought was far away from the pyramids, not less than a kilometer away) and of course took hundreds of pictures. Definitely a worth-while experience. After that we were both exhausted, but we had another stop at a perfume shop, which Megan I were both leery about because we didn’t really expect to buy anything and we both get uncomfortable in these positions. But after some great tea, good sales pitch and smelling over 6 different scents I bought Megan a VERY small bottle of Sweet Pea extract for baths and stuff. I know my dad would have loved it, as we sat on plushy cushions and there were hundreds of bottles with all different scents which were eventually sent to Perfume companies all around the world! After another 6 hour ride back, taking a tunnel under the Suez cannel, he made it back our hotel around 11pm.
24 short hours later we woke up and headed out on a 2 hour drive to Mt. Sinai/Moses (whatever you want to call it) for a supposedly 3 hour hike up to see the sun rise over the mountains. We had hired a local taxi driver so we didn’t have a guide and didn’t really know what to expect from the whole experience. Megan and I arrived at the base of the mountain at 2am, and started climbing. Within 10 minutes we were asked by another tour-guide, ‘where is your guide, you have to have a guide or you will get in trouble with the police.’ This is the first we had heard of it so we chose to ignore it. We had been told by others that had climbed it that it was very cold so Megan and I were bundled up in everything we had brought with us.
As we sluggishly followed the numerous paths up the mountain, with only my head lamp and the lights of other groups above us to follow, I got warmer and warmer and started shedding clothes. We had to occasionally get out of the way for groups of camels coming down the mountain, and it was a challenge to not get run over by them or pushed off the trail. We slowly worked our way up, passing other, larger groups, and only stopping for some water and to turn of the light so we could see all of the stars. The view was amazing and it was probably the most stars I have ever seen. Megan said it was one of her favorite moments of the trip. After two hours of switch-backs and loose gravel, we realized we were almost at the top and it was only 4 am. We stopped at a tea shop (which there were over 20 along the trail almost the whole way up) and got some hot chocolate and tea. We decided to rent a blanket since by this point Megan and I were both freezing. At around 4:30 we headed to the actual top of the mountain, which was slow going because by this point it was single-file up the stairs to the small monastery on top of the mountain. We got up there and right away found a good place that we could see the sun rise. About 5 min. after we got there we could see light on the horizon, but it took over an hour before the sun was actually visible. It was a pretty cool experience, as he huddled to keep warm, and listened to a group of Russian Orthodox priests sing as the sun rose!!
A difficult climb down, but overall, awesome. After we got back we only had another day and a half left, and it flew by. On our flight home, which was delayed over 30 minutes, the captain announced in Russian that it was only 33 degrees F back in Ukraine. Both Megan and I thought he had to be joking, but when we finally landed, we looked around us and saw wet, slushy snow and fog, a great welcome back to Ukraine!
Sorry this was so long, hope you enjoyed it, will post pictures on facebook soon!
With love,
Seth
Friday, February 27, 2009
Back again!
Yeah, so I disappeared for a while… Well, not really, I just got lazy, and writing about my life was not up there on my to do list… Sorry.
But anyways, got plenty of time now to think back over the past month and see if anything new has occurred, and besides one big thing, not a whole lot has. The past month has seen about 5 ups and downs in the weather, cold/snowy, warm/muddy as heck, cold/snowy, etc. I am kind of getting ready for spring actually.
Teaching has been going okay, but still face a lot of problems with my schedule and actually getting time to teach my students, oh well.
On the 14th I was able to be in Kiev for an Environmental Working Group meeting where we talked about future environmental projects we want to start in Ukraine, as well as planned a few summer camps based on ecology, one of which I will probably be leading in July. Luckily enough, my girlfriend Megan was also able to be in Kiev that weekend so we were able to go out for a nice Valentines Day dinner at a ‘fancy’ Indian Restaurant. Very good!
On the 15th I took a bus to the airport and took a plane to… Austria! About 3 months ago my dad had suggested that I meet up with him, my mom, and my brother Jeremy in Ramsau, Austria, to do some cross-country skiing for a week. Sounded good to me. After the 2 hour flight I was ahead of schedule and hoping to make a train quickly so I wouldn’t have to wait 2 hours in Vienna, but luck would have it, I got a ‘little’ confused as to which train I should get on to go to the station so I ended up going all the way into Vienna, then back on the metro another 20 minutes to the train station I needed… I wasn’t mad at all!
After a 4 hour ride west with one change, I jumped off the train to see my dad, Jeremy, and my mom all waiting for me at the station. That night we just went back to the beautiful hotel and went to bed, cause Jeremy and my dad were both exhausted after skiing 25-42 km races that morning! Monday we got up early and headed out UP the valley (for someone who hasn’t skied in 15 months or really exercised in about 3, it was a ‘little’ taxing. But let me tell you, it was gorgeous! Tons of snow everywhere, beautiful mountains, just great. Tuesday we were pretty tired so we stayed and watched some biathlon in the morning, then about noon headed up on a bus to ski back to the chalet. It had started snowing the night before so the tracks were pretty slow, and the wind was only ‘sort of’ howling down the valley. We took the bus about as far as we could go, then we began to walk INTO the wind to try to find the trail (in typical Spencer fashion, none of us knew exactly how to get onto the trail, so we ended up bushwacking through about 2 feet of snow and me down a face dive into the snow) The ski was cold, but good.
Wednesday was one of the more beautiful skies I’ve ever had. The snow was as pure and white as you could possibly ask for, and we did a great 15 k loop with some great downhills and some BIG uphills. I also should say that after ski we were able to use the wonderful sauna room at the chalet, and then had about a 4 course dinner with some great beer. Not a bad life for a ‘impoverished’ Peace Corps Volunteer in Eastern Europe.
Thursday was another beautiful ski, with a great 17k loop up and around a small mountain (for any of you who have also been to Ramsau with my parents, you may remember this loop (ANDREA)) and then my Dad, brother and me decided we weren’t quite done yet so we did a 8km out and back loop up part of the mountain, after which (including an incredibly dive I took with my face that created about a 6 inch crevice in the middle of the train and some great goulash soup) we were all very tired.
Friday the weather had turned against us and our ski was kept to only about 90 minutes cause of snow and that we had to drive back to Vienna for the night so I could catch a flight home. The driving was pretty crazy, but my dad did an excellent job not getting run over by the crazy Austrian truck drivers.
Got back to Kiev on Saturday, and while there was snow in Kiev, it just wasn’t really the same.
Over all, the trip was great, and it was wonderful to see my parents and Jeremy!
(I will put some pictures up soon)
Hope to hear from you all soon!
With Love,
Seth
But anyways, got plenty of time now to think back over the past month and see if anything new has occurred, and besides one big thing, not a whole lot has. The past month has seen about 5 ups and downs in the weather, cold/snowy, warm/muddy as heck, cold/snowy, etc. I am kind of getting ready for spring actually.
Teaching has been going okay, but still face a lot of problems with my schedule and actually getting time to teach my students, oh well.
On the 14th I was able to be in Kiev for an Environmental Working Group meeting where we talked about future environmental projects we want to start in Ukraine, as well as planned a few summer camps based on ecology, one of which I will probably be leading in July. Luckily enough, my girlfriend Megan was also able to be in Kiev that weekend so we were able to go out for a nice Valentines Day dinner at a ‘fancy’ Indian Restaurant. Very good!
On the 15th I took a bus to the airport and took a plane to… Austria! About 3 months ago my dad had suggested that I meet up with him, my mom, and my brother Jeremy in Ramsau, Austria, to do some cross-country skiing for a week. Sounded good to me. After the 2 hour flight I was ahead of schedule and hoping to make a train quickly so I wouldn’t have to wait 2 hours in Vienna, but luck would have it, I got a ‘little’ confused as to which train I should get on to go to the station so I ended up going all the way into Vienna, then back on the metro another 20 minutes to the train station I needed… I wasn’t mad at all!
After a 4 hour ride west with one change, I jumped off the train to see my dad, Jeremy, and my mom all waiting for me at the station. That night we just went back to the beautiful hotel and went to bed, cause Jeremy and my dad were both exhausted after skiing 25-42 km races that morning! Monday we got up early and headed out UP the valley (for someone who hasn’t skied in 15 months or really exercised in about 3, it was a ‘little’ taxing. But let me tell you, it was gorgeous! Tons of snow everywhere, beautiful mountains, just great. Tuesday we were pretty tired so we stayed and watched some biathlon in the morning, then about noon headed up on a bus to ski back to the chalet. It had started snowing the night before so the tracks were pretty slow, and the wind was only ‘sort of’ howling down the valley. We took the bus about as far as we could go, then we began to walk INTO the wind to try to find the trail (in typical Spencer fashion, none of us knew exactly how to get onto the trail, so we ended up bushwacking through about 2 feet of snow and me down a face dive into the snow) The ski was cold, but good.
Wednesday was one of the more beautiful skies I’ve ever had. The snow was as pure and white as you could possibly ask for, and we did a great 15 k loop with some great downhills and some BIG uphills. I also should say that after ski we were able to use the wonderful sauna room at the chalet, and then had about a 4 course dinner with some great beer. Not a bad life for a ‘impoverished’ Peace Corps Volunteer in Eastern Europe.
Thursday was another beautiful ski, with a great 17k loop up and around a small mountain (for any of you who have also been to Ramsau with my parents, you may remember this loop (ANDREA)) and then my Dad, brother and me decided we weren’t quite done yet so we did a 8km out and back loop up part of the mountain, after which (including an incredibly dive I took with my face that created about a 6 inch crevice in the middle of the train and some great goulash soup) we were all very tired.
Friday the weather had turned against us and our ski was kept to only about 90 minutes cause of snow and that we had to drive back to Vienna for the night so I could catch a flight home. The driving was pretty crazy, but my dad did an excellent job not getting run over by the crazy Austrian truck drivers.
Got back to Kiev on Saturday, and while there was snow in Kiev, it just wasn’t really the same.
Over all, the trip was great, and it was wonderful to see my parents and Jeremy!
(I will put some pictures up soon)
Hope to hear from you all soon!
With Love,
Seth
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Back again
Well, I am back, in Lugansk, again. No really, I am happy to be back here, kind of…
It is good to be back in my own apartment, not rushing off to catch another train, and know that I will not be sleeping next to someone who snores louder than you ever thought possible (there are many of those people out there, not just you Dean). But… I did catch a bad chest cold on my way back here, so I am not really teaching or anything, which is kind of boring…
Anyways, yes, I am in Lugansk, but where was I you may ask? Well, on Dec. 24th I was able to head to Megan’s site and spend Christmas with her, which was much nicer than spending it at home, alone. On December 30th we both caught a night train to meet her parents in Kiev (gulp). After a Peace Corps medical check-up I headed to the apartment which Megan’s parents had rented (it was right on the main street in Kiev and only a few blocks from the center square, great!). We spent the day of the 31st walking around Kiev and checking out the Chernobyl Museum there. While you hear about it all over Ukraine, I think most of the volunteers living here don’t have a clue as to what it was like for all of Ukraine to be so impacted by a single event. It was their September 11th. Truly moving, but I was very glad that I was able to experience it.
On a happier note we were able to meet the New Year in the center square of Kiev surrounded by thousands of others, popping open a bottle of champagne and dancing around like crazy people trying to keep warm… definitely up there on best New Years I have had. The next day was spent again walking around Kiev, in the Peace Corps office trying to keep warm, and eventually catching a train to Lviv, in the western part of Ukraine. Before I go on, I must explain one thing… traveling in Ukraine around the holidays can be a very interesting experience (i.e. all the tickets are gone more than 3 weeks beforehand, and when you don’t believe Ukrainians telling you this, it can be slightly panicking when you have tickets out of the country, but NONE back in) Luckily we were able to buy some of the tickets we needed before we headed west.
Lviv is a beautiful city in western Ukraine, much, much different than the eastern cities. Unfortunately we didn’t have any time to search around that day so we searched around the train station for a bus to the Polish-Ukrainian border (more like I searched because Megan was trying to buy us some very useful train tickets,) and the search was slightly unnerving when I had a 10 minute conversation with a bus driver about whether the bus would leave in 35 minutes, or 7:35am (7minutes from then) It turned out to at 7:35 so there was a rush to catch the bus on time. We took a very packed bus to the border, which consisted of a line of shops and signs pointing you to a fenced in walking section to the customs inspection, where Dean(Megan’s dad) and I (not the women) had our luggage searched and the inspection lady was very interested in a copy of “The Life of Pi”… probably more interested than I was…
After the 15 minute walk we tried to get on a bus to another city to catch a train to Krakow (we didn’t like doing things the easy way) we found out that we had to large of money so we had to try to get it changed in the next 2 minutes. Luckily, the bus driver was Polish (not Ukrainian, no offense to any Ukrainians reading) so he waited for us, caught the train with time to spare and made it to Krakow in 7 hours. We realized we had been very lucky in our connections, and Megan and I were already amazed at 3 things.
1) How organized and coordinated everything seemed to be in Poland
2) How much English Polish people spoke
3) How nice everyone was…
Anyways, we spend the rest of that day (Thursday, the 2nd) walking down streets with Megan and I literally (at least for me) drooling at the foods that we hadn’t seen in months… good pizza, kebabs, Burger King!!!
Friday was a lazy morning, but eventually we caught a bus to Auschwitz and Berchanau, a truly depressing, yet necessary to experience part of Poland’s history. Advice: give yourself the entire day at these two sites. We didn’t know that the museum at Auschwitz closed at 3 in the winter so we felt rushed and didn’t get to see all of the different exhibitions about the horrors that occurred there. Berchanau can be described in one word, sickening. It is row after row of brick buildings were hundreds of Jews, Poles, Russians, were stacked, awaiting execution. You wonder at how anyone could have survived what could only be hell on earth. Again, a must see, but know that it will blow you away.
That night was a little stressful with Dean realizing that he had lost his passport (we at first couldn’t believe this was possible, but after a frantic search of the hostel we were staying realized it was) and after panicky calls to the American Consulate in Krakow we found we could get a new one on Monday, but that would mean we would have to postpone our train to Budapest to stay with my parents. The next morning we were thrilled to discover that the passport had been found at Auschwitz, and that a woman had given it to her friend, who had given it to two police officers in Krakow, who had dropped it off at a station, where it was then delivered to another station where we picked it up only 16 hours after realizing it was lost!! The rest of the day was spent seeing the salt-mines of Krakow, very beautiful as your crawl your way over 440 feet into the earth!
We woke up at 5:30 Monday morning, which was WAY to early for me, but had a nice train ride through the Czech Republic where we switched trains to Budapest, and after being a few minutes late we met up with my dad and where on our way to seeing another European city. Monday was spent having a wonderful home-cooked meal prepared by my mom and eventually crashing into bed.
So, I haven’t mentioned this up till now, but some of my friends have asked this question… “You are traveling with Megan’s parents for 10 days, and are staying with your parents for 4 of them… are you crazy!!” Now this not against either parents, but I haven’t heard of too many couples doing this after 3 months of dating… Not sure about Megan, but I can say it was ultimately a success. I don’t know about Megan’s parents, but I know that I was glad they were there, so that any time Megan and I got frustrated with each other about how turned the wrong way or how we were ever going to find a way back to Ukraine, there was someone there telling us it would be okay!! So thank you everyone involved, for making it a lot easier than it could have been.
Okay, on again (I promise I will be done soon) Tuesday Megan, her parents and I headed out to visit the Buda castle (where the Austro-Hungarian empire use to have its summer palace) and after a lot of walking we headed to my 2nd favorite restaurant in Budapest, the 4 sale pub, for some wonderful Hungarian Goulash. Visited a very cool closed-market than back to the house for another delicious meal of enchiladas.
Wednesday my mom took time off from school to give us a guided tour of Budapest, with stops at the beautiful Hungarian Parliament, and a very interesting museum about ethnicities in Hungary. That night Dean accompanied me and my dad to the Rudas baths which that night was men-only. The place is over 400 years old and as Dean perfectly phrased “felt like you were at a Mafia hangout.” Dark, musty, but very very cool.
Thursday was spent relaxing, until Megan, Dean, Ellen and I headed to the Szechenyi baths in the center, which is the same concept as the Rudas but is co-ed and the main hot-pool is outside. Very cool to see everything steamy due to the cold weather.
Friday we headed to my parents school to show everyone around and then caught the 4 hour train to the Ukrainian border, where we waited for an electric train to Ukraine. It was a very interesting experience as we had no idea how it was going to work, but we weren’t really surprised as we saw a one-car train pull up, and as we crowded in and sad in the dark, Megan and I both felt like we were almost home! We got into Ukraine and this is where our no buying of tickets beforehand became a problem… We found a train that left in 7 minutes (dang 7s!!) but the clerk messed up and by the time she reprogrammed it the computer told us the train had already left, even though we could clearly see it standing there. The next train didn’t leave till 4:30 am, but luckily we found it arrived at 2am so we could sleep and we would get back to Lviv (yes, we made a big circle) at 10. (this train was coming from Budapest, so technically, we could have just taken it all the way… woops) Saturday was spent sleeping, reading and having one last amazing meal in Lviv before I had to catch an overnight train to Kiev, wait in the office all day and catch another over-nighter back to Lugansk. Vacation went by in a flash, but it was truly and awesome trip, and again want to thank Dean and Ellen for letting me tag along, and for Megan for putting up with me.
I hope all of you Christmas Holidays went well, and look forward to hearing from you soon!
With Love,
Seth
P.S. Happy 2009
Oh, and yes, I still have heat, not sure for how long though…
It is good to be back in my own apartment, not rushing off to catch another train, and know that I will not be sleeping next to someone who snores louder than you ever thought possible (there are many of those people out there, not just you Dean). But… I did catch a bad chest cold on my way back here, so I am not really teaching or anything, which is kind of boring…
Anyways, yes, I am in Lugansk, but where was I you may ask? Well, on Dec. 24th I was able to head to Megan’s site and spend Christmas with her, which was much nicer than spending it at home, alone. On December 30th we both caught a night train to meet her parents in Kiev (gulp). After a Peace Corps medical check-up I headed to the apartment which Megan’s parents had rented (it was right on the main street in Kiev and only a few blocks from the center square, great!). We spent the day of the 31st walking around Kiev and checking out the Chernobyl Museum there. While you hear about it all over Ukraine, I think most of the volunteers living here don’t have a clue as to what it was like for all of Ukraine to be so impacted by a single event. It was their September 11th. Truly moving, but I was very glad that I was able to experience it.
On a happier note we were able to meet the New Year in the center square of Kiev surrounded by thousands of others, popping open a bottle of champagne and dancing around like crazy people trying to keep warm… definitely up there on best New Years I have had. The next day was spent again walking around Kiev, in the Peace Corps office trying to keep warm, and eventually catching a train to Lviv, in the western part of Ukraine. Before I go on, I must explain one thing… traveling in Ukraine around the holidays can be a very interesting experience (i.e. all the tickets are gone more than 3 weeks beforehand, and when you don’t believe Ukrainians telling you this, it can be slightly panicking when you have tickets out of the country, but NONE back in) Luckily we were able to buy some of the tickets we needed before we headed west.
Lviv is a beautiful city in western Ukraine, much, much different than the eastern cities. Unfortunately we didn’t have any time to search around that day so we searched around the train station for a bus to the Polish-Ukrainian border (more like I searched because Megan was trying to buy us some very useful train tickets,) and the search was slightly unnerving when I had a 10 minute conversation with a bus driver about whether the bus would leave in 35 minutes, or 7:35am (7minutes from then) It turned out to at 7:35 so there was a rush to catch the bus on time. We took a very packed bus to the border, which consisted of a line of shops and signs pointing you to a fenced in walking section to the customs inspection, where Dean(Megan’s dad) and I (not the women) had our luggage searched and the inspection lady was very interested in a copy of “The Life of Pi”… probably more interested than I was…
After the 15 minute walk we tried to get on a bus to another city to catch a train to Krakow (we didn’t like doing things the easy way) we found out that we had to large of money so we had to try to get it changed in the next 2 minutes. Luckily, the bus driver was Polish (not Ukrainian, no offense to any Ukrainians reading) so he waited for us, caught the train with time to spare and made it to Krakow in 7 hours. We realized we had been very lucky in our connections, and Megan and I were already amazed at 3 things.
1) How organized and coordinated everything seemed to be in Poland
2) How much English Polish people spoke
3) How nice everyone was…
Anyways, we spend the rest of that day (Thursday, the 2nd) walking down streets with Megan and I literally (at least for me) drooling at the foods that we hadn’t seen in months… good pizza, kebabs, Burger King!!!
Friday was a lazy morning, but eventually we caught a bus to Auschwitz and Berchanau, a truly depressing, yet necessary to experience part of Poland’s history. Advice: give yourself the entire day at these two sites. We didn’t know that the museum at Auschwitz closed at 3 in the winter so we felt rushed and didn’t get to see all of the different exhibitions about the horrors that occurred there. Berchanau can be described in one word, sickening. It is row after row of brick buildings were hundreds of Jews, Poles, Russians, were stacked, awaiting execution. You wonder at how anyone could have survived what could only be hell on earth. Again, a must see, but know that it will blow you away.
That night was a little stressful with Dean realizing that he had lost his passport (we at first couldn’t believe this was possible, but after a frantic search of the hostel we were staying realized it was) and after panicky calls to the American Consulate in Krakow we found we could get a new one on Monday, but that would mean we would have to postpone our train to Budapest to stay with my parents. The next morning we were thrilled to discover that the passport had been found at Auschwitz, and that a woman had given it to her friend, who had given it to two police officers in Krakow, who had dropped it off at a station, where it was then delivered to another station where we picked it up only 16 hours after realizing it was lost!! The rest of the day was spent seeing the salt-mines of Krakow, very beautiful as your crawl your way over 440 feet into the earth!
We woke up at 5:30 Monday morning, which was WAY to early for me, but had a nice train ride through the Czech Republic where we switched trains to Budapest, and after being a few minutes late we met up with my dad and where on our way to seeing another European city. Monday was spent having a wonderful home-cooked meal prepared by my mom and eventually crashing into bed.
So, I haven’t mentioned this up till now, but some of my friends have asked this question… “You are traveling with Megan’s parents for 10 days, and are staying with your parents for 4 of them… are you crazy!!” Now this not against either parents, but I haven’t heard of too many couples doing this after 3 months of dating… Not sure about Megan, but I can say it was ultimately a success. I don’t know about Megan’s parents, but I know that I was glad they were there, so that any time Megan and I got frustrated with each other about how turned the wrong way or how we were ever going to find a way back to Ukraine, there was someone there telling us it would be okay!! So thank you everyone involved, for making it a lot easier than it could have been.
Okay, on again (I promise I will be done soon) Tuesday Megan, her parents and I headed out to visit the Buda castle (where the Austro-Hungarian empire use to have its summer palace) and after a lot of walking we headed to my 2nd favorite restaurant in Budapest, the 4 sale pub, for some wonderful Hungarian Goulash. Visited a very cool closed-market than back to the house for another delicious meal of enchiladas.
Wednesday my mom took time off from school to give us a guided tour of Budapest, with stops at the beautiful Hungarian Parliament, and a very interesting museum about ethnicities in Hungary. That night Dean accompanied me and my dad to the Rudas baths which that night was men-only. The place is over 400 years old and as Dean perfectly phrased “felt like you were at a Mafia hangout.” Dark, musty, but very very cool.
Thursday was spent relaxing, until Megan, Dean, Ellen and I headed to the Szechenyi baths in the center, which is the same concept as the Rudas but is co-ed and the main hot-pool is outside. Very cool to see everything steamy due to the cold weather.
Friday we headed to my parents school to show everyone around and then caught the 4 hour train to the Ukrainian border, where we waited for an electric train to Ukraine. It was a very interesting experience as we had no idea how it was going to work, but we weren’t really surprised as we saw a one-car train pull up, and as we crowded in and sad in the dark, Megan and I both felt like we were almost home! We got into Ukraine and this is where our no buying of tickets beforehand became a problem… We found a train that left in 7 minutes (dang 7s!!) but the clerk messed up and by the time she reprogrammed it the computer told us the train had already left, even though we could clearly see it standing there. The next train didn’t leave till 4:30 am, but luckily we found it arrived at 2am so we could sleep and we would get back to Lviv (yes, we made a big circle) at 10. (this train was coming from Budapest, so technically, we could have just taken it all the way… woops) Saturday was spent sleeping, reading and having one last amazing meal in Lviv before I had to catch an overnight train to Kiev, wait in the office all day and catch another over-nighter back to Lugansk. Vacation went by in a flash, but it was truly and awesome trip, and again want to thank Dean and Ellen for letting me tag along, and for Megan for putting up with me.
I hope all of you Christmas Holidays went well, and look forward to hearing from you soon!
With Love,
Seth
P.S. Happy 2009
Oh, and yes, I still have heat, not sure for how long though…
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