South of Odessa

It's been awhile since I've blogged.  Honestly, not all that much is going on right now.

It's mainly me sitting and writing for a game I've mentioned several times.  If you want to hear it check out anchor.fm/ataw

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I logged on to my blog and discovered a forgotten one from a few months ago that was never published!

Since then, I went back to England and now I am (again) in Romania.

So - here is what I found in my drafts!


SOUTH OF ODESSA

I'm in a decent one bedroom apartment.  It is in a 'beehive' of a neighborhood - it's almost 'cyberpunk' with each building being over twenty stories tall and packed with people.

For a single guy, it feels a bit small but super affordable at I think $400 per month including all utilities.  For a family, this would be a 'punch people in the face' nightmare.

There are a surprising number of families here.

Although the neighborhood is OK and there is one delivery service ("Smile" delivery service) which reliably brings me my food, honestly there is nothing interesting at all in this part of the country.  Next time I come to Ukraine, I want to stay within a kilometer of the tourist area.  Give me something interesting to look at.  Plus, they have a much better food delivery service ("Glovo") for those who are in the town center.


WEATHER

Due to my weather thing not switching from Poland to Ukraine, I found that the weather in Ukraine during that period was much better than in Poland.






WARTS

Had two warts removed. 3392 UAH aka 126 USD aka 112 EUR. (This includes testing and such which is standard when getting a tumor removed.)

Seems cheaper than prices I've seen in the UK.

The older I get, the grosser I get. This is why young children don't want to get 'smootched' by grandparents. Old and gross.

Not that I have any grandchildren.

It took longer using google translate to communicate stuff than the actual procedure took.

Picked up some cream and anti bacterial pills ($6) and can't go for my normal walk today. No shower allowed today.

Show me other travel blogs that go into this sort of detail and I will show you some disgusting travel blogs!

Poland and the fumbled research roll

Before I started traveling, I watched a LOT of stuff on traveling.  You know what always bothered me about the professional travelers?

They never fucked up completely.  A bone headed jarringly stupid thing. 

At least none they'd admit to on their slick sites and such.

That's where I am different. 

A lot of people out there think "Oh, I can't travel - it's hard".  After reading this, you'll say "If HE can do it..."   Actually, you might be thinking "How is he still alive?"

And that is true.  Both parts.  You too can travel if you choose to and yes, at the time of this writing I am still alive.  (If found to be dead, please drink some alcohol and 'cheers' my bloated corpse.)


So here's what happened.


Before coming to Poland, I'd booked a place for a three day stay.  Figured I could stay there, scope out the city and then - after I'd figured stuff out a bit - more to a better place.

Unfortunately, I didn't check the small box stating that my building had to have an elevator in it. 

It was up on the fourth or fifth (or higher?) floor.  And it was those kind of stairs that go all the way around in a box due to the high ceilings.

Had the night porter not come down when I was dying on the second floor, grabbed my bag and humped it up to the top, I'd have turned around, gone and gotten a hotel (any hotel) and stayed there instead.

As it was, I barely made it to the top of how ever many flights of stairs and took two breaks doing it.

So now I've got a problem. 

A different problem than being fat and hideously out of shape I mean.

I'd not eaten all day and it was night time.

Working with the night porter (whose English was limited) I got a pizza and two liter of soda delivered.  When they came they weren't exactly what I wanted but close enough.  I knew that once I went down those stairs there was no more going up them.


The next day, I had one more piece of the pizza and did my best to do some research for a better place to stay.

Found a place on Airbnb.  Checked the map of Krakow (where I was) and it looked fine.

Had to pay the entire price up front. 

Since the crazy time known as 'May Day' - May first - seems to be a thing here as well I decided to book a place from today (7 Apr) till 7 May.  That way, hopefully everyone who was clogging up the hotels with wanting to be on holiday would have buggered off by then and returned 'from whence they came'.

Since it was AirBnB, you have to pay the whole thing up front (about $1200) and their draconian return policy says that if you cancel, you don't get the first month back.  Ie, the whole thing.

Contact an Uber, have him take me there.

When we get there, rather than the nifty hotel I was expecting, it was a house.  A house with an unlocked and easy to open front door I discovered when I knocked.  I quickly closed it again because I didn't want them to think some fat foreigner was there to steal their food.

Which was tempting, I admit.

It was time to call the number.

My uber driver was happy to do that - and discovered...

They were in a different town.

Three plus hours away different town.

WTF.

Somehow, my search for places in Krakow had given me results in Wroclaw.


So now, I have a choice. 

I can either get on the phone with AirBnB and argue against their draconian refunds policies for an unknown amount of time or say 'fuck it' and go to Wroclaw.

After finding out the taxi driver wanted to charge me about $100 to get there, I decided to take the train.  Second class was $11, first class was $22.

Decided to take first class because nothing else was going right today and I wanted to have at least one nice thing.

Met a nice Polish lady who had been living in the UK for 15 years working for British Airways.  Had a two hour conversation with her.  Also met a nice yoga instructor lady but she got kicked out because she was suppose to be in second class.  Pity.

So now, I am in Wroclaw.


The apartment isn't bad.  Questionable if it is worth $1200 per month or not but it's comfortable and very close to the city center.

More later!

SIN CITY

SIN CITY

These are some notes I discovered in my blogger that were ready to go.  I'm currently back in England.



LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO STAY IN VEGAS

I've had an easier time getting a long term place to stay in countries where they didn't speak English, google translate had thrown up it's hands in frustration and I didn't speak the local lingo.

Las Vegas is a mutherfucker of a town.

The whole thing is set up for 'drop off your money and get the fuck out'.

I walked for about 10KM (and rode a bus for 2KM) today and went around talking to various locals and such.  Apparently, it is impossible to get the same hotel room for more than 28 days.  The fifth or sixth human I asked why finally had an answer something about 'residency' - though they seemed a bit unclear about what exactly.

So I'm still thrashing around.

Unlike the literal rest of the world, Vegas fucks with it's price.  They'll put it at say $22.  A wonderful price.  But then you must pay 'taxes' and 'resort fees' which bring it up to $80 per night.  I feel like someone should be getting a kicking for that.

I went down Fremont street to the west, toward the older parts of town outside of the 'Fremont street experience' with it's covered street and such.  The bones of old, closed motels littered the place.  Lots of cages around them like they have been trapped.

They have a couple chains for weekly/monthly rentals which seem to ignore their strange 'residency' rules but you have to go buy your own sheets and towels, pots and pans for those.  It's very fucking odd.  Even then, for a month you'll be paying something like $1000 and the buildings are run down, depressing and look like good places for drug deals and noise.

If I didn't already buy my plane ticket back to the UK for mid January I'd be trying to get to Portugal or something now.

I'm going to look more into AirBnB.  I'd initially dismissed it because it looked expensive at $1200 per month or some shit but now I'm starting to think for this soggy shit sandwich it might be the best I'm going to do.

I have literally shown up in towns where (for example Arabic or Thai were the language), communicated, paid and gotten what I wanted in an hour.  Wandered around talking to people for about eight hours today and said "This is fucking hard."

It's looking very much like it will end up becoming an AirBNB thing which does make me a bit nervous simply because I have to commit to living somewhere for 40 days without seeing it.

Because I'm great at self sabotage, I don't have enough money in my Paypal account (Paypal - the condom for your bank account!) to get the room yet.  So I am transferring money over which should take a few days.  So I need to wait for a few days before I can book a place.  Bit nervous simply because I am dealing with two of the biggest holidays in the USA in here and I want to get the place booked and locked down as quickly as possible.  Lots of places want to raise their rates for those two days.

Eventually, I bit the bullet and used my bank CC to book in.  Though I've had AirBNB set up for a couple years, this is the first time I've actually used it.  We'll see how it works.

In a bit of over the top weirdness, the street the place I will be staying at is ON NAPELS DRIVE.

How is that for coincidence?

I'm not taking it as a sign or anything (grow up) but I will say it it is quite fucking odd.



THE HOMELESS IN LV

Whereas California seems to be attempting to take care of their homeless in Las Vegas this does not seem to be the case.  The homeless here are much more demanding, invasive, dirty, smelly and crazy.  And super pervasive. 

Disclaimer:  Logan doesn't have answers to this, is only making observations.



RANDOM ENCOUNTERS

Super weird shit here.

First - if you've heard stories that 'the food in Vegas is great' (or even 'good') I have yet to find it.  [Near the end of my trip I'm still not impressed.]

Second - they have a weird thing in Vegas where people who sell compression socks are licensed to do so.  "We're basically like pharmacists" the lady who went through what must have been a grueling sock fitting program told me.  "How much do your over the counter compression socks cost?" I asked.  "They start at $17."  Great thinks I.  Amazon costs $19 with free shipping.  If I can buy them here at the end of my 7KM walk, super.  After the sock fitting I was told $46.50."   [Ended up getting them from Amazon, an eight pack was half the price of what I was quoted.  Fuck them.]

See ya!

At night, I go out to eat.  I'm thinking salad.  Look around, see a Mexican place that sells 'taco salad'.  Close enough.

I have to remind the guy I want lettuce on my taco salad because that's how I'm justifying the whole thing.  The guy who made me look a bit anorexic looked at me like I was crazy and put on garnish level.  I joked around with him and got him to put on some more which he thought was funny.

" 'Merica!"



THANKSGIVING DAY TURKEY

Videos of Carolyn and Michael making the most excellent deep fried turkey.  This is the first time I've ever had it.

I helped with a bit of narration.

https://youtu.be/9moR0zsr320

https://youtu.be/hnXC1EQfJPU

https://youtu.be/aC8Rlz3JxL4



OLD STORY (From Egypt)

A buddy asked for my "I was nearly killed by a firing squad once" story.  Since I typed it out, figured I'd put it in here as well in case you'd missed it:

It happened when I went from Israel to Egypt. I had the Israeli's 'stamp a different piece of paper' because once your passport gets an Israel stamp in it, it's pretty much worthless. I went in through the Sinai and the Egyptians are super paranoid about 'Egyptian spies'.

I took some small bus that dropped me off in the middle of a town after dark. There was only one light on in the town (no idea where I was but it was a small town) near a well. I was standing there wondering "Ok, what happens now?"

A truckload of Egyptian soldiers did the big squeal pull up and began offloading a bunch of guys out of the back. They formed up into a nice line with their weapons.

I honestly thought I was going to die by firing squad right then and there against the fucking well. My only hope was that one of the ricochets would knock out the light and slightly inconvenience the troops for a couple of minutes.

The officer came out and spoke to me in Arabic. I greeted him in very polite Arabic then broke into the crazy photographer's lines from "Apocalypse Now" movie. "I'm an American!" I said enthusiastically, not knowing if it would make it better or worse.

After a couple minutes of making nice with them - allowing them to closely examine my passport which had not one but two Egyptian entry stamps (I fought for and got the full month one instead of the 'stay in the Sinai you filthy Jew and get out in two weeks one - they really hate the Israels there but like their money apparently), the soldiers and second in command got into the back, I rode shotgun and they took me to the fanciest hotel in town. From there, I got a taxi to one I could afford.

I still have no idea which town that was in.



WHY DON'T YOU POST AS OFTEN?

There are two reasons for this.

First, I am traveling a lot slower.  England has become a base for me.  I go there, stay for three months and run my game (links below) then go explore some other country or place.  Then, I return to England.  This means that there is a lot less stuff to report, especially when I am in England.

Second, I've seen and done enough different stuff that I am not running into a lot of new situations to learn how to travel and so on.   Although there are still many other countries that I could go to, I've hit most of the ones that I can afford or want to go to.

I'm only posting the stuff I find interesting. 



WHAT GAME?

Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC2TZucbqPpz9Bx8rz57Wbmg/playlists (If you'd like to watch)
Podcast: anchor.fm/ataw (If you'd like to listen)