End of Russia

So what Russian experience would be complete without having to bribe officials? My mom sent me a package last week, and the Russian customs office decided to keep it...Yesterday was the most interesting in the debacle - after talking to someone in Russian and yelling at them to put someone on who spoke English (its DHL, I know they have English speakers there) I was hung up on by my customs agent. She did however send me an email explaining that I needed to pay about 300 dollars in fees - some of it was half of the value of the box, and then about 200 dollars just so that she would sign a paper letting my box out of customs. The director of my program helped me out a little, but we decided that it would end up costing about $500 to get it out, with all those 'extra' fees. Mike and I decided to go to the office to see if we could just show up and they would give it to us without knowing they weren't supposed to. We ended up lost in Northern Moscow, and then when we found it were told that it would take three days after I paid the money before I got it. Since I'm leaving in two, we told them to send it back.
Thats the simplified version of it, but apparently not an uncommon occurence, so yay for Russia.


Lets see - Monday and Tuesday we took the Russian language exam - I passed Level 1 !!!

Last Week Here

Hello...

This is my last week in Russia! It's crazy! I'm ready to leave but I've grown used to living here.

Monday and Tuesday our program is taking the Russian state administered language exams, and then the rest of the week is free to do some last minute sightseeing and packing.

Next Sunday, bright and early - or not even, it will still be dark - John, Chase, and I are getting picked up at 230am to catch our flight to Kaliningrad. Then we'll take a bus across the spit to Lithuania, and move northward from there. I'm not sure when I'll be online after that, but I'll try to update as I go.

Ukraine

Normally, our program takes students to St.Petersburg for a few days at the end of the semester. This semester however, most of the students were repeats, so they took us to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine instead. We left Sunday night on an overnight train from Moscow. WE were in second class, so there were four of us to each little cabin, and about 10 cabins in each wagon…we had fun! WE didn’t get much sleep though because at 3 am, we hit the Russian border, where we stop for an hour while they check your documents (yeah…you have to have permission and special paperwork to even leave this crazy place). Two hours later, we got to the Ukrainian immigration stop, where we were there for another hour while they checked our passports, etc. They also had the cutest drug sniffing dogs that we all fell in love with.

Kiev
We arrived at 630 am in Kiev. Since none of us really slept, ,we were looking forward to having a bus tour of the city. Most people got out at the stops…I unfortunately do not remember them but I have been told that my face looked quite attractive smashed against the glass of the window while we were sightseeing. =)
I did manage to get some pictures every once in a while though…

This is a giant statue built for one of the wars (Afghanistan war perhaps…?) it was pretty intense, and as you can see it is giant becauset his was taken extremely far away.

That afternoon, we checked into the hostel, took a nap, and then some friends and I went back to the train station and bought tickets from Kiev to L’viv, and then L’viv to Odessa, then back to Moscow for later on in the week. We then went searching for some dinner, and found some at a really cheap Ukrainian bar about 40 minutes down the street. This is our hostel on the right, and a really beautiful convent right next to it!

Tuesday – Lavra Monastary
The Lavra monastery is made up of two parts – the upper part is a museum, and the lower part is a bunch of caves where the monks live. It is a gorgeous place and situated right on the river. We toured some of the churches and exhibits, and then were allowed to go through one of the caves at the bottom after a long and very steep trek down the mountain. WE were given candles to light so that we could see, and then went inside – there were lots of relics (i.e. dead bodies ) and everything was pained white inside, and really cool.

The view from the upper Lavra down to the Lower and across the river

After Lavra, we attempted to go into the center of the city to eat some lunch, but because Presidnet Bush was visiting at the same time, everything was blocked off and we only managed to get there later in the day….We found lunch and walked around for hours until we finally got into the center.

This is a picture of the main square, where the focus of the Orange Revolution took place a couple of years ago. ….it is filled with some of the Communist party protesting NATO and Bush’s visit.

Wednesday
Our excursion was to the Chernobyl museum in Kiev. It was probably one of my favorite museums I have ever visited because it combined the memory of what happened with the facts in a really amazing balance – there was artwork right next to demonstrations of what happened, and it was done really tastefully. We were told that even now, it will be hundreds of years before that entire region of the Ukraine can even begin to be used again.
John, Lacy and I went to a café nearby which served Ukrainian cuisine and then we met up with Lena and Shamella to walk around the city. We decided we wanted to walk down by the Dneiper river, and turned the corner to see it, so we took it as a sign and started walking. Eventually we saw a bridge crossing to an island. The river is one of the widest in the world, and there is an island in the center between the two sides of Kiev which is a recreation spot and full of resteraunts. It was pretty empty when we were there, but we managed to walk all the way across the island, and then back, and then back across the bridge, and back up the gigantic mountain onto the main street of Kiev again. It took all day/evening, but it was so beautiful and incredibly hard to imagine that this was all in the center of a giant city.

(I have more story of our adventures in the captions of the pictures on my webalbums…hint hint: look at my pictures!)

L'VIV
Wednesday night, John Shamella and I took an overnight train to L’viv and arraived very early once again. We found our hostel, which was really narrow but took up six floors…we were on the top. Then we walked around the city and took pictures almost every five seconds. L’viv is in the Eastern part of the Ukraine, and it is very pro-Ukrainian – we didn’t get very far speaking Russian, even though they are fluent in both languages. It is also a very old, but very undiscovered city which made it feel genuine as opposed to touristy. I loved it there! We walked around all of the squares and saw all of the churches, and then that evening saw a modern ballet of Romeo and Juliet in their local Opera House.

Friday
We were told that there was an amazing cemetery just on the outskirts of L’viv, so we hopped on a tram and went to check it out. It was one of the most gorgeous cemetaries I’ve seen (not that I’ve been to many, but still…) It was on a hill, and completely overgrown, overcrowded, and old, but you could tell that there was so much history there and it was so interesting to walk around and see all of the names and dates. Most of them were from the 1900-1950s but some were as early as 1790 and as late as 1980s. I pretty much filled up my entire memory card here. (again – look at the pictures!) It’s spring here, so I have a lot of pictures of flowers, but I was also really fascinated by all of the tiny benches next to the graves – sometimes they matched, others were really random, some were barely remnants, but they were everywhere.

ODESSA - Saturday

We took an overnight train to Odessa, which is a port city in the South situated on the Black Sea. We had some problems finding a place to stay, and my wallet had been stolen the night before in L’viv, so we weren’t in the best of moods and I’m not sure I gave this city much of chance. It was pretty dirty, and not very well organized, and I really didn’t like it at all. WE eventually made it down to the beach though and walked along a park for a couple of miles. I definitely liked the beach part of it, despite the wind, and I got to touch the Black Sea! We were also disappointed because the most famous monument there is the Potemkin Steps. Potemkin was a general under Catherine the Great (also her lover) and he built this enormous steps on the beach leading up to the city in order to impress her on her arrival. When we finally reached the end of our walk, we found that at the bottom of the steps was not a nice beach, but a giant automall. !?!? Oh well…I also think that Odessa might be a better night city – as we were walking back to our hotel to sleep, all of the casinos and cafes came alive and it seemed like a neat atmosphere for those who had energy and money to show off.

Sunday we walked around, found a nice French bakery to stock up on some food essentials, and then made it to the train station to catch our 25 hour train ride from Odessa to Moscow. We arrived back Monday afternoon, very tired.

Anyways, I highly recommend going to the Ukraine if you are ever in that area - its a very interesting trip!

I Love the Ukraine!

hello!

on Sunday night, my program left Moscow for Kiev. I'm pretty sure I am in love with Kiev, its very Russian but a very European version of Russia, which means much better. haha.
Some friends and I decided to leave Kiev a day early however, *tear* and take an ovrenight train to L'viv, in the Eastern part of the country, which is where I am right now. Then we're headed to Odessa for the weekend (hopefully it won't be tooo cold so we can at least pretend that the beach is nice) and then I'll be back in Moscow on Monday ready to update and show off some pictures of some pretty cool cities! (if i can find a camera charger because i of course forgot mine.)