Odessa

sorry for the delay, it seems as though the minute I got back from vacation work just started pouring in!

so, the night train to Odessa was a bit disappointing (we booked the most luxurious compartment we could get)

picture this: it's 33 degrees, the windows are nailed shut and smells like a mixture between horses and salami.



just when I thought things can't get worse, I feel my bladder screaming out - I have to use the washroom. yep. that is a hole in the floor. you see the tracks under you. It smells even worse than in the rest of the train.



and there's no toilet paper. As you might guess, it didn't take me very long to master the technique of peeing standing up in a moving train.

After 15 or 16 hours we arrived in Odessa



There were tons of old babushkas offering rooms or houses to rent in russian, but they were outside of town and we had no car, so we set off through the city to try and find a cheap hotel. and we did! Only first, we had to decipher the names of the streets - our travel guide, being written in english, had all street names in normal latin alphabet. Now after a smelly night dreaming of salami eating horses, try understanding if this:



means "preobrazhenskaya street" or not. yeah, I know.

so anyways, we found this hotel:


"Hotel Passage"

We had a very big room with bathroom and 4 meter high ceiling for about 20 euros a night, smack in downtown and close to the harbour. There was no hot water in the hotel, but that is relatively normal in Ukraine.

We went shopping in the beautiful shopping center next to the hotel:



they also had an air conditioned, modern one closeby, but this one just had more style.

We visited the Potemkin stairs, for those of you that have seen "Battleship Potemkin", it was filmed here.



This was also fun:


yeah, that's a real live snake.

Okay, now on to the more serious things:


The beer was good and cost about 60 cents for half a litre glass. The waitress didn't speak english and didn't understand that we wanted to pay, and just kept bringing out two more... oh well.

And, there's also something for the single traveller in Odessa:


after we took a bus to Transnistria. It is a part of Moldova that declared itself independant and had a civil war 10 years ago. There were warnings to travellers on the canadian governments website to steer clear of it, but how often do you get to set foot in an international no man's land? So we went. Stay tuned.

Leaving Berlin + Cracow

We left Berlin on Wednesday night. Normally when you travel you wake up in the morning and leave, but we were taking a night train to Cracow. In our compartment there were 6 "beds" - one was free, so there was place for our stuff, and the three other people were getting off in Breslau at 5 am. The train stopped at many smaller stations and was late, and there was so much noise that we didn't get much sleep. Besides, the "beds" were at an angle and after about 2 hours of lying down I started having a back ache. This is what I looked like in the morning





















We arrived at the Krakow Glowny station before noon and tried to find a bus ticket and info for trains going to Ukraine, but no one spoke English, so we took a taxi and went to the youth hostel. It was a bit outside of the center, but ok and clean. We even had a private room. It was on the small side, but for what we were paying, I didn't care.
























Off we were to explore Cracow. The tram took us from our hostel to downtown






















We checked out the Glowny Rynek (main square). It was really beautiful, in a pedestrian zone with many nice restaurants, but also more expensive than the rest of the town.


We also visited Wawel castle






















Which is on a hill and you get from there a great view from Cracow. The interior courts are really nice





















We also visited the cathedral, where many of poland's kings are burried. We climbed up to the tower to see the huge bells


















the passage way up the tower was no easy task, since I have a fear of hights, but I managed! And by the way, if you are obese, this tower isn't for you!


















In front of the Cathedral on Wawel hill, there are bones hung just over the entrance






















The nuns say these are the bones of the dead dragon that used to live on Wawel hill, and legend has it that as long as these bones stay hanging above the entrance, the cathedral will always stay standing. Archeologists have analysed them and apparently they are rhinoceros, mammoth and whale bones.

through the downtown streets you can take these mini trolley buses to tour the area - with a name like this one, it's pretty promising: KRAK TOURS - lol

















Cracow streets:















We spent two nights in Cracow, and went out in the jewish neighbourhood one night, which was really cool. Around one little square, they have tons of bars and cool places. We had a beer (okok, more than one...) at Opium, Alchemie and Couleurs. I personally preferred Alchemie, because of the wooden tables and candle-lit atmosphere. For those of you who have been in New Orleans before Katrina, this bar resembled the Blacksmith's Shop in the french quarter.

Soon after it was time to go. We didn't have many days in each town, and were on a tight schedule. We managed to buy tickets for a night train to Odessa, Ukraine.

Krakow's train station...

















a polish train...















... and the boyfriend waiting with our backpacks for the train to arrive...







Next post - Ukraine!

I'm back!

I am back in Berlin and over the next posts will show you pictures and tell you more about the trip!

Chisinau, Moldova

***Edit: this should have been posted Wednesday, but internet cafes here are not very efficient, apparently***

I am in Moldova!!

We have hot water in our hotel room!!! (which was not the case in Ukraine) and boy am I happy to be able to read stuff. Crossing over Transdnistria was also an adventure (it's an\ part of Moldova which declared independancy ten years ago, they had a civil war and now it's a no-man's land. we spent a night there, and the borders were really something. I thought I was going to have a heart attack)

But I made it! There are so many beautiful things to see, I can't wait to post pictures for you guys and tell everything in detail about the trip.

John, in Odecca they don't have postcards, so I bought you a normal card instead. it's cheesy and written in Ukrainian, actually I have no idea what's written on it, but I hope it'll do all the same.

We'll be checking out the city tonight and the day after tomorrow we're leaving for the roumanian mountains, where we'll travel from village to village. I hope to get to visit a monastery and go hiking!!

I'll post as soon as I get internet access!!

Chisinau, Moldova

I am in Moldova!!

We have hot water in our hotel room!!! (which was not the case in Ukraine) and boy am I happy to be able to read stuff. Crossing over Transdnistria was also an adventure (it's an\ part of Moldova which declared independancy ten years ago, they had a civil war and now it's a no-man's land. we spent a night there, and the borders were really something. I thought I was going to have a heart attack)

But I made it! There are so many beautiful things to see, I can't wait to post pictures for you guys and tell everything in detail about the trip.

John, in Odecca they don't have postcards, so I bought you a normal card instead. it's cheesy and written in Ukrainian, actually I have no idea what's written on it, but I hope it'll do all the same.

We'll be checking out the city tonight and the day after tomorrow we're leaving for the roumanian mountains, where we'll travel from village to village. I hope to get to visit a monastery and go hiking!!

I'll post as soon as I get internet access!!

Odessa, Ukraine

Wow. We left Cracow yesterday afternoon and took the 4 hour train to Przemlz (or something like that), a little town close to the border between poland and ukraine. we had dinner there ( really cute and cheap little city) and after we took the train around 19h21, leaving for Odessa. We had to go through the polish customs before we got on the train. If I thought the polish night train was bad, boy was I wrong! Picture a really old train from the black and white movies. the walls are made of plywood, there's a carpet on the floor that's probably older than my grandmother, and it smells like an odd mixture of salami and a horse stable. the controller of the train, a woman, comes running down after us through the hallway, yelling, and we try to tell her that our bunk numbers are 52 and 56, and that there are no such numbers, but she just answers something in ukrainian and stuffs us into the next compartment, pointing to the two bunks on the right side. The two other ukrainian guys who were already in there get there stuff and leave the compartment ( apparently the controller thought it would be best to fill 1 compartment than to let us have 1 for us alone. Anyways, at this point I look around in our "room" for the night... the "beds" look like old school bus seats with leather on it, i smells really weird, it's unbelievably hot, and... the windows are screwed shut!!! Apparently this is custom in Ukraine. I must admit I started crying and the bf, who has much experience in travelling, comforted me and laughed a bit...The Ukrainian customs were also funny, not speaking a word of english, but we managed...

Well, my first impression was a bad one, but I must say I was wrong. We had the compartment to ourselves the whole night, got an extra matress to put on the school bus seats and it was pretty cool during the night. On top of that, our neighbours were 3 women travelling with children, and they really rocked! We hadn"t even left the station that they had already cracked open a beer, were laughing and talking in the hallway. Long story short, We eventually realised that one of them spoke a little english, and another quite good german. They shared their food with us, offered us a drink and we talked together till pretty late. We also then met a moldovan girl (Moldova is where we're headed after Odessa) and it was cool to be able to chat with her.

The night was great, I slept really well, I actually used one extra mattress as a cover cause I was too lazy to fishout my sleeping bag. Anyways, we arrived on time in Odessa. At the station we were swarmed with people looking to rent their rooms, appartments or houses on the beach side, but we were looking for something central. we walked through half of downtown looking for a cheap hotel, not understanding the writing (they use cyrilic alphabet here, so you have absolutely no idea how to pronounce stuff)anyways, we finally found a pretty cheap one that used to be the greatest hotel of odessa. It really does look like a Mansion in decrepitude, but whatever, it's like first class for dingy budget hotels :)

Tomorrow we'll try to find train tickts to get to Moldova, and check out more of the city. I'm exhausted and after the almost 24 hour train ride, I still feel like I'm on a train when I'm sitting...


PS note to self: never EVER complain again abour certain air companies having bad service or flights being uncomfortable

Cracow

Here I am in the basement of a youth hostel in Cracow. The city and castle here are beautiful, but the night train here was quite an adventure. we were 5 in our "cabin", and the 3 others were getting off at Breslau around 5am, so there was much commotion and we didnt get too much sleep. also, the train stopped in everz imaginable nook and cranny of poland, and the toilets were DISGUSTING. oh well, i guess I have to get used to that cause its probablz not the worst I will have seen on the whole trip.

arrived in Cracow, we had to buy a bus ticket and wanted to get info for a train to ukraine, but noone spoke english... that was funy. We've got a double room here in the youth hostel for 98 slotys a night, which is not so bad, considering the shared bathrooms are relatively clean and our room is ok.

we're leaving tomorrow around 13h35 and arriving sunday around 12h40 in odessa (yep, 22 hour train - yay)

I hope we'll have the luck of sharing the compartment with young people or at least someone who speaks english.. either way, it ll be fun

weather forecast says itll be 33 degrees in odessa on sunday, and I will be at the beach on the coast of the black sea..

Ill try to post if I find internet somewhere

well, im off to have pierogis and polish beers in Kazimierz!

cheers

School's out for Summer...

School's out for ever... I wish!!

leaving tonight for Cracow and will be travelling through East Europe for minimum 2 weeks...

my backpack is almost as big as me..

oh well

I WANT A KITTEN!!!

Because of the move to Germany, I had to give up my cat.

I miss my cat. This one is Sooooooooooooo cute, I would just cuddle him for ever and ever.

and ever.

Vacation!

Woo hoo, no classes until October 17th!!!

I still have to work, but...

I now declare summer officially opened in Berlin

cheers! *takes sip of really good german beer*

Fitz

One of my two last names starts with "Fitz" (Irish half of the family).

Why does my little brother let all his friends call him Fitz? Does it really sound cool?

States visited

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or check out ourCalifornia travel guide


okok, maybe not as good as John's, but not bad either for a Canadian, right?

canadian provinces visited

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or check out ourVancouver travel guide

Countries I have visited

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at the end of the summer there should be more!!!

one week...

and I'll be done with my semester!! I just finished a take home exam, have 2 more to go on friday and saturday morning and then I'm done until mid october! woo-hoo!!

By the way, What is the deal with exams on a saturday morning at 9 am???? I really don't get it, I mean would it kill them to put it from 12 to 3pm instead? oh well. I guess I'll just have to get my lazy ass out of bed earlier...

I feel like I've been PMSing for three weeks now... wonder what's up with that!

In August we're travelling to East Europe. Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Moldova... we'll see what we actually have time to do, but still, it'll be awesome to see a part of Europe that is a little stuck back in time and used to be under communism. Unfortunately, things in these countries are evolving fast, catching on to capitalism and I think you have to hurry up if you want to get a glimpse at all at what it was like.

I'm SO due for a vacation...
;)