Western Ukraine

On the train to Lviv, somebody was saying about the living conditions in the Emirates, particularly that the pension in there is $90,000. A local guy who was in the same cabin as me asked why do you need so much money? Whatcha going to do with it, change your furniture every month? First we gave him a strange look, then we all laughed at him, and I told him, as they say, there isn't too much money, there's only little imagination.
While I was in Lviv, I decided to use the opportunity to renew my Ukrainian visa by crossing the Poland border. I've heard terrible stories about people fighting for every inch of space, and that I would have to wait hours upon hours. Doesn't sound like too much fun. This border is very famous for smuggling cigarettes. You can bring two packs which cost 10 times more in Poland, and you don't need a visa if you go for a day. So a bunch of grandmothers make this trip back and forth 5 times per day. Apparently 20 plus percent or so of Poland cigarettes are smuggled in!
Luckily for me it was a holiday and the border was empty! Not a single person, I was even worried that it's closed. I crossed it, turned around and entered back. I was a bit nervous, but they didn't ask me a single question. Now I have 3 more months ... jeez, I hope I wouldn't need it!
Lviv is a pleasant city with a nice historical center filled with way too many themed restaurants. There is a lion restaurant where you can eat in a cage and have paws of lions sticking through every wall. Then there is a sewage restaurant with pipes running through the sitting areas, and videos of Lviv's sewage system. There is a Jewish restaurant where there are no prices on the menu, and you have to bargain for your food. There is a sado masochism restaurant where you can pay the waitress to whip you :) A kerosin lamp restaurant, a pharmaceutical restaurant with smoke coming out of colorful bottles, a restaurant that has a car on the roof and statues sitting on the chimneys, and in general the city is filled with a bunch of churches, statues, and painted buildings, but after a while, it all looks the same :)
Went to a restaurant in a place where people used to hide during the war. A properly clothed soldier with Kalashnikov and all, opens the door, asks you for the password. He says "Glory to Ukraine!" and you answer "Glory to heroes!", then gives you a shot of vodka, lets you in through a secret book shelf door and leads you through some passage to the basement, quickly quickly to your table, you can't wait because "they" are searching for you :) Over all you sit in a bunker like space with blinking lights, soldiers' uniforms and weapons hanging everywhere ... it's fun! At the end some girls wanted to take a picture of the guard, he lifted his hand almost kicked her and yelled out "No Chinese shit in here!"
Having problems getting money out. All 100s banks won't accept my card ... welcome to Ukraine! Even in Bolivia it works! Thank god the prices are cheap, and $40 lasted me good few days. Finally I managed to take the money out with Visa.
I'm done with cities, want to go to the mountains ... NOW!!!
I met this super weird guy in the hostel, or should I rather say "crazy!". I don't know what he's been doing or snorting, he even saw god!!! It was funny to listen to him for a while. He was late for quite a few planes, and then run out of money and in the airport tried to get on every plane that went home without a ticket. Then he opened a hostel in Odessa out of the blue. I don't even know how many of his stories were true, if any, and how he still managed to stay alive. But nevertheless there he was, and he decided to go with me to the mountains ... hmm ....
Arrived in a nice, small very cute town in the middle of the Carpathian mountains - Yaremche. We found some extremely nice B&B, looked like a cabin in the woods. I can finally relax, breath in the fresh air and smile :) Everybody speaks only Ukrainian, but they're friendly enough to slow down and explain what they mean. People warned me about Western Ukraine, and how much they don't like the Russians and the Russian language, and advised me to speak to them in English rather than in Russian to get a better service, but I found everybody to be super nice ... I don't know, maybe they saw that I was a foreigner anyway. Which Russian in their right mind would walk with sports pants in the middle of the city when the local women put on make up and high heels just to throw the garbage out? :)
Off we go to climb the highest mountain in Ukraine - Hoverla, which is not that high at all, just 2061 meters. We, well - I, decided to walk to the mountain from a nearby village which is 24 kms away. I thought the walk would be on a trail, but nope, it was all on the road ... sucks! 7 hours later I'm too tired to move and after dinner could barely reach the room. The "hotel" is funny. They don't have a menu. You just order from a receptionist an hour before, pay, and go to the "restaurant" for a surprise meal. What I can say is that there are too many potatoes!
In the morning, I woke up 2 hours earlier to make an extra hike cause hiking for 6 hours is just not enough! Luckily we met a Polish guy in the room next door who told us that we should take the long route up the mountain which is still closed due to too much snow! And thank god we did. It was more beautiful and easy. Of course there was a part where we had to go up a 45 degree slope knee deep in snow, but hey, what is life without adventure? :) Up on the mountain, it was beautiful but windy and freezing. We still needed to stay up there long enough for the soaks and shoes to dry. On the way down we took a shorter route, which pretty much went vertically down, or vertically up for the people who climbed to the top. The same views could be enjoyed half way up and I was feeling bad for the people who could barely breath and hoping that the next peak they see is the top ... no it wasn't!
Barely arrived alive back in the lodge, but that's not the end of it, now we have to walk for 7 more kms till the bus station, but luckily the staff changed in the hotel and they offered us a ride back to town. We arrived exhausted, didn't even go to dinner and went to sleep hungry.
In the morning while I was in the shower, he was on his computer doing nothing important as it seemed. When he took a shower, I was packing. It was half an hour till the train and 20 minutes to get there. He comes out of the shower and tells me that "we won't make it". I tell him "I don't know about 'we', but I'll make it. I'll wait for you at the train station". He didn't make it. People can be so irresponsible!
After the train, I took a bus to Verhovina, another small mountain village. I walked around for a bit, didn't find anything interesting, and anyway, it's not a town to be in all by yourself. So I took the next bus to Kosiv. The bus broke down, I'm not sure how not all the buses break down on these roads, which I must admit the worst I've seen in ANY country, and trust me I've been on some bad roads! There was a mini van that passed by and picked me up, cause they said that I look like a traveler, and I obviously need help :) The driver started asking me about Canada: if you can't build any house you want, if you can't fish, can't make fire in the forest, can't put a tent anywhere in the forest, what kind of freedom is that? Yes ... makes you think.
Didn't like Kosiv either and took a bus to Kolomya which is one hour from where I left in the morning, and I arrived there after making a huge loop, at 5:30pm.
At Kolomya I went to a very cute B&B. Everything's spotless, new, decorated with taste. I immediately loved it, and happily fell asleep at 9 :) Woke up at 9 as well, went to town center which was another boring European looking town. Didn't find anything interesting, went back to the B&B at 3pm and fell asleep again. Then had dinner with some boring American peace corps. Why do people need to be so fake, to act so perfect, it doesn't look perfect at all! Sitting there with perfectly straight back, controlling their every move and every word. Reminded me of a Russian saying "In a quite swamp the devils live"!
Took a good, new, AC, big bus to Chernivtsi. Well that took forever. No more good buses, only marshrutkas (small private mini buses) who speed on the pot holes when the big buses crawls over them. So instead of 1.5 hours, it took 3.5 hours.
Arrived in Chernivtsi which is much better than Kolomya, even though I can't really explain why. It's still European looking :) It has some nice university, and you have to take an excursion to see it. So many tourists, but I don't know, it's just a building.
Next day drove with tourists from Belarussia (and 1 baby) to Khotin. I wish I would continue travelling with a baby if I'll have one one day. Khotin was awesome for half an hour, it's a beautiful castle built with nice views, but the main reason I went there was to see the medieval festival, but it turned out to be pretty boring. I guess not enough people to cheer and participate in activities. But I got to throw an axe, a knife and a spear. I got an axe in, and I also shot an arbalest, and I got it in! Yei!! The guy said not many people do :) I don't know why, it was quite easy.
Crashed in the hotel, didn't even take a shower.
Took a minivan to Kamenets-Podilskii, another castle. There was only 1 person in the minivan and a driver, both of whom where male, and I barely got in, kinda scary, why aren't there more passengers when usually people are sticking out of the windows in every marshrutka? I've heard enough horror stories, but instead they kept feeding me apples, pears and nuts :)
KP is nice. Unlike Khotin it actually has a historic town attached to it with Polish and Armenian quarters. Too bad (or too good) that it was already Monday evening, and there were no people. I was in the castle on my own, and good thing that it was open till 7 when the guidebook said 5. For some reason they charged me a student ticket price, maybe because they actually didn't give me a ticket? I walked around and enjoyed the emptiness of the castle. Then went outside to explore and was happy with peace, views and my pix :)
It's 9pm, I'm already falling asleep, and I have a sitting night train that leaves at 1:30. I wonder how that's gonna go!!?
It went fine, except that 2 weeks later, my neck still hurts :S

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/WesternUkraine

Kiev 3

Dad came to Ukraine. We decided that we need to buy the apartment to protect it from Misha. We found out that he took all the money from grandmother's pension without telling us, even though he wrote down every single penny that he spent so we'll return it to him. Thank god grandmother's friend saw him use the card in the ATM, went to the bank and asked them to block it. He then sold all the jewelry, and she wore a lot of expensive jewelry. All he had he said was the jewelry that was returned to him at the hospital. The other, he has no idea where it is.
We offered him a deal of looking after grandma. We'll give him 15% from the sale of the appt and additional 5% for every month, up to half a year, plus everything in the appt he could sell afterwards. That wasn't good enough for him. We overheard him speaking on the phone complaining that we only offered 15%!!!
His daughter came to talk with us, and told us that they will look after grandma if they'll get the whole apartment. Everything's in Ukraine about apartments, people will kill each other over it. Anything can also be made with money and the right people. It would cost maybe $100 to make a fake will, backdate it, and write that the appt will be transferred to them. And I know ... because I made enough fake documents to buy that apartment. Dad kicked Misha out, who at the last day decided to make a yummy soup, so that maybe we'll forgive him, since there is no space to live at his daughters place, they're already 4 people in her 2 bedroom appt with no space left even for his stuff. Needless to say they were arguing a lot, and a few months later I've heard that he's looking for a new place to live.
They discharged grandma from the hospital saying that she's in stable condition, and that they can't do anything more for her. They took the feeding tube out saying that she should learn how to eat by herself again. Good idea, but the problem is, she wasn't eating. Her swallowing instinct got damaged, and she would hold the food in the mouth and would spit it out. She became very thin and weak. We had no idea what to do, so I googled how to insert the tube back in. You need to do an x-ray afterwards to make sure it's in the right place, because the tube can go in the lungs, not in the stomach, and if you'll push water then the person will die. Well I didn't have a luxury of an x-ray, or invite a surgeon for home so I did it by myself. There is a list of signs to check if it's in the lungs or in the stomach. It looked like it was in the stomach. Do I qualify as a nurse now or better yet a surgeon?
Rules differ so much in different banks. I needed to change the pin code for every card. One bank just took a photocopy of my document which said that I'm now in charge of all the activities. Another bank asked for a notarised photocopy. The other bank asked for so many things, it took me a week to get them. One was a proof of address. It took me 2 days. I run through all the city, through different offices. Everybody sent me to a new office, until I finally got to the director of municipal control. While I was waiting outside the door, he was screaming at someone ... well, that's not a good time to ask for favours I thought. But when I got in, smiled and told him that I'm from Canada, that vicious face started smiling, and called every possible person who would help me to get that letter. Then he told me to drop by if I'll have free time ... hm ... I don't think so ...
Now I'm in the process of buying the appt. There is a new rule now since January, which requires the appt to be registered before you can sell it. The process should take 2 weeks, but since it's a new rule and everybody rushes to get it, it might take 3 months without you ever knowing when it will get registered. Government buildings in this country suck! Government offices are usually located on the 1st floor of a residential building, or you walk through back yards, some unknown buildings, no names, no numbers, no signs. You walk into a huge space with offices. No information desk, no where to sit, you ask people - no one knows anything. And like that in every office. What kind of system is that?? At the registration office, there was a woman who was helping, and to ask for her help, you have to yell through a fence while she mostly ignores you. Then I waited in an unknown lineup for half an hour without it moving an inch. I gave up and went to do some photocopies. In there I asked the guys if they know a way to register the appt quicker, they secretly gave me a business card with no name, only a number and said that it could be done in a week. I called, and the person said to bring him $200, and all the original documents. Well that sounds scary. In my head, all I could think of is giving him the documents and never seeing them again.
My Canadian friend who was born in Kiev gave me a phone number of his father's bodyguard, and so I was with this big man with tattoos on his fingers driving around Kiev for a week bribing people.
All this bribing business is a little bit fun. It seems that I do everything I'm not supposed to do. I give money without envelopes, which I still don't understand why. It's not like I'm putting a birthday card in there. I yell out names, when I should answer the phone quietly, state someone else's name and follow that person after a certain time period. I agree too quickly for a price which could make that person scared. Too much to learn in such a short period of time. Now though looking at official documents, raises doubt in me. Apparently it's not that difficult to make anything up. You just have to know the right person and give the right price.
Documents are made, some are restored and finally I'm able to buy the appt. The only problem is, my grandma can't understand anything or even hold a pen, so I have a paper that gives me permission to sell the appt. I can't legally give the permission to sell it to myself, so I had to give the permission to someone else (my bodyguard), who would then sell it to me. Sounds good, but oh how many problems I had about it later.
We agreed with the neighbour that she'll buy the appt. I was already ready to leave Ukraine in just a few days. I called my neighbour a day we were supposed to go to a lawyer to get all the paperwork done, when she said that they thought about it and decided against it, because evidently there was some confusion about the price. Dad said one thing, I said another thing, although dad said things hypothetically without checking the prices on real estate site, and they got scared. They told me that there are too many crooks in Ukraine, and they have to be careful.
I was in shock, I had no idea what to do. Finally when everything was supposed to get sorted out, it crashed at the last moment. We decided to put grandma in an elderly care. But I called all the elderly homes, and nobody would accept a person in such a condition. Finally I found one home, but I went to their office, and they gave me a huge form that I need to fill out with at least 10 doctors signatures about her mental health, and dental work and chest x-ray, an eye doctor. I couldn't believe it! She doesn't even have any teeth!! And how am I supposed to pick her up and make her stand to do an x-ray? I tried to go to the mental health hospital. They just needed to give me a paper that her name is not mentioned in their records. But they said no, that they'll need to send a doctor to the house to check her health, and anyway, now holidays start and they couldn't send anyone for the next 2 weeks! I called other doctors, and they told me the same thing. "Girl, what do you think of calling in the evening on this day? Don't you know there are holidays that are starting tomorrow? Call again in 2 weeks! ... beep".
Nothing is ever getting done. I have a list of things that I have to do that day, and I'm lucky if 1 is done. Everybody has random lunch breaks, then it's the wrong office, then some document is missing, then it's someone's day off. It's very annoying!
I needed time to run around the city to get the documents prepared, and so I hired a live-in sitter. The sitter almost quit at the first day, indeed it's a scary sight to look at someone who's almost dying. She then didn't blend the food properly and because the food couldn't easy get sucked into the food injector, the can of food always ended up falling on the floor, making a mess of the entire room. But she made it through the first few days, and started kicking me out of the apartment. Indeed I could barely move, talk or breath. Every time I got off the chair I thought I would fall down. She told me to go for walks to get refreshed. After some moanings from my side, I started walking to a nearby market or a park and sight-see around the city again.
One day I went for a free tour. Kiev is a very green city, with 60% of the city still covered in trees, it's so romantic that apparently even the street signs fall in love (according to a statue).
We then saw a fountain, and if you stick the coin to some metal part and the coin sticks, it means your wish will come true. I didn't want to wish for something serious, because what will happen if the coin will not stick, so I just wished for no traffic for the next day :) Kiev traffic is crazy, it's there all the time, any time of day ... don't people work there? The wish did come true in deed! No traffic the next day! It's magic :)
This might be interesting for Russian people. In Russian there is a phrase "Chto upalo, to propalo" or in English "what's fallen is lost". Apparently it came from Kiev. Some time ago there was one road leading to Kiev. There was a tax for the horse and carriage, and the carriage owners started loading it to the maximum ... so much have they loaded it that often times stuff fallen from there, or the carriage broke completely. The city got smart and imposed a law that said that everything that falls off the carriage will be taken by the city.
There is a neighbourhood in Kiev where somebody wanted to build a tall condo, removing part of the park and blocking the view (I think). So the neighbourhood people got creative and started building statues there, and children's park and other cool stuff, and the condo project got cancelled :) Now it's a favourite hang out place in Kiev for artists and couples.
Next day I went to Lavra. When I got in, I saw that there are tours around and waited for it to start. Waited and waited, no people, no tour. I went into a small alley nearby not to lose sight of the tour meeting place, and what do you know, I see a guy from the free tour of the day before walking with some Ukrainian guy. Of course I joined them for an exploration of Lavra, and Alex invited me to go out that night with his friends. Then next night and next night, he was always calling me, showing me the city, inviting me to parties. Who knew that at that day, all the stars in the universe aligned for me to meet my angle, who saved me from all the horrors of Kiev, who made me smile again.
We went to a very cool bar "Palata #6", it's like a hospital bar. All the stuff are dressed as doctors. They serve shots from test-tubes. Then they have extreme cocktails (which have nothing to do with hospital), but they put a helmet on you, bang you with barrel, glue a napkin on the helmet, set it on fire, then extinguish it ... cool stuff! :)
Then we went to a couch surfing spring camp party. Party party party! I missed most of it cause I couldn't walk, talk, breath, and all I dreamt of was a bed. Went to one party, I got drunk just the right amount. Started dancing on a swing which was tons of fun, made friends with everyone there. I would just came to a person and ask them "Why are you sitting alone? Are you bored? Do you need company?" Next day we went to a football match, the first one in my life! Gosh I was so bored, I think it will be my last one as well. I looked at the pictures in my camera and read a newspaper for most of the match. There was a fan section right beside us, they were screaming, having their songs and mottos. At first it looked like fun, and I even wanted to join them, but then it worried me a bit, seemed like that's the way the Nazis were born. Following some stupid leader, believing in stupid causes.
There are May holidays in Ukraine when nothing works. I need to have a break ASAP, otherwise I'll end up in a mental hospital. I decided to travel around Ukraine for a bit. My first destination is Lviv, and all the hostels are fully booked, now I have to wait 3 more days to go. It seems that I can't wait any longer.
One day I tried going to a botanical garden, but it was windy, too far, and I ended up in a flower show. More people than flowers, and it wasn't worth it at all. Then I went to a war museum, but it would've been better to take a tour, cause it looked very impressive. Everybody is shocked from human skin gloves that that Nazis have. It is a shocking sight, but then I'm thinking, the gloves that we wear are from pig skin, or cow skin ... how is that not disturbing?
Next day went to Chirnigiv. It's a UNESCO declared world heritage center because of how many churches there are on such a small space. At the end, I just saw churches again, and spent 6 hours on buses to see them. No more churches!


pix added to : https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Kiev

Kiev 2

Random assortment of thoughts ...

- While I was cleaning the table in the hospital - "you'll make such a great housewife" some grandma told me with a smile. Like it's my dream to be a housewife I told her. I need to work and after work, I want to go to movies, theatres, rock climbing, dancing, yoga, see my friends. I don't have time to be a housewife. I was born to conquer mountains, not to wipe off dust.

- Ira is comparing Canada to Ukraine. "Probably in Canada it's clean, not like shit hole in here", then she throws a candy wrapper on the ground. All I can think about is the Michael Jackson song "I'm starting with a man in the mirror"

- All the street crossings in the center of Kiev are underground. Keeps the city in shape! as well as all the mothers with kids and old people ... oh wait, I haven't seen them walking in city centers. Kiev is full of 5 story identical buildings called "Hrushevki" from the president "Hrushev" who was in power in the 70s and built a bunch of them all over the country, cheap buildings that helped solve the housing crisis. They were meant to last for 20 years until a better solution would be proposed, but as we all know, nothing has happened 20 years later, and now they all stand crumbling, making the city ugly with unknown future of hundreds of thousands of residents and without elevators. First I was huffing and puffing going up the 4th floor, now it's a piece of cake :)

- Hard to find atm that accepts foreign cards, even if it's on the plus network. I searched an entire city, tried 20 or more banks (Ukraine has 100s of banks!!! I've never seen it in my life!) and I only found 1 bank that would take my card which is some German bank.

- Along with street signs showing street names, there are expensive hotels/restaurants/shops ... probably sponsoring the street signs :)

- Seems like Ukraine lives on coffee. Does it need it to keep yourself going? To give you energy to last through the day, to last through the long office hours? It seems like you can't walk for a minute in any random location without finding either a coffee shop, or a kiosk that sells coffee or a car with an open trunk and an espresso machine stuck in it. Sometimes 3 on one intersection. I met a girl from couch surfing, we only met up for an hour in a coffee place. She said that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday she works from 8:30am to 9:30pm. Tuesday and Thursday she has more time. When she met me at 6 it was her break from work. On the weekend it's a holiday, and she's gonna check if she can take time off of work.

- Went into a church, so weird to look at people crossing themselves 5 times and bowing, do they really think god wants them to do it? At least I warmed up in there. Churches can be useful after all :)

Bus - people get into any open door on the bus and pass the money to the driver through all the people on that bus, and then get a ticket with change, and like that on every stop with every passenger.

Hospital - no order, every day new rules. Have to bring your own food, pills for the patients, bandages, etc. Nobody wants to help. I called a surgeon to help put the feeding tube back in which my grandma took out while she was sitting on a chair, I asked him if he can help me put her on the bed. "It's not my job! For what am I a surgeon?" he said - "for what are you a human?" I asked him. Elevator doesn't work, only for critically ill you have to knock hard on the door and yell the floor number.
Overall I'm in a hospital for 8 hours a day. Feeding, cleaning, massaging, giving pills, entertaining, calling different doctors for help. If I go to the hospital in the evening, I try to go out somewhere to the city center to relax, to forget to somehow reduce my stress. Since I came to Ukraine I don't have any appetite, and in 2 weeks I already lost 5 kgs.
It got much better with Andrew, a son of a woman in the same room as my grandma. We can talk for hours, or rather he can talk. Today he told me about the bible, Lucifer, London rats, Brazil's jungles, different poets, writers, how Hitler sold his soul to the devil, it was like going to university for general knowledge course :)
Andrew told me, as I am sitting in a hospital anyway, might as well do some checkups. I went to the doctor and asked to be checked. She asked me what bothers me most, I guess that I can't breath properly when I hike up the mountains or when I run up the stairs. I did an x-ray, they told me in the lab that I have pneumonia (vospolenie legkih), zdraste! The doctor looked at the film and said that I have chronic bronchitis. I don't really believe in it, cause I'm feeling fine. She told me to do 3D computer scanning. Andrew asked me if I'm nervous, of course I'm not! There aren't any conclusions yet, why be nervous. I did the scanning, everything's fine, the doctor told me to check my heart. There you go. That's the reason I don't go to doctors. Especially when there isn't anything typically wrong. One says one thing, another says another thing. what if I'd listen, I'd go through a bunch of antibiotics trying to heal what exactly? How many patients are getting wrongly treated? I think that a healthy life style, eating good, healthy, organic food, using organic cosmetics and body care, doing sports and living a stress free happy life, that what's good for my health, not x-rays and chemicals that make my organs act the way they shouldn't by nature. How many people are climbing mountains especially above 4000 meters? I guess not that many, most are not even doing regular climbs or hikes. Or even to walk up the 4th floor, everybody's using elevators or are just walking to the store or to the nearest bus station. I'm sure that if all the people went climbing mountains, the hospitals would explode with all kinds of "sick" people.

- Every nurse/doctor I talked to about bed sores said different method of healing them. Sometimes, "it's the best method", other times "it's the worst method". X-ray shows chronic bronchitis; when I wanted to remove a moll in Canada, my doctor said that it can't be removed, a year later he said that of course it can be removed. It's a scary thought to think that doctors have no idea what they're talking about. Especially that pharmaceutical companies pay them to sell certain drugs. In a placebo effect movie that I saw, it says that patients can feel better just by seeing a doctor and "knowing" that they will help, and so they heal based on their faith, and not from drugs.

- Saw the movie "earthlings" about hidden cameras in the animal farms. For sure some people will become vegetarians after watching it (freely available on youtube!). Now I have a lot to think about. I could never order a live fish; I am always disgusted by animal cruelty... but what's happening to the animals that end up in my fridge? If people are unaware of what's going on, it doesn't change the fact that it's happening every day, it doesn't change the fact that you're supporting it!

- In March it was already spring in Ukraine. All the snow melted, and I was waiting for the leaves to come out to hide hideous Soviet buildings. Out of nowhere a huge snow storm hit Kiev, the storm didn't stop for 2 days. All the transport/schools/businesses shut down, and it's in a country that's well used to snow! People were skiing on the streets, cars were buried in the snow till the roof, and overall it was awesome! No people outside, it white, it's quite. They're probably sitting in their apartments, biting their nails and complaining about the weather, while I'm happily jumping from one snow pile to the next :)

- Just as suddenly as the snow storm hit Kiev, Misha's screams hit me. I am sleeping when at 7 in the morning the door is flying open and he's screaming why am I not up yet as I need to be in the hospital. "What? Who? Where?" I'm explaining to him that I'll get there by 10. Grandma is sleeping everyday till 10 anyway, there is no point going there early sitting 2 hours and doing nothing. "Why go at 10, you can get there at 3!!!!" and the door flew closed. It came so suddenly that I had no time to properly react. Who is he to yell at me? Who gave him that right? Then on his computer, I logged into my skype account, I didn't expect what came next. He didn't know that anyone who has skype can login, he doesn't know anything about computers and thought that skype was all his own. He looked at the contact list. "Why is it all in some gibberish? Where are my Italian people, where is Igor where is Lyosha?? he's yelling. I tried to explain to him that it's my account in the most plane language that I could. "Who are all these Asian people??? Bring me back my Italians!!!" I told him that all he needs to do is enter his password. Of course he doesn't know what a password it, let alone what it is. Oh man. No amount of my computer skills could calm him down and tell him that all his info is safe and could be resolved in minutes. I called Ira to reset his password, when she did and was about to tell it to me on the phone, he grabbed the receiver with force and hung up the phone with a loud bang... what a lunatic, I was about to boil over and explode. At least one of us has their nerves in check.
His mouth is bigger than any woman I know. I've only been to Ukraine for a few days, already the whole neighbourhood knows that I sit like an Indian on the chair; that I put my legs up on the couch; that I left a dirty mop in the shower and didn't clean it; that I left unfinished apple on the table; that I arrived in the middle of the winter only in sports pants and a rain jacket, on and on and on! And to think that my grandma told dad how Misha is much better than her late husband.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Kiev

Donetsk

I arranged with Misha on the weekend to go to Donetsk, the city where I was born. I couldn't find any of the people I knew or hung out with online, but nevertheless decided to go just to see the streets where I played, the school that I went to, the scary highway that I crossed on the way to school all on my own since 2nd grade.
I asked my mom to ask her friends if I could stay over at their house, and luckily someone agreed.
I decided to give a final try and a few days before my train, I found my best friend Yana on a Russian "facebook" site.
She called other classmates and 5 more people showed up, of whom I remembered only 1. Yana brought our 3rd grade class picture and everyone who showed up, I asked to point on their face on the picture :) At first Yana and I felt awkward. After all, we've spent every single day together, she was like a sister that I never had, and then how do you bridge 23 years of separation. How thoughtless children could be to lose their best friends so easily. We were sitting next to each other, at first not talking, but I had a feeling as though we're still as connected now as we were before. As drinks started coming, so did the memories, the words of truth, so did the tears. I told her that I only remembered her, and constantly thought of her. She told me why did I only have to come for the day, to make her soul ache. We hugged and we cried.
Other than that, everybody complained about their relationships and about Ukraine ... the usual deal. And, as it also turned out, I stayed at the house of one girl's parents :)
Ukrainians/Russians don't have a lot of money, so they don't usually go out. But once they do, it's considered to be a very special occasion, and they throw their money around like they're millioners. The same applies for vacations. With 1 vacation per year, it turns into the party of the year. It's never good to be on a vacation where Russians are, unless you want to join them of course. There is a joke already that there are very popular tours among Russians to resorts where Russians are not allowed :)
Next day the kids of the family whom I stayed with showed me around Donetsk. For some reason, Donetsk is small, the center is tiny, there are barely any restaurants or any other form of entertainment, but I like it much more than Kiev. In the afternoon we went to my neighbourhood. The school where I went to is broken down. After USSR collapsed people didn't have enough money to have children and the school shut down. The complex where I went to for my circus is grey. The huge highway is a 4 lane high speed road (so I was right about at least something) with no crossing lights or even a zebra for the pedestrians. The walk from school to home seemed like a hike, and now a 2 minute walk. Back in the day the government took a bunch of private houses, demolished them, moved the people somewhere else to build a condo for the workers or a nearby factory. It built a 17 story ugly grey building only for the foundation to sink and the building is not considered safe to live in. Glory to great USSR minds! I met my neighbours, even though I didn't remember any of them, and even managed to get into the house where I was born. We rang the door, but nobody answered, so I took a few pictures above the tall fence, which I don't understand what exactly it's protecting, when someone got out and yelled at us to get the hell out. I tried to explain to him that I was born there and that I really want to see my home. He said it's none of his business. I took a few more pictures from my neighbour's house, and then his wife came home. She's much nicer than him and allowed us in. Wow what a feeling. The house is tiny and breaking down and looks like something from pictures that they show on TV with calls for donations. But my hands were shaking, I had a smile from ear to ear and I did feel like at home. I wish I had more time to spend there, I would just sit in the garden, absorb the atmosphere and count all the trees that I've ever climbed on.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Donetsk02

Kiev 1

I'm waiting at the gate to Kiev looking at the Ukrainian couples. Everywhere and all I see are beautiful women, amazing figures, fashionable cloths with high heels, perfect eyebrows, lips, skin, hairstyle, jewelry are next to short, fat men. How do they find each other? Is there really such a problem with men in Ukraine/Russia as I've heard? A lot of men are alcoholics, impotents, only women are sent to cities to study while men work on fields and factories, and it creates such a dis-balance between the sexes that women will jump on the first one who is available? I wonder how I'll feel like walking the streets of Kiev with my sports pants, sneakers and no make up. Betcha it's gonna be fun :)
Arrived at an empty airport, tried to call from some phone, but it didn't work. I went to information service where a young lady was chatting to someone on her phone barely looking at me. I told her that I need to make a phone call. She told me that these phones are only for internal use. Then I need a different phone I tell her. She tells me there is no different phone. Ok, then how can I make a phone call? Finally she tells me that if I go to a different terminal, I could buy a local SIM card in there. Thank god that I had USD $50 with me, as my bank card doesn't seem to be working here. My phone battery is dead, and laptop battery is dead. Dad gave me a wrong number of a person I needed to reach and I had to wake him up in the middle of the night to get the right number. 2.5 hours after arrival, I finally made it to a bus that goes to center. I tell the driver to stop the bus at a square.
- But I can forget
- Can you please not forget?
- If you talk to me the whole way, then I might not forget
- Ok, I'll remind you again in half an hour.
I got a very good impression of customer service since my landing.
Kiev is considered to be a very beautiful city, but all I see is grey streets, broken down roads and buildings that haven't been changed since the communist times. I wish it was summer so that the trees will hide these hideous buildings. (As they sing in the song: be careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it!) Everything is in Ukrainian which I don't understand. I think the government pushes for that. Commercials, signs, radio ... but all people speak Russian. Weird.
All day I've been listening to stories about why Ukraine is dangerous. Don't go here and there, don't walk alone in the dark, don't talk to strangers, walk around men and police, never say that you're from Canada, never use ATMs, always go to the bank. There are a lot of pedafiles, just last summer 3 girls from the neighbourhood died; I won't allow you to go to Donetsk; even to walk to the main street on March 8th (international women's day) is dangerous, there is a lot of police, and if you look at them the way they don't like (or they might come up with a reason why they don't like you), straight into their car, into prison to get beaten up. On and on and on it went ... In the half year that I spent in Ukraine, I haven't felt in danger at any time, well except walking in a complete darkness home cause there are no lights on the street. I think if you're negative, you'll attract negative situations to yourself, or you'll just see everything in a negative light.
It feels weird cause Misha (grandmas bf) and his daughter Ira, are not my family, but they treat me like their family. Feed me till I can't get up or walk anymore, gave me warm cloths, cause all I have is beach wear. Her kids are amazing, smart and sweet. I look and listen to all that, and I feel sad. People don't live here, they survive. You can't be weak, you just not going to live. Her ex husband is a diplomat. So she and her son is well known in the neighbourhood. Her son already told everyone not to touch me. And while she was contemplating whether to go to the main street or not for the festival, he said, what's the big deal, one call will resolve it all. She told me when they got divorced, they had a fight, he came to her apartment with an axe, broke the door and was chasing around her. She called the police, and once they came, he let them know that he's a diplomat and they left without doing anything. Half a year of trouble going from place to place, nobody does anything. He comes to visit every Saturday for half an hour. I asked her why he won't come more often, or take the kids somewhere for the weekend, she told me that she can't demand anything from him, as he said that if she'll demand anything, there she'll find her grave. At home she does everything with tremendous speed, within half an hour, huge lunch of pork ribs, salads, sandwiches, stuffed eggs was served. Dishes were clean, cloths were drying. It's like pictures of handy men with 10 arms, or Hindu gods, here it's Russian women. They don't look and probably don't feel like women anymore. In these moments, you learn to appreciate Canada, where men appreciate women. Where they help around, where they care, where there are fair divorce laws. In the hospital, had to give a doctor a bribe to get in, otherwise it's not allowed, and even that was only for 5 minutes. Money money money. You even need to give a $300 bribe for a kindergarten to get in. I don't know ... I think my character was formed, but I think it's still too weak for Ukraine. Probably in here I'll get steel nerves.
My perspective is changing - I'm looking at Ira: always busy, always tired, always unhappy, always negative ... bad life in Ukraine makes people like that. Then I'm listening to her words, "I don't need any help". "Do you want this or do you want that?", "Go, relax, I'll do everything myself". Her children wear cloths just once before they go into the laundry. Her apartment is always clean, and every weekend she cleans the whole thing herself. One thing I learnt, is "if you think you can do everything yourself, you'll do everything yourself", you have no one but yourself to blame, and if you are always tired, unhappy and sad, all you have to do is look in the mirror. We create our own lives.
She was talking about the seasons - "First it rains, then it's heat, then it snows". You can think of it this way, or you could think: first the flowers will bloom, then we'll do BBQ in the park and go swim in the river, and then we'll go skiing and cuddle near a fireplace. I guess everyone has his own way of thinking of things.

Moni

Beautiful road through mountains with rice fields, waterfalls, sea, black sand, amazing! Apparently it's on the most beautiful roads in whole of Indonesia! We arrived in Moni, a nice little village near the famous Kelimutu volcano. We went to sleep at 8:30, which wasn't too bad, cause we woke up at 4:30 just in case to see if the sky is clear, and yes it was! Lucky us!! Took a bike up the volcano, scary to go in night up a mountain. We arrived at a beautiful volcano with 3 lakes, too bad the 3rd one is on the other side. All 3 lakes are different colors. One is green, one is blue and the other one is black. They change without notice depending on the mineral composition of the water, and not long while ago, the black lake was red or even white. From one side, it's good to read LP to know where to go, on the other side when you get there, your expectations are high and you don't get much excitement. That's exactly what happened in Kelimutu :( I was very tired and fell asleep till the sun came up and lit the lakes (just shows how much excited I was!) LP is both a blessing and a curse.
Went to Jopu traditional village. It's nice to go where tourists don't go, but we didn't feel very comfortable, and nobody spoke any English. Kostya wants to buy ikat which is almost like a woven skirt that most of Flores wears. It's beautiful, woven with traditional designs of animals and flowers prints, it takes very long to make, but it's expensive about $50, which is not too much for natural paint, hand made thing that's done in 1 week minimum, but too much for a backpacker budget, and where would you wear it back home?
One guy found us. He invited us to come to his home, offered us coffee, tea and that's the first time when I tried betel. What a disgusting thing! You chew it, then add something else to it, and then some white powder and it becomes red, and you spit it out all the time like a camel. Apparently it makes teeth strong and healthy. It doesn't seem like that at all to look at red stained teeth of locals, I think they're just addicted. It's like sure a glass of red wine with dinner can be good for your health, but not when you drink bottle after a bottle.
Next day drove 2 hours back to Ende just as an excuse to drive on the beautiful road. We have to buy plane tickets out of Flores, and surprise surprise, foreign visa is not accepted as a method of payment. Thank god that we went to Ende which is a bigger town where we could find a travel agency and pay in cash!! Not only the engine was stopping randomly during the ride, but on the way back to Moni we got a flat tire. People tell us directions to a repair shop, others stop and give me a ride till whenever they can. Then 10 people were around helping us, driving somewhere to get the keys to try and repair the tire themselves. It was almost getting dark and finally we found a repair shop, fixed flat tire for $2, so expensive compared to 50 cents in Java valley :) The most amazing thing is that we were in the middle of nowhere, nobody speaks English, it's getting dark soon, and both of us weren't stressed out at all, not even a little bit :)
Woke up early because of the market that happened right outside our guest house. Beautiful market with colorful people, everyone wears their best cloths, which includes a home made ikat which tells of the status of a person.
Took a car to Maumere. Some driver found us and asked us if we're gonna go later, meanwhile we went to waterfalls and the market. When we got to the car, turned out that everyone was waiting for us for like 3 hours. We had no idea!! Obviously the driver wanted to make more money, so he made everybody wait. Maumere is such an ugly port city, not friendly people, the best restaurant is dirty beyond belief.
Woke up at 5, hopefully the flight will get out (fingers crossed). Security at the airport checked the bags with metal scanner. "What's that?" they asked me when it started beeping. "A laptop" I said, - oh ok... great security!
p.s. weather is Kuta is great! :) yes ... we're back here again! :S 5th time already!
I was supposed to go to Nepal after Indonesia, but grandma had a stroke in Ukraine and now is in coma, and there is nobody to look after her, so I'm flying to Ukraine for a month.
The Singapore airport is probably the largest, the most modern, the best airport I've ever seen. They have showers, free movies, butterfly gardens. Too bad I didn't have any time at all between my connection :( They almost didn't allow me to fly, because I carried a one way ticket. Why is it the airline's problem and not the country's problem? It's ok though, if they didn't let me fly in, I would've found an internet to book a flight out.
Turkish airways is awesome! Big, clean plane with hundreds of movies, tv shows, food menu, and I actually fell asleep, who knew that I only needed an inflatable pillow to fall asleep, and now that I write about it, I realise that I forgot it in a plane :(

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Moni

Ruteng & Bajawa

We went to Ruteng. The bus dropped us off right near the hotel. 2nd best hotel in town, it sucks! Expensive, and not good. Staff is fun, though very useless. They ask the same question 10 times, had to wait for breakfast for half an hour, they couldn't book a bus ticket for the whole day. Needless to say I got a bit harsh with them. "Are you angry with me miss Yana?", oh yes I am!
Took a bike to go to beautiful spider rice fields. It rains hard and often, and every time the bike stalls, I always end up ankle deep in some puddle. Every time I'm with Kostya we end up on some roads, if you can call them that. We're already off the tourist track, nope, it seems like Kostya wants to go to the edge of the earth. We stopped and went for a walk, so many kids, all running around us, nobody really knows English, like 30 kids and they all went for a walk with us. In the rice field we yell "go go go!!", they march on the little foot path, 30 kids and me, then traffic jam, "Go, go, go!!", the traffic seems to move, that's until I came across a huge mud bath. No way I'm going there! I stopped and turned back with all the kids jumping through the mud after me :)
bye bye mister Yana!!!
bye bye! :)
sweet kids
Locals are yelling hello to us, give us a hand to shake with a lot of honour, then dragged us to some traditional house where they made a concert for us with drums and some metal plates. Everyone yells, tourists, tourists.. .and all the village runs towards us. Then we played soccer with the boys all the way back to the bike.
In the evening went to a restaurant. Suddenly a huge storm has started, thank god we were inside. The whole palm tree went down near the restaurant and things were flying on the street. We kept ordering tea and more tea to sit through it. There is no electricity, the street is covered with broken branches, and I ended up knee deep in some puddle.
Another terrible bus ride, I was sick most of the way. But the destination was amazing. The interesting, cultural, traditional villages of Indonesia. These people still live the traditional life style, and only a few years ago got electricity. The role of the dead plays a big part in their daily lives, and you can see these examples everywhere. They bury their dead right next to their houses, decorating the graves with bathroom tiles. In some villages you just don't understand, is it a village or a cemetery? Their important ceremonies also happen near rock graves where their ancestors are lying. They sacrifice animals on an almost daily basis. The sacrifice brings relief or respect to what has happened, and also raises the status of the family. Because the more bulls you can sacrifice, the more money you have. And of course everyone can see how many bulls have been sacrificed, because they proudly display horns or jaws hanging right in front of the house. If you need to build a new house or even to replace a roof, you have to sacrifice a buffalo. For every 5 houses in the village, there should be a small female house, which looks like a doll house. It's very strange, as no women are allowed in there. Only men go there during some ceremonies, but usually just once a year. There are also very aggressive figures on the roof of the houses. They are meant to protect the house, but also carry with them a sexual energy which can assault a woman. Therefore all women should be inside the house when the figure is installed. I asked one of the people "why aren't you changing towards a modern way of life?", "No we can't" she replied, "we'll all get sick and die! Now when we get sick, we sacrifice a chicken" ... makes sense! We walked through a bamboo forest, to ancestral grounds through a corn field where the woman picked up corn which she grilled in the house for us. When we went back, a rain has started, and she gave us big leaves to cover from it :) We sat eating corn near a fire with her snotty kids and dogs.
We drove around absorbing the traditional life style and the beautiful volcano views. We stopped at hot springs where boiling hot water merges with cold water. Then I went to the market and bought fresh veggies for a salad. Finally! The locals always seem surprised ... "You're not going to cook it???"
Next day we went for a walk up a volcano. We couldn't find a shared taxi that goes there, but we finally found someone who spoke English, and the whole taxi dropped us off there. We found a "guide" who took us up a volcano for $2, one hour up. On the top there were 2 small lakes, one is burnt orange color, the other one is turquoise. I remember seeing pictures where both of the lakes were orange.
At 5:30am the next day, we caught an 8 hour bus to our final stop. Thank god for the motion sickness pills which made me sleep all through our ride :)

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/RutengBajawa