Simferopol

Today Eugene took me all over Simferopol. We went to his parents' apartment which was in a tall building on a hill. The rooftop offered a wonderful view of the city. I discovered that I was in a valley. Here are some of the rooftop pictures.



Simferopol is very different from Canadian cities, but I like it. I took the bus (called a muh-shoot-ka) (see below), which costs 2 hyrivnas ($.25). On the buses there is no machine to collect your money, instead you hand it directly to the driver. But, it is very important that you get on the bus right away because they are always in a rush to get to the next stop. You get on, sit down and then pass your bus fare to the person in front of you and it eventually it gets passed up to the bus driver. If you need change, you wait and it will be passed back to you. Below is a picture of May, the Australian intern, and I by the muh-shoot-kas.





This is Lenin in one of the many city squares. (above)



This is Crimea's Parliament (above), it's shaped like the Pentagon and no, you can't go inside.



Eugene pointed out this sweet tradition while he was showing me the river. All over the bridge were locks with peoples' names and dates inscribed. Instead of lovers etching their names directly into the metal, they have their names and length of their relationship engraved on a lock and then locked onto the bridge. Then I think they throw the key into the river.



Also by the river were several war monuments. This monument is for WWII veterans. (above) It is tradition that after a wedding ceremony and before the reception everyone goes to the monument and places flowers by the flame. (below)



Tomorrow I start what I came here to do - work, but only for four hours. I'll be working at the University to promote the event 'Skills Matter'. Skills Matter is a series of lecturers on proper business management and organization that I, and the other interns, will be delivering in a few weeks.

Arrived in Simferopol (finally!)

Wow, Kiev was a mad house. I arrived at 1:30pm. At the airport hardly anyone spoke English, but the signs were in English which was helpful. I managed to get through passport check and customs and get my baggage. Then I had to find where to catch my flight to Simferopol. I ran around the airport looking for 'terrrmeenal A'. Finally I gave up trying to find it myself and threw on a pout and deer eye face. Almost instantly two Ukrainian men asked me where I'm was going, and showed me how to get to terminal A. They also carried my luggage down a flight of stairs. I had no idea what they were saying, but I really appreciated their help.

After I made it to terminal A (see above), which was in a completely different building and I had to go outside to get to it, they told me that my flight had been delayed until 5:30pm. Then they told me it had been canceled and I would have to wait until 7:20pm. I started frantically searching for a computer with internet. I ran around the airport pushing a cart that had about three times more luggage than anybody else' and asked random people "internet?internet?" while air typing. Eventually I found an internet cafe and emailed Olia (my contact) to tell her my flight had been delayed. I then returned to terminal A only to find that my flight was boarding! I was gone for twenty minutes! But I was grateful I was going to leave soon. I checked my bags and found out one was over the national 40lbs. limit. It cost me 80 hyrivnas ($10). Then I got on a bus (see below) which took us out to the tar mat and I walked up some stairs to board the plane. Yeah!

Finally I arrived in Simferopol and there were five people waiting for me. :) And one of them had a car! Ukrainians drive fast and don’t wear seat belts. We drove into town to Eugene's apartment and that's where I'm staying for two weeks until all the interns arrive and then we'll share an apartment. Eugene (see below) is very sweet, so is his apartment. He went out and bought a little Ukrainian cake for everyone to share and made tea. He’s a computer programmer.

It’s more colourful here than I thought it would be. The buildings are a little…scruffy, but many of them are painted pink, blue, yellow which gives them a quaint look. It smells like unfiltered cigarettes and ocean, though there is not nearly as much smoking as I anticipated. There are designated areas for smoking and smoking indoors seems to be frowned upon. However, I was puzzled with all the little fires in the agricultural areas. I think this adds to the smoke smell, which is actually quite tolerable, kind of like camping. But these fields, some of them looked as though they were slowly burning crops.

Another thing that stuck out for me is that no one wears sneakers/runners/cross-trainers. All the women wear very, very high stilettos and the men wear dress shoes or fancy runners. I brought my lululemons, but I don’t think I’ll be wearing them. I stuck out enough in my UVic sweater as it was.

All in all, I think I’ll be well taken care of during my stay here.