Cutters

Day 517
I was up early and attempted to shower. Like the day before the water ran out after about 3 minutes. Literally there wasn't anything coming out of the spout. I had washed my hair the day before and tried to get the rest of me in the short time I had today. I felt really gross.

My ipod, camera, and alarm clock all have the time on them. I try to keep them in sync but somehow they all had different times on them. I ended up going with the earliest one and was out of my hotel room by 10 am.

At the bus station the line was horrendous and took forever. You would have thought it was rocket science. How long does it take to state your destination, the date, time and number of people traveling and if you have any luggage? I don't even speak the stupid language and I manage it in under a minute! My NYC attitude came out as well. Two girls who were 3 people in front of me were chatting and didn't notice a middle aged woman and a woman younger than me trying to cut in front of them. Thank goodness one of them spoke just a bit of English and understood me when I said something to them. Everyone was looking at me like I was nuts, but the girls were irritated too and yelled at them. The middle aged woman left right away but the younger one tried to argue that she was only one person. It was one of those things that you could understand even not knowing the language. I shot back that I was only one person as well and that I had been waiting for 40 minutes with a 13 kilo bag on my back and that there was no way in hell that she would be getting in front of me. I may have also added that if she tried I would shove my bag so far up her ass that it would come out of her ears. I said this very fast and I doubt anyone understood me, no one seemed to react to it anyway. The nice girls yelled at her again and she went away. I thanked them and it was soon my turn.

When I was buying my ticket the woman kept asking me things and unlike when I normally give answers she just kept not understanding me. Luckily a man in line behind me translated enough for me to answer correctly. Perhaps she was the reason the line was so long!

The bus ride was only two hours and soon I was back in Simferopl with nothing to do. I headed to the internet cafe but it soon shut down for about an hour. Luckily they let me hang out there so I didn't have to move my stuff. When it started up again I just messed around even though I was meant to work on the blog.

Once on the train a nice man helped me get my bed roll down from the top bunk, I didn't really need the help, but it turned out that he wanted to practice his English. He told me that he was headed to Odessa to have a meeting with his owner, I think he meant boss. After about an hour I told him that I was going to go to sleep.

Around midnight a man got on the train who had the bed opposite me. He actually sounded like a horse when he snored. Needless to say, I didn't sleep so well.

Again

Day 516
I wasn't tired but I couldn't get myself out of bed early enough to go to Yalta for the day. The silence was just too nice.

Anyone who had been reading this blog for some time knows that I don't really care for the beach, especially ones filled with older men in Speedos. I really had no idea what to do with myself. I had come here mostly to say that I had been in this area.

I ended up have a long and yummy traditional Ukrainian meal for lunch and writing a bit. I then went to the internet cafe to waste some time. I also called my mom and chatted for over an hour.

When I could not longer entertain myself online I just went back to my hotel and chilled out with some sparkling local wine and my ipod. I fell asleep quite early the night.

Crimea River

Day 515
The train arrived in Simferopol, the Crimea, at 4:30 am. I had thought that this was the last stop so I had put my bag underneath the bottom bunk. I felt really bad when I had to wake up the nice woman who had made my bed to get my bag out.

I then went and tried to buy my exit train ticket. First I had to wait about 30 minutes for the woman to get off break. When I gave her the city name and dated I wanted she wouldn't sell it to me and went thru some long speech instead. When I didn't understand the bitch just shrugged her shoulders, she couldn't even be bothered to point or give me a window number. Severely irritated I found the information window. The nice woman there walked me to the office I needed, it was actually out of the train station and didn't open until 7 am. I had two hours to kill. I sat in the McDonald's until it opened. I was the second person in line and had my ticket in minutes.

I then had to wait in a rather long but quick moving line for a bus ticket to Sudak, my Crimean destination. While in line a taxi driver tried to convince me that the ticket cost $50 and that if I went with him it would be $40. I laughed in his face. I wasn't in the mood for this. In the end the ticket was just over $3. After another 20 minute wait I was finally on the bus. I was really exhausted and thought that I would be able to sleep. It was just far too bouncy and I stayed awake for the whole 2 hour ride.

It used to be quite normal in smaller towns with limited accommodation options for older women, mostly widow's, to rent out a room or two for a few dollars. I hadn't done this and was looking forward to it and went with the first old woman who approached me. It turned out to be an actual hotel and not a house. I was a bit disappointed, but at least I had my own room for once.

At this point I was so tired that I basically collapsed into bed for a couple of hours. When I came to I was ravenous and went in search of food. The first place I found was a communist style buffet. the line was long but the people were friendly and I ended up with a really good lunch.

I then wandered down to the beach front. It was really like any typical beach town. The whole thing seemed rather corny compared to the American version. Plus, there wasn't anyone selling funnel cakes. There were, however, lots of people selling wine out of barrels. The Crimea used to be the play ground of the Russian Czar's, some pretty good wine comes from here.

I walked until I found a rather nice castle that I was too lazy to walk up the hill to get a closer look at. Instead I screwed around in the Internet cafe for some time before visiting the supermarket for some of that yummy wine and dinner. That evening I didn't get too far into my bottle, I was tired and it knocked me out almost right away