It was a short lived high entering Ukraine, the long arm of the visa police was beyond us, but the long arm of Former Soviet Republics was still alive and well in Ukraine. There were differences, hotels were appearing in stunning regularity (and we could now check in without fear of persecution), whereas Russia was mainly a cow on the street country with the occasional passing goat, Ukraine is more of a wandering goose country (much to Levi's chagrin), with a side of meandering goats. But overall the transition was fairly seamless, the phrase "Breadbasket of Europe" brought us a never ending flow of wind to battle, the roads still were troublingly narrow and potholed and of course there were the cafes. The Russian roadside cafe is something that I had taken for granted as being normal by this point in the trip, my lunch of mashed potatoes, borsch, fried eggs and 4 pieces of bread seemed so standard and normal to me that I didn't even think it strange that the cafes continued without interruption in Ukraine, the menu didn't change, the customers didn't change, it was distressingly similar. The language is extremely similar, once or twice Ukrainians even asked us where we studied Ukrainian, so we could still communicate.
We rode 2 days into Ukraine making jokes about riding against the wind, the geese and the breadbasket before one of those very same cafes struck me down again with food poisoning (apparently once you get food poisoning you are more inclined to get it for a period of some months before your stomach can fully repair, i.e. don't continue eating crappy cafe food.) Luckily we happened to be staying at a hotel wifi and the Ukrainian version of HBO, so I suffered only moderately (not to mention I am now a food poisoning pro).
We were back on the road 2 days later once again battling some of the worst headwinds of the trip, the first day back I might consider one of my lowest days of the trip, throwing a continual exhausted hissy fit against the wind, luckily by the next day my strength and sanity had at least partially returned to me in time for Kiev. It was my second time in Kiev, I went once for spring break during my semester in St. Petersburg, it was more medieval and European than I remembered it, based on several hills, the streets twist and turn in between many lovely Russ-err Ukrainian Churches (I guess hills become a lot more obvious on a bicycle). But we were in a rush, as leaves were beginning to collect on the ground, we spent just one night in Kiev before getting back out on the road for Lvov and Krakow. This stretch proved to be one of the most difficult for Levi, and at his expense one of the more amusing for me. It started the first day out of Kiev, when after seeing roadside babushkas selling fruit and vegetables since Vladivostok, Levi finally decided to stop and buy some pears. "You know Levi that on this entire trip you could not have chosen a spot closer to Chernobyl than we are now, it is barely 100 miles away."
"Oh god dammit, and these pears looked so good!!" He exclaimed as he put them down.
The next day he left his prized peanut butter and honey sitting on a cafe table, which is only funny if you know how paranoid Levi is about leaving things, he checks everywhere to make sure nothing is left behind, and a peanut butter loss is big on a European bike trip.
He hit his low point the next day when he accidentally put his knee to our laptop monitor, not breaking it, just making it resemble a broken mirror, making surfing the web (we have finally gotten to a region where wireless internet is commonly available) an amusing experience.
All this combined with some rough headwinds and difficult navigation days (cities are becoming a big problem to get through quickly) led Levi and I back to a term we hadn't used since we were in Santiago together suffering from arguably the worst hangover of our lives, we tried to "buy it off". We spent the second 3 days to Lvov, stopping at every roadside babushka selling wares looking for cheap gifts and small comforts (simply a new pair of wool socks alone can "buy off" a weeks worth of headwind gloom).
Lvov was not only a great stop, it was our last stop in Ukraine, it was perhaps not a great stop as you might expect: magnificent architecture, wonderful food, a great touristic experience, instead it was of course a great bike trip stop: the television had music videos, the Internet cafe was fast and nearby, there was a french fry stand outside the hotel and we got our laundry washed AND DRIED (that has never happened before) for under 8 dollars, oh and I got a patch kit for tubes at a terrific deal.
The morning we left Lvov we were all set with clean laundry, freshly patched tubes and stomachs full of greasy fries, everything you need for a border crossing. Amusingly enough, just as we were leaving Ukraine, we stopped at one last gas station (a nice one, a chain with a store and mini restaurant), one of the attendants offered us a shot of vodka, we declined, but happened to catch him swigging one down none the less on his way to fill up someones car. Goodbye Ukraine!!
Or not, it turned out that the border crossing we had chosen was of course one which only can be crossed by car! We had to sit on the side of the road hitching trying to get someone to drive us across with the bikes. Luckily "Tony" as we dubbed him was the man for the job, a Ukranian builder with a van who was going (I think) to load up on building supplies from Poland, he showed us his passport, and it was obvious he was an old border pro, I had never seen so many stamps in my life, he knew all the guards by their first names and thankfully was on great terms with them. I say thankfully because, you're going to like this, it turned out that there were some problems.
"yest bolshoi problema, no c menya, neechivo" (you have big problem but with me it is no problem)
"Shto eta problema?" (What's the problem?) we asked
"Vash visa, tolka tranzit, piyat dien" (your visa, only transit, 5 days)
YOU MEAN WE OVERSTAYED OUR VISA AGAIN?????? "SON OF A *%$#*, GOD@%$#^ WHAT THE *&^%^!!!!!
Apparently when we told the Ukrainian border guards that we were to be biking to Poland they thought we could cover the, oh say nearly 1000 miles in about 5 days, no problem and gave us a transit visa. Luckily we had Tony, he had gone to high school with the immigration official, so no night in jail for "The Idiots" (really earning that one) this time, just sailed right through on the wings of Tony our Ukrainian savior. All of a sudden we were seeing blue with gold stars swirling all around us, we were in the European Union!!!!!!!!!!
Poland hit us like a ton of bricks, when I told people I was going to Poland, everyone seemed to think of it as a very poor country, or at least referenced it as "one of the poorest countries in the EU", which I guess for us is akin to "one of the poorest families in Greenwich". Tony guided us to a local cheap hotel that he frequented (we rode behind the car) and rented us a room, as we don't speak polish (we have since just kind of been switching between Russian and English, much to the amusement of the locals). We went to a supermarket and were blown away, sure Russia and Ukraine have supermarkets, but not like this, the colors, the products, the prices, it was like we had died and gone to food heaven. We tried to play it down in our minds, perhaps it was just this one town that looked like I could be riding through the Netherlands or France, or this one supermarket that featured a wondrous collection of foods.
It wasn't though, the next day it was pouring rain all day for the first time since the beginning of the trip, but we hardly noticed we were to busy observing the hotels and restaurants on the side of the road, you could just stop the bike in a small town and get a slice of pizza, the towns had bike lanes and stop lights, signs were correct in their kilometers and directions. It was too much I think Levi and I fell immediately into culture shock. As Levi put it, for so long there had been a special formula of doing things, it had become the equivalent of home, but now it was gone, we didn't know the language and we didn't understand what was going on.
We of course had to take a hotel as the rain was pretty intense, Levi kept going into hotels and coming out "alright there are two prices, I am assuming that one price is without hot water" I went into the next hotel "Oh I get it, it isn't hot water, it is probably with or without bathroom." It turned out we had come farther than we had thought, "It is with or without breakfast" the hotel attendant told me. Surreal. We went with the breakfast.
Poland was a cure to a sickness we didn't even know we had, we did another day of riding in solid rain to Krakow, but rain is a lot less worrisome when you know that a bed is never more than a km away, and a good meal that isn't Russian cafe food is only a momentary decision away. The bike trip now seems to promise to be more similar to riding your bike across the US, something that initially we might not have been as appreciative of as we are now, without Russia and Ukraine this email would have been solely about headwinds and how all-day rain permeates your mind, instead it is about joy we are feeling about some seemingly small and insignificant changes that to us are like opening a door to a five star suite. But don't worry things are bound to get rough again, if you want a preview just type in Krakow Poland to weather.com or better yet here is tonight's forecast:
Periods of snow.
Low 32F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
Chance of snow 80%.
2 to 4 inches of snow expected.
No body said it would be easy.
ellski
We rode 2 days into Ukraine making jokes about riding against the wind, the geese and the breadbasket before one of those very same cafes struck me down again with food poisoning (apparently once you get food poisoning you are more inclined to get it for a period of some months before your stomach can fully repair, i.e. don't continue eating crappy cafe food.) Luckily we happened to be staying at a hotel wifi and the Ukrainian version of HBO, so I suffered only moderately (not to mention I am now a food poisoning pro).
We were back on the road 2 days later once again battling some of the worst headwinds of the trip, the first day back I might consider one of my lowest days of the trip, throwing a continual exhausted hissy fit against the wind, luckily by the next day my strength and sanity had at least partially returned to me in time for Kiev. It was my second time in Kiev, I went once for spring break during my semester in St. Petersburg, it was more medieval and European than I remembered it, based on several hills, the streets twist and turn in between many lovely Russ-err Ukrainian Churches (I guess hills become a lot more obvious on a bicycle). But we were in a rush, as leaves were beginning to collect on the ground, we spent just one night in Kiev before getting back out on the road for Lvov and Krakow. This stretch proved to be one of the most difficult for Levi, and at his expense one of the more amusing for me. It started the first day out of Kiev, when after seeing roadside babushkas selling fruit and vegetables since Vladivostok, Levi finally decided to stop and buy some pears. "You know Levi that on this entire trip you could not have chosen a spot closer to Chernobyl than we are now, it is barely 100 miles away."
"Oh god dammit, and these pears looked so good!!" He exclaimed as he put them down.
The next day he left his prized peanut butter and honey sitting on a cafe table, which is only funny if you know how paranoid Levi is about leaving things, he checks everywhere to make sure nothing is left behind, and a peanut butter loss is big on a European bike trip.
He hit his low point the next day when he accidentally put his knee to our laptop monitor, not breaking it, just making it resemble a broken mirror, making surfing the web (we have finally gotten to a region where wireless internet is commonly available) an amusing experience.
All this combined with some rough headwinds and difficult navigation days (cities are becoming a big problem to get through quickly) led Levi and I back to a term we hadn't used since we were in Santiago together suffering from arguably the worst hangover of our lives, we tried to "buy it off". We spent the second 3 days to Lvov, stopping at every roadside babushka selling wares looking for cheap gifts and small comforts (simply a new pair of wool socks alone can "buy off" a weeks worth of headwind gloom).
Lvov was not only a great stop, it was our last stop in Ukraine, it was perhaps not a great stop as you might expect: magnificent architecture, wonderful food, a great touristic experience, instead it was of course a great bike trip stop: the television had music videos, the Internet cafe was fast and nearby, there was a french fry stand outside the hotel and we got our laundry washed AND DRIED (that has never happened before) for under 8 dollars, oh and I got a patch kit for tubes at a terrific deal.
The morning we left Lvov we were all set with clean laundry, freshly patched tubes and stomachs full of greasy fries, everything you need for a border crossing. Amusingly enough, just as we were leaving Ukraine, we stopped at one last gas station (a nice one, a chain with a store and mini restaurant), one of the attendants offered us a shot of vodka, we declined, but happened to catch him swigging one down none the less on his way to fill up someones car. Goodbye Ukraine!!
Or not, it turned out that the border crossing we had chosen was of course one which only can be crossed by car! We had to sit on the side of the road hitching trying to get someone to drive us across with the bikes. Luckily "Tony" as we dubbed him was the man for the job, a Ukranian builder with a van who was going (I think) to load up on building supplies from Poland, he showed us his passport, and it was obvious he was an old border pro, I had never seen so many stamps in my life, he knew all the guards by their first names and thankfully was on great terms with them. I say thankfully because, you're going to like this, it turned out that there were some problems.
"yest bolshoi problema, no c menya, neechivo" (you have big problem but with me it is no problem)
"Shto eta problema?" (What's the problem?) we asked
"Vash visa, tolka tranzit, piyat dien" (your visa, only transit, 5 days)
YOU MEAN WE OVERSTAYED OUR VISA AGAIN?????? "SON OF A *%$#*, GOD@%$#^ WHAT THE *&^%^!!!!!
Apparently when we told the Ukrainian border guards that we were to be biking to Poland they thought we could cover the, oh say nearly 1000 miles in about 5 days, no problem and gave us a transit visa. Luckily we had Tony, he had gone to high school with the immigration official, so no night in jail for "The Idiots" (really earning that one) this time, just sailed right through on the wings of Tony our Ukrainian savior. All of a sudden we were seeing blue with gold stars swirling all around us, we were in the European Union!!!!!!!!!!
Poland hit us like a ton of bricks, when I told people I was going to Poland, everyone seemed to think of it as a very poor country, or at least referenced it as "one of the poorest countries in the EU", which I guess for us is akin to "one of the poorest families in Greenwich". Tony guided us to a local cheap hotel that he frequented (we rode behind the car) and rented us a room, as we don't speak polish (we have since just kind of been switching between Russian and English, much to the amusement of the locals). We went to a supermarket and were blown away, sure Russia and Ukraine have supermarkets, but not like this, the colors, the products, the prices, it was like we had died and gone to food heaven. We tried to play it down in our minds, perhaps it was just this one town that looked like I could be riding through the Netherlands or France, or this one supermarket that featured a wondrous collection of foods.
It wasn't though, the next day it was pouring rain all day for the first time since the beginning of the trip, but we hardly noticed we were to busy observing the hotels and restaurants on the side of the road, you could just stop the bike in a small town and get a slice of pizza, the towns had bike lanes and stop lights, signs were correct in their kilometers and directions. It was too much I think Levi and I fell immediately into culture shock. As Levi put it, for so long there had been a special formula of doing things, it had become the equivalent of home, but now it was gone, we didn't know the language and we didn't understand what was going on.
We of course had to take a hotel as the rain was pretty intense, Levi kept going into hotels and coming out "alright there are two prices, I am assuming that one price is without hot water" I went into the next hotel "Oh I get it, it isn't hot water, it is probably with or without bathroom." It turned out we had come farther than we had thought, "It is with or without breakfast" the hotel attendant told me. Surreal. We went with the breakfast.
Poland was a cure to a sickness we didn't even know we had, we did another day of riding in solid rain to Krakow, but rain is a lot less worrisome when you know that a bed is never more than a km away, and a good meal that isn't Russian cafe food is only a momentary decision away. The bike trip now seems to promise to be more similar to riding your bike across the US, something that initially we might not have been as appreciative of as we are now, without Russia and Ukraine this email would have been solely about headwinds and how all-day rain permeates your mind, instead it is about joy we are feeling about some seemingly small and insignificant changes that to us are like opening a door to a five star suite. But don't worry things are bound to get rough again, if you want a preview just type in Krakow Poland to weather.com or better yet here is tonight's forecast:
Periods of snow.
Low 32F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
Chance of snow 80%.
2 to 4 inches of snow expected.
No body said it would be easy.
ellski
Comments
Anna Moskvicheva
01/05/2010 21:34:27
Ellski! I love this story which happen with you in a jail.
