a break

a tourist visa to ukraine is available on entry (meaning you just get the normal stamp in your passport - for people of many nations, but not all) and good for 90 days...i knew i'd have a guest when my 90 days were up, and due to a special schedule for a week in school, the last weekend in october turned out to be perfect for me to make a visa run...so off i went to stuttgart, germany for a long weekend...
i flew to a small airport semi close to munich late wednesday night...i wasn't keen about the arrival time, nor was my host, but my other option was to wait until friday night, and that seemed silly...i love the german autobahn system...you get to drive fast, and signage is pretty good...obviously, i didn't get to see any scenery...we arrived at the home of my host, i got the tour, and went to bed...

my host is in the US air force, and is originally from michigan, so there were heaps of directions relating to the university of michigan, which i dearly loved...as always seems to happen, military members posted overseas often have great housing, and this was no exception...i felt like i was in a palace:)
the next morning, my host went to work, and i slept until past 10...that's the latest i've slept in ages, apparently i needed it...i caught up on email and generally lounged around...i skipped trying to figure out the tv, as i'm not technologically inclined...hee hee...sometime in the afternoon i walked into the center of town, and just enjoyed being out and about...the weather was 10 degrees warmer than what i left in kyiv, and the leaves in stuttgart were still in a lovely rainbow...i love red leaves, and there aren't so many of those in kyiv...my host lives on the side of a valley around the city, so walking into the city center meant going down heaps of steps...my only thought was that i'd have to go back up all those stairs:)...fortunately, i'm used to it since kyiv is built on hills...i had hot chocolate from starbucks, and moseyed through a couple parks...i really like stuttgart...dinner that night was at home, steak!! i fell asleep as we watched "hoosiers"...one of the best movies ever:)

the next day i spent in the same way...lolligagging around in the morning, not doing much of anything...in the afternoon i went out, then met up with my host and another american...this time, instead of spending the evening at home, we drove (meaning, my host drove) to burg frankenstein...traffic wasn't great, and there was more than one stau...that's one thing i don't miss about the german highway system...
at halloween time the castle is turned into a haunted house, open to the public for a whopping 20euro entry fee...there isn't much parking near the burg, so there is a good shuttle bus system set up...there were heaps of people at the castle, and we wandered all over...we watched one couple as they were 'tortured'...(meaning that they tied up the lady and tickled her a bit...the man was tied to a table, and they ended up putting ice down his pants)...humorous for everyone watching, and all in good fun...

the whole thing was done really well...good costumes, good music, etc...at one point we watched a short dance performance with vampires...i kept waiting for michael jackson's thriller to be used in the soundtrack, but they didn't use it...another michael jackson song though, (not that i can remember the name right now, argh)...the drive home was heaps faster, my host said the spedometer showed 200km/hr for a little while...
the next day was saturday, and ended up being one my favourite day of the trip...another slow wakeup, and a trip to two of the military bases in the area to run errands, including grocery shopping...to most people this probably doesn't sound like anything special, but this was the first time i'd been in an american grocery store in over a year and a half...soooooo many foods i'd forgotten existed...some foods i never knew existed...there were plenty of things i wanted to buy, but i stuck with two boxes of hohos, a pint of ben + jerry's chocolate fudge brownie (not surprisingly, the commissary didn't sell the latest ben + jerry's flavour) and a bottle of gatorade...i was a happy camper, to say the least...i don't usually miss american things, but i loved going through the grocery store...good times...

from there we went home, and my host showed me how slingbox works...well,  i got to see it, but i still don't really understand...all i got was that the tv in stuttgart was somehow connected (through internet i think?) to a tv in the states, and through that connection we were able to watch american tv...what that meant for us is that we could watch american college level football...I LOVE COLLEGE FOOTBALL...i grew up watching it nearly every fall saturday afternoon, and it's something i really miss...we got to watch the michigan game, yahoo!! if i lived in stuttgart, i'd be parked on that sofa every saturday afternoon...hee hee...a dinner out with the friend who'd joined us at the haunted castle, then back home to watch the florida/georgia game...the friend is a georgia fan, but my host and i met through a florida fan...since it was an SEC game, i didn't really care who won, i was just happy to watch...though i did fall asleep at a couple points, i'm not used to staying up late...hee hee...

the next morning was me waking up, packing up, and making my way to the frankfurt airport...not long after i queued up to check in, they closed and cleared an entire area of check in...are you kidding me? there was no information being given out, so no one knew what was going on...a dog was brought in, and sniffed the area, and apparently everything was cleared, as we were let back in...i queued up again, closer to the front of the queue this time...since i didn't have a bag to check, and it was just me, checking in took no time at all...getting through passport control and security took longer, as it was slammed with all the folks who'd been waiting with me for the dog to finish sniffing...i was rather concerned about missing my flight, as were plenty of others...howeva my flight left late, so it ended up not being an issue...
arriving back in kyiv, in the cold, was not so fun...but the weekend was great!! i needed that break:)

chernivtsi (чернІвцІ)

cloe and i had been in ukraine for over two months, and really wanted to get out of kyiv...it's a great city and all, but we wanted to see something else of ukraine...so we were thrilled when our friend marie suggested going on a weekend trip...we'd never heard of the town she suggested, but hey, who cares? she said it was a town known for a university...fortunately, lonely planet had heard of it...there were a few pages dedicated to the town, including a map...woo hoo!!!
chernivtsi is in the southwest of modern day ukraine...over its history, it has been a part of other countries as well..it was once a part of the austro-hungarian empire, and you can still see this influence in the architecture of the town...the architecture is far more like the rest of europe than it is like kyiv/ukraine...

our trip started with a night train from kyiv to chernivtsi...our lonely planet guidebooks say that a long distance train ride is a must do experience in ukraine, so we were happy to check that off our lists with this trip...i think our train left around 7pm? i don't remember exactly...our friend marie met us at school, then we went to eat...she then showed us where to go at the train station, and we also met two other ladies (luda and elena) who were coming along as well...3 of the tickets were together, but the other two were in two other cars, so there was some shifting to be done...neither cloe nor i had a problem with sleeping by ourselves, but marie worried about us, so she and elena slept in the other two cars...
a night train in ukraine definitely is an experience...due to living in germany, and various travels, i've taken my fair share of night trains...people on ukrainian trains eat quite a bit more, and they bring all of it...it's possible to order tea (more on that in a moment,) but there didn't seem to be any other vendors coming through the train...instead, people pack a picnic, usually quite a large one...i got the lovely smell of hard-boiled eggs, and various pickled salads...yippee skippee...while the five of us were hanging out and chatting, marie and her friends took out the food they'd brought...heaps of food!! biscuits, lollies, cheese, etc...they also ordered tea for us from the train lady...it's just lipton tea, but i loved the glass holders, and of course all the sugar:)...we sat up talking for a while, i was the first to lay down and go to sleep...night trains in ukraine give you sheets, a mattress, a blanket and a pillow...plus, the train is a comfortable temperature...awesome!

the next morning we all woke at different times, which didn't bother anyone...more tea from the train lady, and marie pulled out some breakfast food...our train arrived on time, around 0930...we exited the train station (after taking the picture to prove that we were there) turned right and started walking...this turned out to be the incorrect direction, which we found out after the girls asked a local...ooops...the intention was to walk to the university, as we wanted to take a tour...the local ended up walking us part of the way, to make sure we were going in the right direction...ukrainians are so nice!!

the university in chernivtsi is the reason the town is known in ukraine...(i doubt it's much known outside of the country)...the university was originally built as the home of the local rulers, the bukovyna metropolitans...at the time, the town was part of the austro-hungarian empire...you can see how it would've been the home of a family, albeit a very large home...there is a church in one section, and a giant marble hall in another section...not all of the university is open to the public, our guide had to unlock a few doors...out the back of the university is a lovely park, complete with a statue of the architect, a czech guy who also had a hand in designing vienna...(if i remember correctly?)...there used to be a pond of sorts, but when the soviets turned the 'home' into a university, they also messed with the aquatic system of this pond, broke it, and weren't able to fix it...so now you can still see where the pond was, but there is no water...it's a shame...

after the university tour, we took a tram to the center of the city...after that, our day was mostly walking around the city...the girls had a map with 'tourist' locations marked on it, and i'm pretty sure we got to almost all of them...every building of any note, every church ever mentioned...one of the churches is currently painted a pepto bismol sort of pink...(though the postcard of said church shows it in a nice off white)...another church looks what lonely planet calls "drunken"...the spires twist, and from any angle it looks as if they're leaning into the rest of the church...we saw the end of a wedding coming out of yet another church, an armenian church...i wonder if the theme of the wedding was ugly dress, because i strongly disliked the dress of every woman in the wedding party...that church itself looked way better than the pepto church...brick, with silver onions on top...we saw a VERY old church, it was tiny and wooden...we saw a building with lion decorations...we ate at a place called the chicken house...i bought postcards...

chernivtsi is definitely a one day town for visitors, i'm glad that's all the time we'd planned to spend there...though we did get plenty of exercise, walking all over the place...other than being chilly, the weather was good...in other words, it wasn't raining, and for me, that makes all the difference... 
our train back to kyiv left at 1900, we got to the train station in plenty of time...a dog decided to follow us most for about a kilometer, we didn't know how to get rid of it...the dog even crossed streets with us!! we were early enough that the train wasn't there yet, so we killed time in the train station coffee shop...(which definitely left something to be desired, but oh well)...the train ride back to kyiv had all of us in the same area, so no one had to move around to sleep...the same tea, the same heaps of snacks, etc...i love long distance trains in ukraine!!