Speaking Tour...

That is what this feel like, at least. 3 speeches on 3 different topics in 5 days. I feel like I'm in Greenville.

I planned to leave Wednesday night on the train and arrive in Kyiv Thursday AM, have a nice day in Kyiv to prep some for our joint presentation at this Local Government and Public Policy Conference where we are presenting at tomorrow in Kharkiv, about a 6 hour train ride from here. Then I will take the train directly from Kharkiv to Kamyanets-Podilsky so we can both make presentations, me on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, we'll come back to Chernivtsi, I'll teach on Wednesday, and then hop on another overinght train to come back to Kyiv to get my Mom, Aunt, and cousin. Yay!

So I was feeling sort of stressed about these 2 speeches (the second one I'm giving a version of later in April and it will be published so it needs to be decent) and the fact that all methods of transportation are sold out around Easter. All of them. Planes, trains, etc. I've had to get very creative figuring out how to get my fam from Kyiv to Chernivtsi when my fam gets here. More on that later.

So yesterday (Wednesday) I woke up and was getting ready for class. I found out two days earlier that my second class would be cancelled. No problem. Then, yesterday, I got a call thirty minutes before my class telling me that I only had 45 minutes to teach today. OK.

It ended up being a crazy day for a variety of reasons. The name of the game in this country is flexibility. People don't seem to like to give too many details or plan too far ahead. I feel like the OCD uber-planner American asking questions like: And what time should I be there? And how long should I talk? Will there be a projector? Will someone be there to pick me up, etc.

So, back to Wednesday... I went to the travel agent after my half-class to buy some tickets right after my class and they were all sold out. Not good. I decided to squeeze in a quick workout before I got on the train. In the middle of my workout I get a call from the US Embassy in Kyiv. I had been emailing back and forth with them regarding a conference they've asked me to speak at in June and I had told them I would be in Kyiv on Thursday.

They have a great outreach program that arranges for American scholars to make presentations to a variety of different groups. They asked if I could give a talk on women's history to a group of young lawyers. I asked when and they said tomorrow (Thursday). I said yes. I can talk about women's history fairly easily, and they gave me great flexibility with my topic (since the group was a group of young lawyers I decided to talk about the 19th Amendment). I told Inna, the woman at the Embassy that I would only be in Kyiv for about 7 hours and it would be great to take a shower before my talk. She was great and said sure you can shower at the Embassy before your speech. Awesome.

So we get into Kyiv this AM, grab some breakfast, I work some more on my lecture and then we get into a cab to go to the Embassy. Cab driver takes us to the wrong place. Language communication issues. We end up at the Kyiv State Tax Administration Office. Thankfully one guard spoke some English and so I called Inna. Inna got the driver and they came to where we were. When they were on their way, I ran into a restaurant to take my hair out of a ponytail and to put some lipstick on. Traffic in Kyiv is really bad and we arrived at the college about 10 minutes later No one seemed bothered. I asked if they could print out my lecture. No, sorry. OK, guess I'll just follow on my computer. I ran into the bathroom to throw on my suit, walked out and directly into the classroom.

The talk went well, the group was small but attentive and asked good questions. I was really glad I had the chance to talk with them.

Afterwards, the driver took us back to the Embassy where we were able to finally shower and get some lunch. After hanging out a bit at the Embassy's library, a taxi driver came to get us to take us back to the train station for our 6 hour ride to Kharkiv.

A view from the train of Kyiv:

There is still some snow on the ground throughout the countryside.

Great day!

My belated Women's Day celebration

Saturday, March 20

After returning from a particularly hard workout that is now wrecking havoc on my tailbone, I was surprised with a belated Women’s Day celebration. A bunch of stuff that I love: bath salts, bath scrub, wine from Crimea, popcorn, and the requisite chocolate.

I have wanted to go to some sort of cultural event here. Last week I saw a poster with a man playing an accordion. It had the number 21 on it and 18:30, so I figured maybe he was playing on March 21st at 6:30 pm. I went to the music theatre and there was the poster, alongside another poster that had a man playing the violin with the number 20 on it and 18:30. Yay…I’d rather go listen to the violin than the accordion. So, I decided to go to a show.

After I returned from the workout, I showered and actually put on a dress. It is now warm enough to do such a thing. It felt good to be a bit dressed up.

We walked over to the theatre and got a rose on the way. When we arrived, there was no activity and all the doors were locked. Hm. I guess we were at the wrong place.

Then I thought that maybe the shows were being held at the drama theatre, which is larger and just a few blocks away. Yes, that must be the case.

I walked over and a woman showed us in to a box at the back. I handed her some money, but it was dark so we aren’t even sure how much. Couldn’t have been much though. On stage, there was no man playing the violin. Instead, a play was being presented, in Ukrainian of course. The inside of the theatre is beautiful, as is the outside. Too bad I couldn’t understand a word of the play.

I left after about 45 minutes and no violinist, and decided to go to Greek, a restaurant whose pancakes were recommended to us. Don’t ask me why it is named Greek; it does not serve Greek food, and nothing about the interior is Greek. Surprisingly they had a menu in English.

I ordered borscht with pampushki and a stuffed red pepper with boiled potatoes and fried onions. The borscht was great but when I inquired about the pompushki I was given a shake of the head…the international body language for no. OK. Ten minutes later, and about 25 minutes after I had initially ordered, I was brought a menu and received another shake of the head. No stuffed red pepper. OK. We went ahead and ordered pancakes with fruit for dessert, which was fine bc the soup and potatoes were filling. Fifteen minutes later the pancakes arrived filled with beef. UGH. When mine finally arrived, they were very good. I must admit, however, that if I return to Greek it will be bc I am in the mood for borscht and maybe for pancakes. Nothing else.

One issue I was warned about is that the menus here to be extensive…page after page of options. I alluded to this in an earlier posting. The issue is that many of the items on the menu are not always available. Just one of those things, I guess.

So, the evening was definitely not what I thought it would be, but oh well. Noteworthy nonetheless!

Dear Snow Boots,...

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Dear Snow Boots,

I must make a public apology and public commendation for your admiral service in the past two months.

When you left the Canadian factory in which you were made, you were nice, new, and clean. I found you online, looked at the protection you were supposed to offer (-25F with vigorous activity, -15F in mild activity, -5F with no activity)and ordered you promptly. You arrived in a nice box to my home in Gvegas and made me more confident of my preparedness for the tundra.... There was no way for me to know just how dependent I would become upon you, you being my only option of footwear for the past 8 weeks.

Most of the time, you have kept me warm, and most of the time, you have kept me from falling. You have also kept my feet dry given the small street streams that have developed bc of melting snow and for all this I am grateful.

What was unforeseen, however, was the conditions you would encounter. I have forced you to make contact with some of the nastiest things I’ve ever been exposed to and for that I apologize. You have performed admirably in protecting my feet from all kinds of ridiculous germs. After multiple experiences in Ukrainian train bathrooms and a particularly repulsive experience in a Kyiv market, you took yet another blow in this Romanian bathroom (warning: this is REALLY gross):

In consideration of you, I immediately walked into some fresh snow to try to clean you.

With the exception of a few days coming up in Kharkiv, where it is still snowing, I will let you rest. I probably will take you back to the US with me, after I have given you a thorough, thorough, thorough disinfecting.

You will forever be a reminder to me of my experiences with Ukrainian winter.


Gratefully,

Your owner and proud wearer

Return to Suceava, and then Chernivtsi (March 16)

Tuesday AM

Today we arrived in Suceava on the train, headed to the Pensione Giardino, showered and had breakfast, hit Humor and Voronet monasteries, a Romanian grocery store for balsamic vinegar and tomato sauce, and then drove back through  the blizzard to Chernivtsi.

Here are some photos from the first part of the day, before we encountered the blizzard:

Guess I'll take my horse and buggy to go buy a car...

Photos from Voronets Monastery. They is where the color Voronets Blue comes from.

The Last Judgement fresco at Voronets considered one of the best frescoes in the world.

My cousin Britt gave me this pink fleece scarf that has matching gloves for Christmas a few years ago. I am getting a lot of wear out of them over here...especially now that spring is here!

Humor Monastery:

Religious icons are for sale in all the cathedral and monasteries around here.

I enjoyed seeing the 4 main painted monasteries in Bucovina. Beautiful and unique places.

Those of you who are loyal blog readers will remember that I returned to Ukraine and encountered crazy heavy snow. That was just over one week ago, and I thrilled to report that it has not snowed since, and that most of the snow is gone. Give that I'm traveling to Kyiv and Kharkiv tomorrow, I'm not completely ready to retire them, but it will happen soon.

A Day (only one, thankfully) in Bucharest

Monday AM
I woke up after 2 hours of sleep at 1AM thinking I had missed the flight. You know how awesome it is to wake up and think it is 4 AM and then to see on your mobile that it is only 1:26? Attitude really is everything. I went from dreading a 4AM wake up call to feeling like I had hit the sleeping jackpot!

We flew TAROM airlines from Sibiu to Bucharest and it took less than 45 minutes to get up there, fly, and land. That 6 hour train ride I was considering can kiss my rear. Flying is the way to go. Did I mention that the fare was only 44 Euro per person (about 60USD)? No brainer.

Pretty sunrise over Romania from the prop plane:

I guess I should mention that on Saturday night in Sighisoara, I was trying to figure out a way to see the museum in Sibiu (all we really wanted to see there) and to have some time in Bucharest. The train schedule was simply not making it worthwhile, so I decided to check into flights. Lo and behold, I found one. I went to find and propose this to my travel companion, who had no idea what I was up to. I fully expected him to look at me like I was nuts. Instead, he simply said, "OK." That is how we ended up flying to Bucharest for the day.

We took a taxi into Bucharest, about 60 lei/ 20USD. I love how cheap cabs are over here. We took a car ride the other day in Romania that literally cost less than 2 USD. I had already bought our overnight train tickets from Bucharest Nord to Suceava (11:40pm to 6:35AM) and so we planned to spend 7AM-11:40PM in Bucharest. We took the cab to the Hilton, which is in the renovated Plaza Athenee in central Bucharest. I told them I am a longtime Hilton Honors member and asked if they could please hold our bags for the day while we have breakfast here and then spend the day walking the city? Love those Hilton people, who were very helpful, especially after I said we would have breakfast at the hotel. Then I found out that breakfast at the Hilton Palace Athenee (arguably the nicest hotel in Bucharest) was 30USD per person. Oh, well. It was good. The Plaza used to be the big hang out of Romania’s version of the KGB, the Securitate, and was known to be filled with prostitutes immediately after the revolution. This is evidently told in Robert Kaplan’s book Ghost of the Balkans, which I want to read having been to many of the parts of Romania where he went on his travels. Plus, there is a photo of Mircae from Suceava in it.

After breakfast we walked over to the Romanian Athenuem (1888), which is a very pretty building. I was pleased to see that it was a nice, sunny day.

We saw the former Royal Palace, now Romania’s art gallery, and then the former HQ of the Communist Party, including the balcony where the crowd became hostile during a speech Nicholas Ceacescu was giving on the balcony in 1989. He wasn’t able to finish his talk and had to escape from the roof via helicopter.

The famous balcony...

A few months later, he and his wife were executed by a firing squad. They are buried here in Bucharest. Evidently the 1989 revolution was NASTY. My Lonely Planet guide describes how journalists who were here covering the events were horrified to see tanks literally rolling over political protestors.

After hitting 2 English bookstores, I saw the place where the first few casualties of the revolution were killed on the side of one of the main streets. I also had coffee and lunch at IO Coffee Bar, which is in the shell of a building that was formerly the HQ of the Securitate and was torn down by revolutionaries. The bottom of the building remains and the top has been glassed. Inside there are photos from the revolution, and outside there are still bullet holes in the building. It is unreal to think that these events happened such a short time ago.

Can you see the bullet holes?

Here is a monument to those killed:

...and another one on the site where the first protestors were killed on Boulevard Nicolae Balcescu:

I must admit, Bucharest is a pretty nasty city. When I asked a tour guide about what he thought of Bucharest a few days ago as I was planning the itinerary, he immediately replied, “Bucharest is s#@$.” With few exceptions, he was right. If anyone needs to be convinced that most communist regimes in eastern Europe did not care for their cities properly, come to Bucharest. Evidently when Ceaucescu returned from China he tore down entire neighborhoods of beautiful buildings and built concrete structures with apartments in them. The apartments didn’t have kitchens; rather, there was one big eating area in the downstairs where everyone would eat together. He wanted to introduce this communist inspired solidarity amongst the people but it didn’t work.

Go ahead...what your city needs is more posters glued to its buildings.

They turn streets into parking lots here:

This is a street, seriously.

The river runs through Bucharest:

This was not the only utility pole with wires set up like this that I encountered.

Parts of this city are a real mess. It became so ridiculous that, mid-afternoon, I took a cab to a park north of the city just so that we could get away from the dust blowing in my eyes. I realized I had dirt in my mouth on the cab ride. Lots of pollution from entirely too many cars that literally use streets as parking lots.

There was a lake there, and a park with these huge heads in it:

This definitely was not the Furman lake.

They also had a little memorial for the King of Pop:

After we walked around and checking out some odd statuary, I looked for a place to have coffee and came up on Bucharest’s Hard Rock Café. Ha! Didn’t know they had one. At this point we were tired and needed to kill some time, so I did something I hadn’t done since probably 1995. I went inside the Hard Rock Café. Long story short, they had nachos on the menu, something that doesn’t exist in Ukraine, and so I ended up eating there, surrounded by Britney Spear’s pink hat, Madonna’s bustier, and a Metallica guitar behind me. In the entryway was Rod Stewart’s cheetah print suit, which of course made me think of John Paul and Rod Stewart’s great hits (that is for you, Dad).

On the way back I had a good shot of Bucharest’s Arch de Triomphe…yes, just like the one in Paris, except constructed in 1935-6. Bucharest used to be known as the Paris of the East…I have a hard time with that, and I have seen some not so fab parts of Paris (Place Pigalle). The countdown to the flight began (T-5 hours at this point).

The two highlights of the day were the Stavropoleos Church, constructed in 1724 in the Byzantine style, and the English bookstores. I really loved the Stavropoleos church.

 I took lots of photos of it. It seemed so peaceful…an oasis in the midst of all this chaos. The English bookstores were also a treat. I bought 2 books related to the history of Rome (going there in 2 weeks) and Christine de Pizan’s The City of Ladies for me. I have read excerpts of this for years, but really enjoyed this book when I pulled it off the shelf. I also found in the other bookstore a 1910 map of Bucovina with Chernivtsi/ Cernauti noted as the capital city. I didn’t get it at first, bc the cities were written in Romanian and I wanted either Cyrillic or German, but then I thought about how I liked the fact that I am here in 2010, 100 years later, and how Chernivtsi was part of Romania between the two world wars, and so then I decided to get it. I’m glad I did.

Here are some shots from Bucharest:

Bucharest has the second largest administrative building in the world, behind only the Pentagon. This place, the Palace of Parliament, is massive. It is also a mess, like everything lese in Bucharest.

This is for my brother…Dave, they were selling Tucker Max’s I hope they serve beer in hell in Romanian. Ha!

The atheneum was nice at night. This is where George Enescu made his debut in 1898. I'm embarassed to say I don't know much about him, so I'll have to look him up. The philharmonic that performs here is named for him.

So now I am sitting in the beautiful lobby of the Hilton Plaza Athenee, waiting for my 11:40PM train. It sure is nice to be in a nice, western style hotel for a few hours. Nice marble.

OMG. I just went from the nicest place in Bucharest to undoubtedly one of the worst. The train station in Bucharest is seriously sketchy at night. Not safe. I could not get out of Bucharest fast enough. Very glad to wake up in Suceava on Tuesday AM, safe and sound, and back in the northern part of Romania, which I really like.

I know this is stating the obvious, but I love to travel. I really, really love it, and perhaps one day I'll get into the reasons why. I'll go just about anywhere. There are only 3 cities I have been to that I dislike. If you want to know what they are, email me. Two of the three I would consider returning to bc other people seem to enjoy them so I'll give them a second chance. So, let's just say...I'm glad I've been to Bucharest. I'm glad I was only there for one day, and glad I am not there anymore.