DAVID HASSELHOFF

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LAST THOUGHTS OF SEVASTOPOL

The last night before I left, I was drinking with the folks there including Christopher and Ledlde and the three German ladies Bettina, karina and Jana.

In honor of the German ladies, we were drinking toasts to David Hasselhoff. They absolutely love him. Karina sang part of a David Hasselhoff song as well as showing us him on her iPad. I think it may automatically take you to 'the Hoff' if left idle for long enough.



TRAVEL TO SIMFEROPOL

If you are wanting to go into or leave the Crimea, you will be going through this city. There isn't much to see there but it is the major transportation hub of the Crimea. When I was heading from Simferopol to Sevastopol the first time, I took something the locals call (in Russian) and 'electric train'. It took about two hours and cost 8 UAH. This time, I decided to take a small bus.

The small bus holds roughly ten people. They can be noisy, hot and uncomfortable but the 'electric train' had already taken off so what the hell. I asked the guy how much it would be and he said 200 UAH. When I started to laugh and walk away, he quickly dropped to the normal rate of 50 UAH. Note, it is important to find out what the normal rate is before negotiating! Even if the local people rate was 40 UAH, a 10 UAH 'rich foreigner' tax isn't really excessive so I said 'what the hell' and went for it.

Including myself and the driver, there were only five people on board and two were dropped off a short way out of town near a monastery. I was riding shotgun. I have no idea how they make any money at this. After agreeing to the cost, you are led to the vehicle and the driver goes off to find more people who want to ride in it. He keeps the rest of the passengers waiting but he can't keep them waiting too long or they'll wander off.

The journey was swift and relatively comfortable. The good thing is that we were doing between 100 KM/hr and 140 KM/hr. The bad thing is that it was on roads often a lane and a half wide with traffic going both ways. People passed in no passing zones, going up hills, around corners and pretty much any time they had an urge to do so. I am often surprised that the countryside of central and eastern European countries isn't littered with the bodies and charred wreckage of people not fast enough to dodge vehicles of people driven like monkeys on crack.



ON THE TRAIN

In my overnight sleeper car was a mom and her ten year old son. I never learned her name but his name was Nikita. This was an easy name for me to remember because of one of my favorite movies. But, here it is a boy's name. Initially, he didn't speak any English but I am Logan and playing cards are a great icebreaker. We ended up playing cards together for hours. He was pleased to tell me he will be eleven next month. He was a sharp (smart) and funny kid. It helped eat up the miles for both of us and make the trip less dull.



ODESSA

So, I'm back in Odessa and all is well. It is nice to see Sylvia (best cook of Polish food in Europe), Mark (who also works at the TIU hostel) and the new faces here.

While I'm here, I think I should buy a book or two because three days on a boat with no internet may drive me to stab people, not sure. It's a piece of advice Adam gave me and it sounds pretty reasonable.

PREEMPTIVE CONSIDERATION

WHERE ARE THE PICTURES?

If you are new (or haven't been paying attention) be sure to click on the titles of the blogs to get taken to the photobucket of where ever I am.

Also, if you go here, you can see a column down on the right - search that for various country pictures you may have missed.



THE PLAN

Currently, I am going to be staying in Sevastopol until Saturday then I will return to Odessa. No boats appear to leave from the harbor in Sevastopol any more... When I am in Odessa, I will cool my heals for a couple days. On Tuesday, I will purchase a ticket (you can't do it before due to public holiday) and on Wednesday I will be on a boat for the real recently war torn, Russia invaded Georgia. The boat ride across the Black Sea should take about three days. I'm planning on staying there for three months, assuming I can live cheaply. I've heard it is about the cheapest place I can live and I need to work on saving some money. We'll see how I do on that.

It's annoying to me - and it will be to everyone else I contacted on Couch Surfing that I'm going to have to delay my plans on getting to Istanbul. The current plan is less nifty for right now but I think makes sense financially. I need to try to recoup some of the funds that got blasted through in Western Europe.

Before I leave this country, I need to get the last of my Ukrainian money changed into Euros because I suspect that in other countries, Ukrainian money will be as welcomed as a two tone fart during a formal dinner.

I also need to get a English-Georgian phase book. I suspect I will have to wait till I get to Georgia to find this.



GMO IS GOOD!

This nifty picture brought to you by Genetically Modified Organisms. And just remember, that probably includes you...



CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE FORMER EAST GERMANY AREA

I was talking to three nice ladies from Germany who were telling me about the current state of affairs there.

They are in this picture, on the left. From left to right, Karina, Jana, Bettina. (The couple pictured on the right are Lelde and Kristfan who I was fortunate enough to spend the day with at the Khan's palace). I was told in the 'former East Germany' area the population is 'becoming older' because the young folks are going west to get higher paying jobs. Jobs in the east pay less than the same job in the west. Afterward, the conversation moved to such eclectic topics as 'atomic mushrooms' and 'atomic cherry'.



TRAVELER'S LORE

Adam was kind enough to give me some good tips for the type of travel I am doing

Be aware of the people around you. If cleaning is going on in another part of the house, at least ask if they would like you to move. If it's a couch surfing thing (as opposed to a hostel), volunteer to help.

Respect the space. A lot of areas - especially in Europe - seem (to me, anyway) to be pretty confined. If people are needing to eat, at least offer to move your stuff you have spread out, rather than making them work around it.

Few people will actually ask you to move - but they will stew about it.

Leave a small footprint.

Think about how you're impacting the situation. Do little things like put shoes where less people will have to smell them, hide your underwear and things that nobody wants to see.

Be preemptively considerate.

Good advice for getting along with people - especially if they are kind enough to let me stay at their home for a time.



COSTS

Train ticket from the train hub (1-2 hours away from where I am) back to Odessa - 111 UAH.



THIS IS UKRAINE!

So I am sitting in TIU Front Page Hostel in Sevastopol (TIU means 'this is Ukraine', in case you didn't make the connection) and the electricity blew. It took awhile but Adam and I (mostly Adam - but I was helping, damnit!) tracked down the problem. If you are an electrician, check out these lovely jury rigged wires - under the sink - directly under dripping water.

This is the general view of what it looked like though you can't see all of the water and moisture.


You see the gray pipe in the upper left? That is the GAS. I'm not kidding. Also, keep in mind that these pictures were taken after various explosive chemicals were removed from under the sink.


This brown piece of shit with weird fluff (read as 'tinder') stuck to it? Hand made by someone who (according to Adam) didn't have a clue what they were doing.


Keep in mind that getting an electrician in Ukraine is seen as a wasteful, needless expense. Even if it means wiring your house to act like a bomb. This sort of thing helps make Ukraine the 'adventure destination' it is today!

Adam told me that calling someone and asking them to fix it would result in nothing but wasting time. Plus, he could do a better job - and he certainly cared more about the result than they would have. So he patched it up as best he could...

And this is the fixed version. He added a multi-outlet that has it's own fuse.


Unfortunately, it continued to pop the fuse. Trial and error showed the guilty culprit to be - the hot water heater. Yes, delicious morning showers will be a thing of the past until (and unless) the land lady comes out to get it fixed somehow.

We'll see what happens.



RUB IT IN, GOD

For the second time in less than a week, more marching bands have gone by where I am staying. Not just one, but many. Sadly, they don't seem to do them well in this town. They haven't discovered the 'joy of floats'. They just have some guys with instruments and someone leading them with a stick playing military music. Even the small children who ran out to see what was up ran back in from being bored with the plethora of marching bands to go back to playing with sticks in the dirt.

That's really a big hint - if small kids don't like your marching band, load back up in the truck and get the heck out of there, you have failed.

DEATH FUCK

Kenny: [Mufffled] Autoerotic asphyxiation? What's that?
Researcher: [Researcher] I don't want to go into too much detail, but you choke yourself with a belt around your neck while masturbating dressed up like Batman or something and you pass out from lack of air and apparently it makes your orgasms super awesome.
Kenny: [Muffled] Really?
Butters: Oh no. I don't wanna have to buy a Batman costume!



TUESDAY

I'm really starting to see the appeal for me of big, busy hostels opposed to small quiet ones. I'm sitting around in Sevastopol TIU hostel and pretty bored. In Odessa, there were more people to hang out with and chat to. I have become a social fucking butterfly. A fairly obscene one. I had come to Sevastopol mainly to get a boat to Istanbul but also to hang out with Adam and Gary. In the next couple of days, I'm going to be going to see some tourist shit with Gary. That should be interesting.

The main tourist shit in Sevastopol includes the big painting thing of the Crimean war - did that - as well as a beach, some Greek ruins and two 'get on the bus and go there' day excursions. One is Bakhchisaray (3 hours each way by bus - ug) and the other is Balaklava (an hour or so each way). Naturally, they also have a good sized market in Sevastopol but markets are a lot less cool when (aside from Pilot G7 pens) you really don't have stuff you need to buy. A note on the markets - the people in many of the former USSR countries have embraced capitalism but really don't seem to 'get it'. You will come across a big section of people all selling the same shit at the same price. Why? They want to hang out with their friends and visit. And their friends all sell the same shit. It would probably be better if the people selling say, cold drinks, distributed themselves throughout the area but - they don't seem to really 'get it'.

So, that's what they have here.

I am planning on doing some mildly illegal stuff while I'm here - mainly running around without my passport (or anything really except enough money to buy some food or sodas) when I go to the beach. Even if I'm with others, I really am not happy leaving my bag of shit on the beach while I frolic in the water. Since what I do probably can't be considered 'swimming' I'm going with 'frolic'.

I've got to say that Gary's offer of going and renting his place in Thailand is pretty damned tempting. I know I'm going to end up in Asia eventually, due to the cost of things and I'd like to stick about Europe for a bit longer. Plus, I'd still like to go to India. But staying in a town whose claim to fame is as a 'sex tourism' spot does have a certain...er...academic interest.

See 'Death Sex' below.

On a different note, Adam noted one of the things I seem to enjoy most is just sitting around talking to people. Hence, I can go to cheap areas and do that...



WAVING

This is a nice story. Thanks to Russ B. from facebook for bringing it to my attention.



DEATH FUCK

Some people bungee jump, some go for death sports. There is a new sport - Death Sex! Find the nastiest, skankiest whore you can with needle marks on her arms and have unprotected sex with her. If you don't catch AID's and die, you win that round. This new sport was come up with by Adam at the hostel.



UKRAINE BUILDINGS

I was wondering who was responsible for fixing the buildings themselves since nobody technically owns the buildings apartments are in. Adam said the Ukrainian government is technically suppose to fix them. Since it is the government, it takes years. In the building the hostel in Odessa is in, they had a leak for three years before the government got around to fixing it. Amazing. That would explain why I saw buildings in Odessa where the roof on the third floor had literally collapsed - but people were still living in the first and second floors.



AMERICANS ABROAD

From people I've talked to (including Gary and Adam) I've found that in general, Americans seem to fit into one of four categories:

Oldsters: These are people on their 'sunset' or 'saga' tours or cruises. They are trying to see the world before death claims their old, wrinkled asses.

College age: These are people who are either going to be starting college soon, are currently in college (a gap year, perhaps) or have just completed college.

Boorish: These are sometimes the kind of creepy couples that have matching track suits - and have their kids wear the same shit. They always think everything should be the same as in America. 'Why isn't this this other way? It is in America!' and so on. "Why don't people speak the same dialect/speed of English as I do?" They don't slow down or alter their speech for foreigners struggling to understand.

Political self exiles: These are the conspiracy theorists who have gotten out of the USA because they have some weird beliefs about it. One world government, Obama's birth certificate, aliens among us, whatever. These are some strange fuckers who (if you are unfortunate enough to get them started) never stop trying to fill your head with shit. I've met some already... They are as messed up as the road warrior queef.

PIE JOUST

TRAWLING

I was talking to a guy (Steve) in a hostel in Sevastopol Ukraine. I had mentioned that the way some of the women I've seen dress (all over the world) is like 'trawling'. With all of the rapists, perverts etc that are out there, the way that some of these women dress concerns me. Steve said that the women dress this way 'for themselves' - to 'feel better about themselves'. I said that's true but if I strapped $100 bills to myself to wander around to 'feel better' about myself, what sort of idiot would I be?



AMERICAN CUSTOMS

From Chris

Lawn/yard/garage sales. George Carlin talked about 'stuff'.

From Pete

The only USA custom I can think of is Thanks Giving. There is also that custom/tradition of calling a "sporting" event world championship or world series & only have people in the USA participate :P



LOGAN'S PHILOSOPHY ON PARENTING

Some kid was being a brat, kicking on a sign and such. The father came up behind him, grabbed him and gave him one measured swat on the backside. The kid cried, the bad behavior ended and the family moved on. People say to me "Logan, you're not a parent, you don't understand blah blah blah..." This condescending attitude omits two facts - first, I was a kid and know it from the 'swat on the ass school'. Second, I see the results of the pussified 'lets talk to the kid and give him a time out'. The result is you get bad, out of control, bratty and annoying children that would be put down (along with the parents) in any civilized country. I'm a big fan of the measured 'swat on the backside' to keep the little monsters in line. It seems to raise better people. Where there are bad kids, I blame the parents for not being the kind of people that are willing to admit defeat, kill the kid and start over.



ABOUT LAST NIGHT

Shawn, Adam (the huge guy who owns this hostel I am in as well) and I. Three bottles of vodka. Good people, good conversation. Heavy drinking. The good stuff (starts with an 'X' but it's in Cyrillic so who knows what the fuck it is) after it's been in the freezer till it gets thick is dangerously good. The last thing we had is some filthy shit with a pepper in it. The pepper fell into my glass, naturally I had to eat it. Fortunately, I was way too drunk to taste it or care. I've noticed that in Ukraine, putting away partially full bottles of alcohol isn't really acceptable. I think that may be a hold over of a Russian tradition.

Needless to say, I slept well that night.



RUSSIAN VOCABULARY

"Peh - Joust" (remember it as 'pie joust' - it sticks better) means 'you're welcome'. Or, if we say it in American English, 'you're welcome, bitch'. I have been teaching American English to a whole lot of mutherfuckers here and they really seem to enjoy it.



SHITTY WITHOUT, NICE WITHIN

Adam (the huge hostel owner guy) was explaining to me why the buildings in the Ukraine look like shit on the outside. It is because they have no 'home owners association'. They just recently started selling off all of the previously state owned homes to people. Nobody thought ahead to the common areas. Hence, the common areas usually look like war zones and the insides often look nice. Planning fail.



CURRENT PLAN

Essentially, I want to get to somewhere to lie low and recharge my finances. Western Turkey is pretty pricey so I'm going to get there then eventually to Georgia. If I don't mind Georgia, I can lie low there for awhile. Hell, if I can live cheaply enough there, I might lie low whether I like it or not. If I absolutely hate it, I'll go to Gary's house in Thailand and rent it from him till he gets back. Gary is a friend I've made in the hostels here in Ukraine. He's been talking about how cheap and wonderful Thailand is and it has me very tempted - but I'm feeling pulled to Turkey and Georgia right now. We'll have to see if my gut (huge, huge gut) is right on this one.

In talking with Adam, he came up with something interesting. He said that I really don't seem to care too much about the tourist stuff in the various countries - I just enjoy visiting with the natives. Hence, I can go to a cheap country and do that instead of a tourist destination spot during the high season. Like Sevastopol.

I did try to go find out how much a boat (very close here) to Istanbul was today but naturally the office was closed with notices over it saying it had failed a fire inspection and would be closed indefinitely. This translates into 'they failed to bribe the right people and are now out of business'. I will try again tomorrow.

SEVASTOPOL - THE CITY I CAN'T PRONOUNCE

COSTS

Because I had chosen not to bring my $2 pair of flip flops at the start of the journey, I bought a new pair at 80 UAH at the bazaar in Odessa.

From main train station city to Sevastopol by train rather than the death trap buses, 8 UAH.



TEACHIE ENGRISH!

I talked to a lady at the hostel who is teaching English. She gets paid so little that she can't support herself off of the teaching salary. Suckie. In addition, they don't want men teaching because a lot of the very strange men who are here for brides.



ENGLISH CLUB, PART 1

We had gotten invited to an 'English Club' where there were over twenty people who got together to speak English to each other. It was headed up by an overly cheerful English teacher who claimed not to run it - but did. With an iron hand. It was way too structured and lame for sticking around long. It would have been nice to have conversations with smaller groups of these people but they went around the room talking about a pre-prepaired topic. One guy even had printed out a wiki article on it and was going to read the whole thing. This level of lameness caused Henriette to become ill. As a gallant male, it was my job to get her out of there. Especially before she attacked and killed everyone.



ENGLISH CLUB, PART 2

We met up with a good 'English club' that consisted of just four or so people. They would get together to practice English. The people included Bogaan, Dasha, Julia and Ilia. Julia and Ilia hung out with Henriette and I for hours after the meeting had broken up and they told us some interesting things about Ukraine. It was nice meeting and hanging out with everyone.



UKRAINIAN SAYING

"Love is forever, we only change the women."



UKRAINIAN CUSTOM

They have amateur archaeologists looking for the bones of soldiers from World War Two. They find about one hundred ever year. In the United States, they have metal 'dog tags' to ID the soldier's bodies. In the Ukraine, they were made of paper. To further complicate matters, it was thought that if you had this paper tag (I believe they called them 'death tags') with you, you were thought more likely to die. As a result, they only ID 5-10% of the soldiers they find. All soldiers -whether ID'ed or not are then given a proper burial.

They practice Halloween more and more here. [Logan note: Being that this has (in my life time) gone from a kid's holiday to a more grown up 'lets party' holiday, this isn't really surprising.]



WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?

Henriette told me about 'planking'. It falls in to my WTFITS category.



PHILOSOPHY

I was talking to a lady from Siberia and philosophizing on the fact I believe most men are more adventurous than most women. She said that there were many old Russian songs along the same line. They decry women for snagging the men with their good looks. It was good for the women to have the men sitting at home but not so for the men - they crave adventure.



HEADING OUT

I began my journey to Sevastopol, Ukraine via some other major train depot town. The first train I was on had first, second and third classes. I was advised to get the second class ticket so I did. I don't remember how much it cost but it was cheap. Until the train gets going, nothing works. Electricity, air conditioning and all that shit isn't going. When I first got into the car, it was oven hot and vaguely smelled of urine. They have four hard leather platforms in the train arranged like two sets of bunk beds. This arrangement is called a couchette. In addition, there are pads you can put over them. You also get a packet containing two sheets, a pillow case, a pillow (not in pack) and a towel. Under the bottom platform/bed is a metal box that can fit my large rucksack. The guy who is sleeping on top apparently doesn't get anywhere to store his shit. Three other reasons to always get the bottom bunk when you make the train reservation are that it can be slightly bigger, has access to the table and sometimes there is no visible way to climb up to the top one, even for someone in good shape.

Prior to going on this train I was warned repeatedly about train thieves but didn't see any.

I was lucky enough (and she unlucky enough) to share the compartment with a middle aged lady. She spoke some English as well. She even offered to make my bed for me as I puzzled through the unfamiliar set up. I politely refused. As a result, her bed looked better than mine.



WHAT'S IN THE SATCHEL

2 pens (still need to find more)
Fake wallet with a little cash in it
Camera
Russian phrase book (which it's looking like I'll have to hang on all the way to Georgia)
High power LED flashlight - small
USB stick
Playing cards (when I switch locations only, otherwise it stays in the backpack)
Magnifying glass
Compass (lashed to bag)
Bandanna (lashed to the bag - coming in useful as the temperature rises)
Calculator (the same one so many players have used to make god knows how may characters)

The bag itself is starting to look a bit ratty as it's getting heavy daily use. It's pretty tough so I'm hoping it lasts for awhile.

In my opinion, there are two good reasons to keep the bag light - first, if it gets stolen, the only thing of any real value is the camera (about $100). Second, it hurts my back/neck to carry more. I have no idea how women carry big purses.



SEVASTOPOL FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Honestly, it feels a bit empty here. Just as I was writing that sentence, a marching band went by. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be here for or what I'm going to do. My plan is to talk to Adam to see if I can narrow my possibilities of where I should go next.