dad came to visit me! the last family i saw was in september, when cousin bryn came to visit...before that, i saw mom and sister back last may...as far as my family goes, that's seeing a lot of people in a short amount of time:) (i realize this is not the norm in many american families)
dad arrived friday afternoon, minus one suitcase...not great, but oh well...apparently the suitcase didn't make the connection in warsaw, though dad did...we took the bus back to the city centre, then the metro out to my flat...after hanging out for a while, we went back into town, to the train station...a couple weeks earlier i'd bought train tickets for us to go to donetsk...
donetsk is a big city in the eastern half of ukraine...it's a 'man made city' in that it wasn't a naturally occuring city...that is, there isn't a ginormous body of water where people naturally congregated yonks ago...in fact, the city is only about 150 yrs old...it's not a city with heaps of culture, or history, or well known nightlife...it's a working city...former names of the city have been stalin, stalino, and yuzovka...the city was founded (in 1869) by a welshman, john hughes...(yuzovka is the russian/ukrainian equivalent of 'hughesville')...he started a few coal mines, and a steel plant...those are the industries on which the city still relies today...donetsk is the hometown of ukraine's richest man, and home to one of the powerhouse football teams in the country...donetsk is one of the host cities for UEFA's EURO2012...
even though lonely planet only has about 4 pages dedicated to the city, we figured there must be something going on...when dad suggested the city as a place to visit (in our family, we like to go to places we haven't seen previously, we rarely repeat) i thought "why not?"...(since living with cloe, that thought was more likely 'pourquoi pas' but that's beside the point)...i checked booking.com for a place to stay, and get this, i found EVA hotel!!! how awesome is that??? it was more expensive than some other places to stay, but who am i to turn down staying at a place clearly named after me? hee hee...(on a side note, i love finding places and products around the world that share my name...i've got an entire album on facebook dedicated to them)...we were only going to be in donetsk one night (taking night trains either way) so one night in a slightly more expensive hotel didn't seem unreasonable...eva hotel wasn't busy...at all...in fact, the only other people we saw during our stay there were the front desk people...we didn't even see housekeepers, though i'm sure they were there...when does that hotel ever get busy?
our train arrived at the newly renovated train station, and it was easy to find the bus we needed to get into the city directly in front of the station...since i'm a map geek, and always love to know where i am, i had the book open to the city map, and paid attention to street signs and landmarks in an effort to figure out where the bus was taking us...though we were hot, it was easy to figure out when to get off the bus, and where to go from there...not surprisingly, the lonely planet map wasn't entirely accurate, but it wasn't too far off...checking into the hotel was easy, and almost immediately i started taking photos of all the hotel products that had my name on them...AWESOME!!!
i'd read the book ahead of time and decided i wanted to see as much as i could of what was listed...(3 or 4 sights i think?)...dad and i started by figuring out where to eat...lunch was good...then we started walking up the main boulevard, back toward the train station...since i tend to be fascinated by churches, we stopped in the church we passed, it seemed to be still under construction...the outside was finished, but the inside most certainly was not...plastic covering over most of the relics and icons inside...
most of what was listed to see was in one spot in the city...donbass arena, a statue of lenin, a park, and a war memorial...the park surrounds the arena, and the fan zone was already being set up in anticipation of the coming event...we wandered and took photos...in the gift store dad bought us both the official team shirt so we'd be prepared when the ukrainian team played...
during that one afternoon of walking and moseying, we saw everything listed in the guidebook...(donetsk really isn't the place to be for tourists)...on the way back to the hotel we found a milkbar type of cafeteria...dinner was early, so was bedtime...
the next morning we decided we wanted to go to soledar...we wanted to see the salt mine near the town...we were able to figure out how to get to soledar (a combination of bus, marshutka, etc) but once in soldar, we had no idea where to go...a couple ladies tried to help us, but i'm not sure they understood where exactly we wanted to go, and we only sortof understood what they told us about where to go...that being said, it was a great example of ukrainian hospitality...total strangers reaching out to ask what we wanted, and trying to help us get somewhere...it took us longer to get to soledar than expected, and once we got to the town we figured we probably didn't have time for a real tour of the salt mine if we wanted to get back to donetsk in time to make our train that evening...note to self, next time i try to do this particular day trip, get up earlier and go with a russian speaker...
after soledar, getting back to donetsk was easy, and quicker than the way out...another dinner at the milkbar cafeteria, then the local bus back up to the train station...the train got us back to kyiv in plenty of time for a mcdo breakfast, and setting dad up for a morning of computer work in mccafe...
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