doors after disaster

i made this a facebook album as well, but i thought it worth posting here as well...after majour storms and flooding last october (2011) in cinque terre, many trails were washed out, and buildings flooded...much has not yet been fixed...in the town of veranazza many of the abandoned buildings have plywood doors with murals painted on them...i liked them so much i took photos:)

cinque terre

woo hoo!! a full week of vacation!! despite potential visa issues i booked a holiday out of the country, i decided to go to italy...(dubai was also on the list, but because i procrastinated too much, those tickets ended up being out of my budget)...a friend of mine from when i was a lifeguard lives in italy with her husband, so i knew i had people to see...i hadn't met the husband, but mandy is awesome, so i figured the husband must be awesome too...
i flew budget airline wizzair to oen of the airports in venice, they picked me up, and we proceeded to drive across the peninsula to an area called cinque terre...it's a national park, and absolutely gorgeous...it's 5 towns on the coast, there is a hiking/trekking trail between all of them...i don't know how long it would take to walk the entire thing, but it must be gorgeous...

we stayed in a town called la spezia,  it's just outside cinque terre...one of the reasons mandy chose the hotel she chose is because one of the hiking paths starts right by the hotel...perfect...the first part of the drive was flat and easy...it wasn't until the last part that i knew we were going through mountains, as the roads were really curvy, and it was impossible to hold a steady speed...we rolled into la spezia at 2300 or so? i'm not sure exactly, i just knew i was really tired...(especially because my body was still telling me it was an hour later)...
breakfast was included in the hotel price, and i loved it...a european buffet breakfast...rolls, bread, cheese, meat slices, yogurt, cereal, milk, tea, juice, jam, hard boiled eggs, meusli, etc...i ate too much, as i always do when confronted with a buffet...
the guy at the front desk of the hotel told us where we could find the trail head, so as soon as we had water for each of us, we took off...the trail was easy to find, thank goodness...the front desk guy told us we'd go down a little, then up and over the mountain, down into one of the towns in cinque terre...he showed us the map, the trails seemed fairly obvious...plus, he said the trails were marked with what i think of as the polish flag...we found those markings easily for the first while...then we came to a fork in the trail, and we didn't know which way to go...so we chose the right fork...a little while later, we found another of the trail marks, we knew we'd chosen correctly...phew...

i'm not sure exactly when it happened, but we found ourselves on road instead of a trail, we thought the road would wind down the valley into the back side of the town we were heading for...as it turned out, that was not right...instead, we walked around the back of the valley, never going down at all...ooops...on our way back to find where we thought we'd lost the trail, we found a couple gates, there seemed to be paths going down...the first one led only to a house...hmmm...the second seemed to be going well for us, then it just stopped...argh...at that point, we didnt want to go back up to the road, as we'd run out of water, and didn't know how much farther we'd have to walk along that road...we elected to try to forge our own path...

i'm not sure that was the best decision i've ever made, but it was definitely an adventure...(on a side note, hiking through areas with brambles, while wearing chacos was also probably not my best decision)...eventually, we made it down to a proper trail, it connected with a road...from that road, we could see the town we wanted...as it turned out, we didn't get that option from that road...argh...at this point all we could think about was water, and how badly we wanted it...
after asking someone the way to the next town, we walked along that road for what seemed like ages...i don't know how long it was, but it took foreva and eva...FINALLY, after seeing the town from a couple angles, and wondering if we were going to walk past this town as well w/out intending to do so, we made it into manarola...not riomaggiore, as we intended, but at that point, anywhere with water and food sounded amazing...

there isn't much to see in any of the cinque terre towns...they're just cute...brightly coloured buildings and houses, small streets...lots of gelaterias...lots of restaurants...tourists...i found postcards straightaway, and bought 40...mandy and boyd thought that was a lot...i assured them i'd be buying more as my italy visit kept going...hee hee...i am an addict...i also had gelato, AWESOME!!!!
we ate the most fabulous meal i've had in a loooong time...i don't know if it was the food, or the waiter, or what, but it was great...i'd be happy to go back there regularly...too bad italy isn't closer to kyiv...after lunch (which we had at 1530,) we walked out to a viewpoint of the city...beautiful...beautiful...beautiful...mandy and boyd like to take photos as much as i do, thank goodness:)

at that point we figured we'd seen everything there is to see in manarola...
we'd thought about taking the train back to la spezia and going back to the hotel, but mandy had seen on her phone that the predicted weather for the next day was cloudy/rainy, so we to stay out and take advantage of the beautiful weather to take more photos...we took the train to riomaggiore and wandered around for a while...as it is another of the towns in cinque terre, it's similar to manarola, but not the same...the same colours of buildings, but the streets are a little different...we were able to walk around, check out gelaterias, buy postcards, etc...
none of the towns in cinque terre require much time to see, we didn't stay long...only about an hour, actually...then we hopped the train and took it back to la spezia...each train ride was only a few minutes...i love public transport!!
by the time we got back to la spezia it was dark, so we took a taxi back to the hotel, and crashed for the night...since we'd eaten "lunch" so late, none of us was at all hungry to eat again...

the next morning we got up a little earlier, and again overindulged at breakfast...a quick hotel checkout, and putting our bags into the car...our drive to the train station in la spezia included a mini tour of the city, since there are a bunch of one way streets, and we weren't too sure exactly where to park...i think the whole day of parking was only a few euros:)
this time we took the train to the farthest town in cinque terre...the very last town...the weather wasn't so great, so i was doubly glad we'd stopped in two towns the previous day, and gotten heaps of pictures...no matter how beautiful or ugly the town or setting, every place looks better when the photos have blue skies in the background..

the last town in cinque terre ended up being the town i liked the least...it wasn't nearly as cute as the others...there was a good gelato stand, of course...the lady who sold the gelato asked where i am from, as i was buying at 10am...she said italians don't eat gelato in the morning...hee hee...as far as i'm concerned, there is never a wrong time to eat gelato:)
after an hour of wandering (during which we spent most of the time in cafes checking out various snacks) we took the train to town #4, veranazza...again, a quick ride, only a few minutes...

veranazza seemed to be the cinque terre town hardest hit by the storms last october...quite a few buildings seemed to be abandoned, even six months later...many of these abandoned buildings had plywood doors, and on those doors were murals...no two murals alike...i took heaps of photos:)...the "port" area (i don't know what to call it, as there is water, and there has been a protective "arm" built of rocks, but there are no boats in the area) hasn't been fixed yet...it's slowly happening, we could see the construction equipment, and the big mess of rubbish and dirt...i wonder when it will be finished?
lunch that day wasn't nearly as good as the day before...still good, but not AS good...oh well...
after lunch we stepped into a couple more shops, as i still needed postcards, and mandy wanted wine...from there it was back to the train, this time to la spezia...we got in the car, and started driving back across the peninsula...4 hours later, my weekend in cinque terre was over...it's an area i would love to see again...maybe the trails and buildings will all be repaired...as far as weather goes, this was the perfect time of year to see cinque terre:)

kharkiv (харкІв)

a three day weekend, so of course i wanted to go somewhere...i hadn't seen much of the east of ukraine, so that seemed like a good idea...since cloe's parents had been visiting, she knew she needed some down time so she didn't come along for this trip...this was my first time traveling with christina...christina booked the tickets, and also found our accomodation, yippee...she's been in ukraine for a year and a half, she knows a lot more russian than i know, (which isn't at all difficult, seeing as how i hardly know any) and has friends, or at least aquaintances all over the country...

we decided to go to kharkiv...unfortunately, we waited too long to make this decision, so the only train tickets left were not at convenient hours, to say the least...our train to kharkiv departed at 0345...i had a difficult time staying awake...people in ukraine almost never sit directly on a floor, or on the ground, or on outside steps, or anything along those lines...every single one of the chairs in the train station was full...most everyone sitting in those chairs was sound asleep...it's amazing the number of positions possible when sleeping in a chair...anywho...i walked, and walked and walked and walked, as there was nowhere to sit...it would've been so easy to sit on the floor and use my backpack as a pillow, but not a single other person was doing so, so i figured that wasn't the best idea...fortunately, i was able to go to sleep rather quickly just after boarding the train...

the train arrived around 1230 in kharkiv...we were in a car with a futbol (soccer) team, high school age i think? they practiced their english a little with us...
kharkiv is great in that they have a subway system, and there is a stop at the train station...we hopped right on, and made our way to the end of one of the lines...christina had booked us a place to stay in a flat of a local lady...after we figured out where to meet her, she arrived and took us to the flat...in terms of decor, i'd call it.....unrenovated soviet...definitely not new, but that didn't matter to me or christina...
after an hour or two of chitchat/relaxing/unpacking we made our way back into the city centre...christina had arranged for us to meet with someone she knows who lives a couple hours outside of kharkiv...a peace corps volunteer...(side fact: ukraine has the most peace corps volunteers of any country in the world...is this necessary? i don't think so, ukraine isn't an isolated country with no resources...the peace corps has been active here for a while, though they did pull out all volunteers during the orange revolution, back in 2004-ish...i don't know when the PC people came back)

it took us a while to figure out where to find ty...each subway station has a few exits, not always close to each other...we roamed around a bit before spotting ty...he took us to a restaurant decorated with parts of russian fairytales...the food was good, and goodness knows, by that point i really needed real food...(as opposed to the nonstop sugar intake i'd had going for me earlier in the day)...ty lives in a village/town not easily reached, so he had to take a bus at 1800...we finished eating around 1745, we were worried he wouldn't make the last bus, but he did...we continued wandering around town, mostly to orient ourselves...plus, now that it's spring, it's lighter much later...we ended up getting back to the flat around 2130, and both of us went to sleep fast...
the next morning we both slept in...well, i woke up at the same time i always do, but i dozed a bit, as well as reading a book i'd brought...it doesn't bother me to wake up early when i know i don't have to get out of bed...:)

this was sunday...easter sunday...15 april...the date is different from the western calendar, because much of ukraine is orthodox, and the orthodox calendar is different...this year, ukraine celebrated easter a week later than many western countries...we arrived in the city centre, and found a giant setup...two huge easter bread/muffin/cake looking things...(i've forgotten what they're called, pasca, maybe? everyone eats the stuff on easter)...also a couple easter egg trees...and a banner overhead saying Christ is Risen...did i mention this was in the city square? a public city square!! according to ukrainians it is the second largest in the world behind tiennaman square in beijing...it didn't seem that big to me, but whateva...at one end of this square (it's actually a rectangle) is a statue of lenin...(remember how i've said in previous posts that eastern ukraine is much more russian than the west?)...the lighting was awful (gray-ish skies are never a good background) but we took photos anywho...by this point christina had figured out i like to take a lot of photos, and will wait until just the right moment to take my desired photo..

after lenin and the pascas, we went to meet someone else christina knew...vladislav i think was his name? i'm sooo bad at remembering names...ooops...he had plans for the next couple hours, but we arranged to meet up later for a city tour...we went to a cafe briefly, one that had wifi...christina was dying to check email and facebook on her phone...both of us liked the drinks we ordered, though they weren't cheap...note to self, skip that cafe next time...
instead of waiting in that cafe for an undetermined amount of time, we walked back toward the city centre, taking photos along the way...(of course)...we took photos in the giant city square (allegedly the second largest in the world after tiennamen (sp?) square in beijing, china) which had a large setup for easter...i can't imagine such a religious setup in most places in the US...it said "christ is risen"...at one end of the square (it's actually a rectangle) is a statue of lenin, of course we took pictures...lenin wasn't the nicest of soviet leaders (were any of them nice?) so i'm always surprised to see any sort of memorials for him...

eventually we got into the city centre, and met up with vladislav and his sister...instead of taking us to the churches i wanted to see (they were mentioned in the guidebook) he took us up another street, called pushkin street...a statue of pushkin (famous soviet author) and a small park filled with miniature versions of some of the buildings in the city...in the middle of the park is a sculpture of a couple kissing...cute...they're stretching quite a bit...(this last sentence makes sense when you see the sculpture, it probably doesnt make sense w/out seeing the sculpture)
continuing walking, we ran into a couple christina knew, and ended up talking to them for quite a while...they're in the process of adopting a couple ukrainian children, so they are experiencing another aspect of ukrainian beauraucracy...
we got back to one of the main streets in town, and walked north...eventually we came to a park...it looked as though the park was under construction...vladislav told us they were doing renovations in preparation for the EURO cup...i don't know if the park will be ready in time, it didn't look to be anywhere close to being finished...i'm assuming the workers are working nearly every day in order to get everything finished in time? the start date is coming up fast!!

after walking behind a movie theatre, vladislav took us to the starting place of a cable car...it wasn't fancy at all, but i was still expecting a high fee...but it wasn't!!! only 10griven!!! (about $1.25)...with that price, i was expecting a short ride, but it ended up being around 10 minutes or more...awesome...definitely my favourite part of kharkiv:)...the ride across the park took us to a completely different area of town...fortunately, vladislav knows the town and knew of a close subway stop...we rode the subway back to the centre of town and went looking for a church mentioned in the guidebook...locals call it the candy cane church, it's easy to see why...fortunately, we walked in just after a service ended...i say fortunately, because i have the feeling the church isn't always open to the public...a minute or two after we walked in, the lights inside started being turned off...by the time we left about 10 minutes later, nearly all the lights were off...it was dark inside!!
by that point i was rather hungry, and tired...we figured out a place to go eat, an irish bar...i thought it would have pub food...but when we looked in the window, we couldn't see any food at all...so that plan didn't work...instead, christina and i went home, grabbing a bit at a grocery store on the way back...both of us slept soundly that night...

on our last day in kharkiv, we had no plans...well, that's not true...i really wanted to see the churches in the city centre...we'd come so close to them several times, but i'd only seen them from outside the walls...never in the church grounds or in the churches themselves...it finally happened!! we packed up our stuff, and took the subway to the train station...we found a left luggage office, and deposited our stuff for the day...the ladies working helped us figure out how to set a combination and work the lockers...in the city centre we finally went to the churches:)
after i'd wanted to see these churches for three days, they weren't that great...as soon as you entered the grounds of the churches you could see two boxes...one with scarves for women to borrow, and onewith wraparound skirts for women to borrow...i had a scarf with me, but no skirt; christina borrowed both...the inside of the churches wasn't great, i was a bit let down...oh well, life goes on...

afterward, we wandered a bit more...we saw something that i think was supposed to be an eternal flame, though there was no fire...
mostly unbeknownst to me, christina had made plans for vladimir to meet up with us again...he was 45 minutes later than she said...this time we took a bus north of the city, it went past the park with the cable car...vladimir told us to get off the bus a couple stops later, it turned out to be a park/war memorial...i really really liked it...i believe there was also a memorial to the holodor (the famine in 1932-33, caused by stalin)...simple, moving...
we took the same bus back, hopping off at the earlier park in order to ride the cable car again...hee hee...christina and i loved it...i had a car all to myself this time, and the weather was better:)...when the ride ended we walked to the nearest subway station, and rode the trains back to the train station...vladimir showed us a yummy bakery, of course i stocked up on pastries...raspberry pastries aren't very common...in retrospect, i should've bought even more than i did:)
our train arrived back in kyiv at 0400...ugh...that was a loooooong day at school!

riga

cloe and i got to go to riga, latvia for a weekend...fun times:)...a new country for me, though i'm not the first in my family to get there...(being the first in my family to get to a country is rare!)...the flight is under two hours (listed at 1:50 but only takes 1:35) which is great...latvia is a member of the european union, (EU) and is a schengen country...since cloe is french, that means she got to go through a different line at immigration...her line moved REALLY FAST, she didn't even get a stamp in her passport when we entered the country!! i have traveled a fair amount, and should totally be over this, but i still love getting stamps in my passport...as soon as i'm through immigration in any country, i always open my passport to see where they put the stamp, and what it looks like...

since our flight arrived after 2300, and we knew it would be pretty chilly, we opted to book a hotel ahead of time...this worked out well, as they were able to send someone to pick us up at the airport...it's nice to come out of immigration/customs and see someone holding a sign with your name on it...the ride to the hotel was pretty quick, the airport is very conveniently located:)
i'm glad we had the taxi to take us directly to the hotel...w/out the taxi, there is no way we would've found it...sure, we had the address, but that is far from all the information we needed...the guy on duty met us as the taxi pulled up, walked us to the proper door (the building had quite a few businesses) and told us the code we needed to open the door...then we climbed three full flights of stairs (thank goodness for climbing stairs every day in kyiv) and got to the front door of the hotel...the only signage was a single A4 sized sheet of paper with the name of the hotel printed on it, taped to the door...clearly this place doesn't rely on walk in business...the guy showed us our room, and gave us the set of keys...

at that point we realized we needed to exchange money...we were tired, but figured we could try to find an exchange place open, and we were successful...there were 4 or 5 w/in a 5 minute walk of our hotel...woo hoo...i'm usually pretty cautious about such places, (i always prefer to use an ATM card, but since that wasn't an option with this trip, we had to exchange ukrainian grivnas for latvian lats) so we checked out the rates at all the places we could see...which was smart, as the rates varied by quite a bit...living in kyiv, every place that exchanges money has really similar rates, but that isn't the case at all in riga...one place was only half of another, with others in between the two...
after getting some money, and water for me, we went back to the hotel...it was after 0100 by that point...time flies in the middle of the night...we were asleep pretty quickly, as traveling is always wearing, even when the trip isn't long...
the next morning we slept in...we only had two days in the city, but we wanted to relax in addition to touring...plus, the weather wasn't spectacular, so there wasn't much motivation to get up and go...i think we finally left the hotel around 1100?

the areas tourists in riga want to see are quite small, and centrally located...it's a great city for a weekend trip, you can see everything just by walking around...yay!! we found the opera house, in the middle of a park...we stopped for hot chocolate (riga has heaps of chain coffee shops, though i didn't see a coffee bean or a starbucks)...we found the freedom monument, which apparently has quite a bit of history...the soviets didn't like it much, as it symbolized latvian independence; they wanted to get rid of it, or at least move it...but that never happened, so it's right in the middle of a big platz...there are two soldiers standing in front, it could also be the latvian version of the "tomb of the unknown soldier"...the weather was crap, so the photos i took at that point weren't very good...

from the monument we walked into the park a little bit, and had more fun with photos on a bridge with more locks...this seems to be a popular thing to do in this part of the world...buy a padlock, lock it on a bridge, and it's supposed to represent never ending love, or something like that...i wonder how often it works? from there we could see the gunpowder tower, which is now a museum...we didn't go in the museum, i don't know why...with the 'meh' weather, it probably would've been perfect...instead, we walked into another coffee shop, i had a snack...two shops down the street was a souvenir shop, we investigated that next...i found a hat i really wanted, cloe found amber items, i found postcards, cloe found magnets, etc...i don't think we actually purchased anything at that point, but we got an idea of what we might find throughout the city, and started thinking about what we wanted to take with us back to kyiv...

from there we wandered...knowing that the area we wanted to explore was fairly small, we didn't get the map out again for a while...it was easy to say "hey, that must be the ......" ...wandering around took us to a couple churches (neither of which was open at that particular time) and the swedish gate (one of the only remaining gates to the city, i think there were originally 9 gates?) and a couple platzes and more...most importantly, we found a lollipop store!! great lollipops:)...we only bought a couple that day, we wanted to do "quality control"...gotta make sure they are good enough before buying heaps of them, right? we ended up buying them for our coworkers as well, just because we could...who doesn't love lollipops? these lollipops looked pretty as well, which made them even better:)

at that point, cloe was starving, as she hadn't eaten when i had my "snack" (which was two pieces of quiche)...we ended up at a japanese place...not bad, and i love love loved my virgin strawberry mojito...tasty, and good looking, what more does a girl want?
after lunch (which was at 1600 or so, i guess it wasn't really lunchtime anymore) we headed toward another church...st peter's i think...the inside of the church isn't particularly noteworthy, but you are able to go up the steeple (the signs say the lift runs every 10 minutes, though it actually comes more often than that...it's super old school, not particularly fast and doesn't carry a lot of people) which gives you great views over the city...SUPER WINDY...

close to st peter's is the house of blackheads...back in the day this was where the unmarried foreign merchants used to live...part of it is now one of several tourist information centers, and another part is a museum...we only visited the tourist information centre...a nifty looking building...since the weather wasn't great, there weren't many people out, so i was able to take a few photos w/out anyone in them...yahoo...except when cloe was running around, doing her best to stay in range of my lens...she knows i'd much rather have photos without anyone in them, and she was just in that sort of mood...oddly enough, i didn't care...normally that would've annoyed me...hee hee...

next door to the house of blackheads is the latvian museum of occupation...the only one like it in the world...we arrived at 1700, which is when it closed, so we decided to come back another day...from there we checked out at least two more souvenir shops...from those shops to another cafe, i had another "snack"...a lovely piece of cake:)...across the street from this cafe was a hair salon...normally i don't pay any attention to these places while traveling, but my hair had become really long, and rather disgusting at the ends...it was time for a haircut, so i set up an appointment for the next day...i'd been meaning to do it in kyiv, but i was concerned about the language barrier...in riga there didn't seem to be any barrier at all...

we walked back in the direction of the platz near our japanese restaurant, as we wanted to see another cathedral...go figure we arrived just after it had closed for the day...again, we took note of the opening hours and vowed to come back the next day...
at that point it was still yucky, and we didn't have any more ways of killing time...not that either of us was particularly hungry, but we figured it was a good idea to have dinner...i'd seen a branch of an american chain restaurant, and cloe wasn't against it...she got to check off an item on her to-do list: try balsams, the local liquer...she didn't like it, at all...hee hee...sometimes i'm glad i can't drink, otherwise i know i would've tried it as well...
not long after we finished eating, many of the lights in the city went out...riga took part in "earth hour" (as i think it's called) when cities around the globe turn off as many lights as possible, for environmental reasons...i wanted to see the house of blackheads at night, which meant we had to wait an hour for the lights to come back on...fortunately, that was easy to do at this restaurant...

the lights came back on at 2130, we saw the nightsights, and got back to the hotel...asleep around 2300, woo hoo!!
the next morning dawned a whole lot nicer...blue skies!! not that we got out of the room any faster, but both of us were a bit more eager to be outside...sunshine does that:)
we started by heading toward the russian orthodox cathedral...sure, we live in a country that has such buildings on every block, but i still love seeing them...the inside wasn't as impressive as i've seen previously, but the outside was different, which was fun...the church was right next to a small park, with a statue...i don't remember the name of who the statue represented (it started with an R i think?) but we took the opportunity to take a couple photos together...when there are only two people traveling, most photos have only one or the other in them, we wanted both...gotta love time delayed photos:)...

because the weather was so much nicer, we ended up retaking a number of the photos we'd taken the day before...blue skies are so much prettier than white/grey skies...
we finally made it to the museum, yay!! i don't know when it was established, i suppose i could look it up...it's a pretty intense museum, there is a lot of information, both written and visual...they've done a great job with setting up exhibits about the various times during the 20th century when latvia was occupied...by both the germans and the USSR...until i walked through this museum, i didn't know that the US was one of a few countries that didn't always recognize latvia being a republic of the USSR...there was a lot of written information, i would've loved to have the time to read all of it...i was able to see a lot, but not everything, because i had to boogie over to the hair salon...
yay for getting my hair cut!! i love the head massage, and my hair looks soooooo much better without all the split ends...afterward i met up with cloe at another coffee shop...from there we walked along the river, cloe loves walking next to water...we saw the statue of the guy who founded riga, according to the myth...not a very impressive statue...after crossing a big street we made our way into an entrance of the central markets...

the central markets are the #1 sight in riga according to lonely planet...4 LARGE buildings with local markets...meat, seafood, fresh produce, dairy, etc...we saw it all...the fish area smelled like...fish...i bought strawberries, just because...there were plenty of people shopping there, so the prices must be reasonable...
speaking of which, the latvian currency is really strong...1 LVL (lat) is equal to $2!! it was easy for me to figure out how much i was spending on everything, just double the number i could see...a euro is about 2/3 of a lat, so it was a bit more difficult for cloe...there aren't that many currencies in the world that are that strong!! seeing as how $1 = 8 ukrainian grivna, the prices in riga were tiny compared to the numbers we're used to seeing in kyiv...

from the markets we walked back into the tourist/city centre area...we knew we wanted to eat before heading to the airport...nothing special...
from there we found where to catch the bus to the airport...the frustrating thing is that there are two prices for that bus...if you buy the ticket ahead of time, it's .5LVL...if you buy it on the bus it is .7LVL...it's not a big difference, but why would anyone want to pay more...we found a machine where you can buy the tickets, but it wouldn't take money! it would only take cards (as in credit cards) which we didn't want to do for a single bus ride...oh well...the ride to the airport was easy, as was getting our boarding passes, and going through customs...again cloe sped through the line, since she is an EU citizen...argh! i would love to be an EU citizen...

we arrived in kyiv on time, took a bus into the city, then the metro, then walked back to our flat...another lovely weekend exploring somewhere new:)