Trolley buses and mokra

I can't help have the last name England and not talk about the weather. These days are days of mokra, that wet, lumpy, sludgy brown slush that creeps over your shoes and up your pant legs (maybe stiletto boots are practical afterall). We dance an intricate choreography avoiding pools of swamp water collecting in the streets, downpours of melting snow falling on our heads from rooftops, and surprise splashes from passing trolley buses. But spring slowly is coming!

Besides weather, this entry is dedicated to the trolley bus. Hop on, if you can fit, for 50 kopikas (10 cents), and rumble through the streets packed like sardines. Handfulls of cash get passed up, passenger to passenger, to the driver, and in return, handfulls of bus tickets get passed back, passenger to passenger. Its quite an efficient system...nobody runs off with your money, and nobody hops on without paying. Simple!

Other than those few observations, life is swell. Eric is an excited ball of energy after each class he teaches (his lectures seem to be falling into place like a dream). I'm waiting for some contacts to get back to me: one with a day-center development project for disabled people (in Kyiv), and another possibly with an orphanage here in Chernivtsi. In the meantime, I've been helping Eric organize this library in the Canadian Studies Centre at the university. Tons of books, tons of cataloguing, and tons of typing! The only stresses are knowing that in a few short days, my MCAT mark will be posted....ahhhh! On that note, I'll sign off and see if it has been posted early. bye!

Chernivtsi University






Our street



Lounge lizards

Foothills of Carpathians

Ahh, Chernivtsi! The sweet sound of stilettoed feet click-clacking on cobblestone streets. The constant sputtering Ladas, those box-like Russian-made cars, zipping past with tinted windows, zebra-skin upholstery and the obligatory blaring dance music. Streets lined with faded but lavish Hapsburg buildings, giving away a complicated history of opulence and hardship. SOOO beautiful!!! My days are spent learning this impossibly difficult language (made even harder because Russian is spoken as much, if not more than Ukrainian, in the streets), stutterring incomprehensibly at the outdoor markets, learning to avoid buying extremely stinky prunes, meeting Eric for a bowl of borscht and coffee...basic and very relaxing. Eric is submerged in a world of proposals, building a library, and meeting Mary for borscht and coffees!

There are symphonies for $2 at 200 year old theatres, politically charged music concerts in a plaza opposite a massive statue of Shevchenko, the favorite Ukrainian nationalist poet. People cruise the streets in pairs, cigarrettes and beers in hand, dodging the stray dogs and hopping onto trolley buses. Funny sight was seeing a big bald leather-clad man flip a 1-litre beer bottle into a nearby snowbank and stomp it out of sight with a well-practiced flourish. A recycler's nightmare.

It looks as though last days pictures didn't show up. Time to solve these never-ending technological dilemnas. Until later!

Kyiv madness

Kyiv Metro vixen

Eric at the Kyiv train station (zaliznichniy vokzal)

First day together in Ukraine

Well well well, technology has foiled me again, and you, dear friends, are going to have to settle for "First Impressions" second time 'round. Erik and I arrived in Chernivtsi on a (nice) rattling pre-WWII propellor plane, and I couldn't decide what most deserved my attention, the loose screws and shaky wings appearing through the window, or the fur-clad beauties lounging with bottles of cognac and cigarettes in the seats next to us.
But I'm jumping ahead of myself. I have skipped over entirely the madness of Kyiv! Its easy to forget how useless you can feel unable to ask for a simple glass of water (voda). Somehow, through divine intervention perhaps, Eric managed to reach into the depths of his brain and assemble the pieces of Ukrainian/Russian he has learned so far to get us through the streets and metro systems. I don't know what to say so much about Kyiv - fast, elegant, edgy, sexy. There is a constant movement that has a mind of its own - trolley buses squealing past, dirty windows and crumbling paint with the faces of stunning Slavs staring out. Slick-looking characters hover on the corners sipping coffees and glancing discreetly at the high-heeled fashionistas strutting past. We have to return here once we're less frantically lost and can read, rather than guess the street signs. Can't wait!