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…