Two Dollars A Day

Photos and thoughts from the past and present and dreams about the future.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Summer Is Ending

Well, soon school will start again (the Day of Knowledge is tomorrow) and I'll have to get back into the routine of lesson planning, reading homework, thinking about how to be a better teacher, etc.

I am looking forward to it, but also sad that my endless summer with my seemingly endless travel plans are gone. Already the weather has decided that summer is over and you can feel the fall crispness beginning, even with a strong sun high in the sky. It's the breeze that is beginning to give itself away.

I looked at my schedule recently and tried to think about when I'd be able to visit my clustermates and just got panicky. "I don't know when I'll have the time!," I thought to myself, but hopefully it will all work out and I'll try to plan some fun weekend getaways from time to time to get me out of N-- and allow me to spend time with people I miss.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Sometimes I get the Old Apartment Blues

I got an apartment
And boy she is old
She ain't got no cupboards
But the air filters got mold

I have a refridgerator
That sometimes don't work
Gotta be careful with the door
Cos it came off with a jerk

My bathroom's the worst
And it sure is a sin
My tub's always leaking
Getting water over everythin'

Bad things come in threes
Cos this I know
And I'm just waiting
For the kolonka to blow

But now the wait is over
And it finally came
I ain't got no water
And no one to blame

Cos living in Ukraine,
I got the old apartment blues
I said I'm living in a developing country
And my mind I don't want to lose!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

The Beach

I am kinda upset.

Upset that summer is almost over and I only yesterday learned of the joys of travelling to a beach for the day, sitting on a blanket in the sand, swimming in the Black Sea (which we estimated to be a perfect 70 degrees), then packing up and coming home ALL IN THE SAME DAY.

A resort town to the south that used to be the home of a former volunteer in our area has been completely neglected all summer. Easy to get to, farily cheap transportation (9 greeven each way, less than $4 total) and only an hour away, why did we not spend every free day there?

But now we know. And we are going back tomorrow, after all, knowing is half the battle and tomorrow is another day.

10 Random Cool Things that Happened in Budapest (In no particular order)

1. Watching current episode of Conan O'Brien on TV at hotel. (Only knew it was current because of the Mel Gibson joke).

2. Hearing English spoken often between two people engrossed in conversation, when English obviously was neither their first language.

3. Dare devel plane stunts over Danube and Chain Bridge that we could watch perfectly from our hotel window.

4. Street festival closed down traffic on Chain Bridge and brought out various craft people selling some wares and food.

5. Running into two really nice and attractive recent Harvard Law graduates at the baths. (I know, I know, Eric, don't start with me, the next one is for you.)

6. Seeing an advertisement for Sting in concert, only to find out that it had been earlier in July! (Also saw ones for Robbie Williams and Depeche Mode.)

7. Going to a "Hungarian" restaurant only to find out that the entire staff (and part of the menu) is Russian. (Actually, this was not cool.)

8. Walking into souvenir shop to see how much a kitchy t-shirt was and seeing the old man behind the counter watching V-H1 and humming Madonna's "Material Girl."

9. Shopping at H&M and learning that Ukrainian stores aren't so far behind fashion as we had suspected...

10. Ending up in an elevator at St. Stephan's Basillica with a Hungarian guide who was speaking Russian to an older couple--none of whom seemed to speak Russian as a first language.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Constitution Day

For those of you who want to be in the know, today is Ukraine's birthday.

She turns a whopping 15 years old today, and I, for one, congratulate her on her independence and her continuing committment to democracy. There have been some interesting developments that occurred over the summer while I was galavanting around the countryside that I will update all of you about, but as most of you probably don't follow Ukrainian politics, I think that you will be able to live for a week or so without the news, which by now, is

How will I celebrate? Probably by playing a card game with some folks in the area and this weekend making a day trip out to a beach. Hear there is a new Irish pub to check out too, which looks like it will be done tomorrow.

But for now, again, happy birthday Ukraine!

10 Things that were Really Cool to See/Do in Budapest (in no particular order)

1. Visiting the churches

2. The Castle (inside is history museum, didn't go)

3. The Baths (went to one, was great)

4. Statue Park (outside of city, park where they put all their old Soviet statues to rest and sell kitchy souvenirs)

5. Parliament (did not go inside)

6. Fishmongers Wharf (or Castle, can't remember proper name)

7. Heroes Monument (also might be called Millenium Moment... I am horrible with names now I see)

8. Synagogue (second largest in the world)

9
. Opera House (saw "Othello")

10. Margrit Island

There are a lot of other things that we did that were equally cool and interesting--and still lots more to do and see there. It's just a sampling, which obviously lose their impact without photos... Will try to fix that around September.




Harrassment

This is the epitome of sad.

When I was visiting my clustermate in K. R. I exchanged phone numbers with another PCV. As per the routine, they give you their digits, then you call them so your number will show up on their phone.

Unfortunately, I accidently dialed a 9 instead of a 6, so we are walking, I'm calling her, but her phone is not ringing. Then someone picks up, and I hang up, obviously having made a mistake. I fix the number, all is okay, but this person calls back numerous times saying "Kto eta?" and hangs up before I can get out the vye obsheelous numerom (wrong number). This continuse for the rest of the day at different intervals.

I go home. He continues to call me, about a dozen to twenty times a day. For days. I'm talking to my other clustermate, who speaks Russian well, on my land line and he calls. She tells me a variety of things to say to this kid. We have fun with it--, "Oleg? Oleg, is that you?" and the like. He says some choice words to me including telling me the equivalent of the F word and something about my soul. Awesome. I then ignore him.

I go to Budapest. He continues to call. I never answer. It slows down. I return to Ukraine and like clockwork, he's at it again. He has literally called at least 75 times over the past 3 weeks. Earlier this week, he called maybe six tims and I told him three times to "get a life" only in English, as I don't know the Russian equivalent of this and also throw in a "you're sad" for good measure, again in English, and hang up on him.

Before I left for Budapest, I even sent him a text message (again in English) asking him to stop or I will call the militsia. I figure that "stop" and "militsia" he can figure out.

I think that it's a young teenager with obviously too much free time on his hands. He obviously knows by now he's calling someone who doesn't speak his language, thereforew a wrong number, but continues to call ad nauseum. It's ridiculous and very, very sad.

I wrongly assumed that this game would get old and die away, but three weeks already? Geesh dude. Get a life!

Monday, August 21, 2006

First Impressions

We were all so giddy and happy to be there but we were carrying bags and needed to check in to our various hostels. Three of us would be staying in one, another one a little ways away by public transport. Budapest has a really great transportation system that is fairly easy to negotiate and you can get a pass that very quicly pas for itself.

Before hitting our hostel though, we all wanted a bite to eat.

We saw a Pizza Hut in the distance and practically ran to it. Yes, i know PIzza Hut is not a great restaurant, but it's also not like we had all just come from America either--we have been over 10 months in Ukraine. Our waiter spoke excellent English, and the pizza was pretty good too.

During the meal, I asked a few questions about where we were staying (they made the reservations) and they answered vaguely. Afterwards we started walking towards the hostel. We got really close to the Danube on the Pest side and as we were crossing the street one of the girls "spilled" her secret--her parents had decided to book her a hotel room for the trip as a present. At first I thought it was an unbelievably cruel joke, but it turned out tobe true. This was quiest possibly the best news I had heard in 10 months. Our room had an amazing view over the Danube--looking straight ahead at the castle and the chain bridge was just right there below. We efelt as if there was no reason to even leave the hotel. With such a beautiful room, a sauna, pool, fitness room, and English TV channels, why would anyone need to leave?

Budapest was automatically a favorite.

The Beginning of the Budapest Entries

I am not sure how exciting any of my vacation will be to you without accompanying photos. I am going to try to get digital photos soon. My photos will have to wait--as it is expensive to develop. But just trust me--that place is beautiful.

It literally took days to get there. I probably could have flown to America and back for the amount of time it took. The boarder crossing was relatively easy compared to horror stories I'd heard. Just took a little train from a Ukrainian boarder town (Tchop) to a Hungarian boarder town (Zahony) and got tickets there to Budapest. No fuss. No time wasted.

Once in Zahony, we ventured to find a bank to exchange money. It was interesting trying to communiate with the Hungarians because the language is drastically different from both English and Russian and even toher Indo-European languages. It is suposedly most similar to Finnish, which is a ridiculous sounding language. So asking for directions in Russian and English got us nowhere most of the time there in Zahony, but thankfully bank is a word most languages recognize, as well as our landmark, the post office.

Hungarians use the Florint and it is 200 HUF to the dollar. This means you are dealing with bills with three or more zeros most of the time and it certainly threw off my abilities to calculate or figure out how much anything costs, at least for a few days. Just a headache.

Once on a train headed to Budapest our excitement could not be contained. Despite our tired state we were really looking forward to getting there.

Part of the countryside looked decidedly like Ukraine-fields of sunflowers, old Soviet buildings. We were confused as to whether we really left or not, but after 5 hours, we ended up at our destination!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Oh. My. God.

Budapest.

I don't want to go back to Ukraine.

But you wouldn't want to leave either.

It is beautiful.

Still enjoying my trip, obviously, and have been doing quite a lot and still so much to see. I thought that 5 days would be too long, but I feel that instead it is simply too short. I might have to ET or call my RM and tell her that I booked a ticket through London to get here and the flight has been cancelled.

It is amazing.

And still so much to see.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Ticket to Ride

Well, I am off to journey to the western corner of Ukraine. Will take essentially forever, but am really looking forward to this opportunity to travel out of the country. I've had a lot of warnings from people who recently came back from travelling to other countries, about how miserable it is to come back after being some place really beautiful. I hope it is not as tough as it was earlier for me.

I was told that there is a Burger King in Budapest. I will eat a Whopper Jr. Am also looking forward to seeing the castle, exploring the city, having a copule of thermal baths, going to the opera, and witnessing the nightlife. Am also excited about the ladies I'll be going with--3 women I don't get to see all that often and who are all really cool and low key. It will be awesome.

Back from the Weekend

I had a great time at my clustermate's this weekend. What I liked the most about it was that essentially did nothing and was really nice to just hang out and relax. There were a few other volunteers there that I don't always get an opportunity to see, and it's always nice to just sit down and relax and talk with folks, trying to get to know them better.

We cooked together, watched movies, went to the bizarre, grabbed a cold beer...just relaxed.

It was a retreat of sorts for me and exactly the kind of thing I enjoy. I found myself on Sunday afternoon having a hard time breaking away, as I have missed the comfortableness of my clustermate. After seeing her unexpectedly in Kyiv earlier thiat week, I did promise myself I'd make more of an effort to see her and spend time with her. Hope all of that is possible. We are both such busy people.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Heading Out Again Tomorrow

Wanted to write more about the camp in Ternopil, but I am too tired and need to pack for my trip tomorrow to visit a sitemate. Shall be back before the end of the weekend and will hopefully have time to post again on Monday! Have a great weekend and enjoy the pics!

Last photo for now from Lviv

Also a view from the top of the City Hall, this shows another angle of Lviv, where you can see the center of the city again.

So what that last entry was grammatically incorrect?

This is a view from one corner of the top of the City Hall. Unlike most of the cities that I have seen in Ukraine, Lviv seems to be free from the Soviet style buildings that crowd most cities. This could be because Lviv was a part of Poland until after WWII.

Did you want MORE photos of Lviv? You got 'em.


The view from atop of a building in Lviv.

More photos of Lviv

A street scene in Lviv. No, not all of the city is underconstruction. Just the part around the city hall, which presents a beautiful view of the city.

Photos from Lviv!

This is a photo from the center of Lviv, it features a statue of Taras Shevchenko, undoubtedly, the most patriotic Ukrainian of all time. A poet and author who wrote in Ukrainian despite its unpopularity of the time and it being typically only seen as a "peasant" language. Behind him, looking sortof like a wave, is a monument that shows Ukraine's history.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Mini Reunion!

Today I finally got back from camp in Ternopil! It's good to be home, even if this is again only for a short time before heading up to see my clustermate who is having a small party as she has a visitor from the States. Well, really from the Netherlands, but he's American.

Before I had left N-- I thought that I might actually see this clustermate who would be returning from a trip abroad in the Peace Corps office in Kyiv, since we would be overlapping, but then forgot about it by the time I actually arrived at HQ. But sure enough, there she was! As I was checking my e-mail I heard my cluster-couple come in and there it was, a small little reunion sans one member but plus a linkmate. It was great to see them all again and we hopefully will be able to have a Thanksgiving together again this November.

It was probably the best time I have had at HQ in... well, probably ever, just because some really cool folks were there and I got a chance to catch up with some people and enjoy the rest of my time hanging out with some people from the Ternopil camp.

I will try to scan some photos that I finally got developed from my Lviv trip in June. The cost was pretty hefty, so I think that my other five rolls that need developing will have to wait and my digital camera still needs repair, which will just have to be done after Budapest, unfortunately.

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