Summer days...

It's hard to believe that the last time I blogged was to write about our "big trip" to Sochi. So much has happened since then I hardly know where to begin! Let me start by saying that the spring semester in Russia ended successfully for us all - finals were comparably less stressful than back home at Notre Dame and we went out with a bang at our final dinner where my group performed a medley of songs from the Russian movie musical, Stilyagi. Goodbyes were sad as they always are, but immediately following the group's departure back to America, my friend Grace and I set off on our ambitious Eastern Eurotrip - 18 days, 5 countries, and 7 cities! Thus, I will attempt to record a brief summary of the main events that I remember from each city below...

Tallinn, Estonia
Our first stop, which we arrived to by bus, was to the adorable capital of Estonia, Tallinn. It was there that we met up with the other half of our unstoppable group of travelers, Jeff, who studied in Vladimir, and Misha (or Michael), who had studied in Moscow. There, we had our first experience with the world of hostels at Tallinn Backpackers. When I entered the hostel, I immediately felt that I had walked into a frat house, the morning after a massive party - several people laid passed out on the couches while others simply sat around in snuggies goofing off with their laptops. It seemed to be entirely run by Australians, who we seemed to have created their own mini-Australia within Tallinn. I met a ton of really terrific people from all over the world, however, and it was a great first taste of the hostel experience for me. While we mostly just strolled around the old town in Tallinn on the first day, climbing the castle and eating enormous Estonian pancakes, the second day we opted to take a tour of the natural sights around Tallinn. We saw a lot of cool things, such as the largest waterfall in the Baltics (which wasn't very large at all, but pretty nevertheless), a lot of old ruins, and finally, the infamous bog walk, where we were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, and suffered for several days after. All in all, it was a nice couple of days, and great way to start off the trip.

Riga, Latvia
Our next stop was in the gorgeous, up-and-coming tourist spot in the capital of Latvia, Riga. Interestingly enough, when we arrived there, we found that there was set to be a marathon held there on Sunday, which brought runners from all over to the city. Two of which, we had the pleasure of meeting in our hostel and hanging out with for most of our time in Riga. One was a character from England, who had decided to run the half-marathon on Sunday. He was probably one of the most insane people I've ever met - his preparation for the race the night before consisted of drinking about 10 beers and snorting magnesium. And the funny thing is he actually did fairly well in the race, even including his stop on the final leg for a beer and a cigarette. The other runner that we met was a guy from Germany, who had been living in Tallinn for an internship and was studying to become beer brewer! He basically encompassed every stereotype that you can have for a German, but in a good way! He apparently travelled around all the time to do marathons in different parts of the world and he's going to come to run one in St. Petersburg this summer! While he was supposed to take a bus back to Tallinn on Sunday night, we convinced him to stay for one more night, so that we could take him out to party with us in the city. I am eternally grateful for him for saving me from some drunk Belgians in the final bar that we went to.

Vilnius, Lithuania
The people in our hostel weren't quite as interesting as the last (minus perhaps one of the workers from america who was in vilnius to set up a jewish library), but I still had a really wonderful time exploring the city. The Old Town was cool because you had to enter through an arch and walk downhill through the streets. My group of travelers tend to consider Vilnius one of their least favorites, but I thought we actually saw some of our coolest sights there. We found a museum of energy there with lots of interactive exhibitions, the museum of genocide, and a totally bizarre room in the university of Vilnius whose walls were covered in these kind of creepy fresco illustrations. They also had monument to Frank Zappa, which I couldn't get over.

Warsaw, Poland
We took a night bus to Warsaw and found ourselves at this large, white, pillared government building, which apparently was our hostel. When we walked in, we were surprised to find that the door man didn't speak a word of English (or Russian for that matter), but at least he was nice and we managed to communicate the main things that we needed to him. It kind of felt like we were the only guests there the entire time we were staying, so it was a little odd. When we got to exploring the city, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Warsaw was actually pretty, despite the descriptions in our guidebook. The first night, Jeff, Grace, and I walked around for about 3 hours just trying to find an internet cafe and supermarket, which wouldn't have been so hard if we had been able to speak Polish. We all had some special Polish ice cream (it's super tall and it has a soft-serve, but with a hardened exterior) on the way to keep our spirits up. We eventually did find a grocery store, however, and bought some celebratory Polish vodka for our troubles. We saw some pretty cool stuff around the city, most memorably the Warsaw Uprising museum and the church where you could see Chopin's heart. The second night in Warsaw we had to switch hostels since we had apparently only booked one night, but it worked out for the best, because the new hostel was probably one of the coolest ones that we stayed at. It had its own bar, common room, and kitchen! When we were making dinner in the kitchen we met a guy from Amsterdam who had decided to travel around Europe by moped, but was stuck in Warsaw because his moped had broken down and he had to get it fixed. It turns out that he's going to be in Petersburg as well in the beginning of July, so we will have another visitor to take around the town. We talked with him for a while and ended up inviting him to go out with us that night. We had a very elegant vodka tea party and then went clubbing until the wee hours in the morning, despite the fact that our bus to Krakow left at 7 the next morning. Somehow we all managed to get up, however, and our adventures in Poland continued...

Krakow, Poland
When we first got to Krakow, we were all still feeling a bit under the weather, so we were a pretty unhappy when our cab driver dropped us off at the wrong hostel. We called our original hostel to find out how to get there and the girl who worked there ended up coming to meet us personally on the street to lead us to the hostel! We ended up getting to know her and the rest of the staff really well, making meals together and going out with them several times in Krakow. We also met a pair of French Canadian twins from Montreal, who were planning on going hiking in the mountains after leaving Krakow. The hostel was small, but very home-y, we all felt like we were a family there :). The city of Krakow, in general, was gorgeous. I had been there once before in 2008, but had really only explored the churches there. My favorite event that we stumbled upon when we were there was a citywide pillow fight in the main square - it was absolutely nuts - there were feathers everywhere! We also took a day trip to Auschwitz, where it appropriately rained on us for most of the time we were walking around. It was pretty jarring, but definitely a worthwhile experience. The crazy thing was when we were leaving Birkenau, we ran into none other than moped guy from Amsterdam! And the first thing he said, "Aw yeah, I thought I might see you guys here." His moped had been fixed and he was apparently just taking a pit stop there. Small world though. We also had to say goodbye to Jeff in Krakow, but we ended his trip with a bang, by partying all night with the Poles working at our hostel and eventually staying awake with Jeff until 6 in the morning when he had to leave to catch his train.

Lviv, Ukraine
Then came the bus to Ukraine where we had a pleasant 4-hour wait at the border at from around 3 to 7 in the morning. But we managed to take a nice long nap at our hostel when we arrived, so all was well. It was totally surreal being back in Lviv, in which I already had so many memories from 2008. We met up with my friend from ESS, Oksana, and my friend, from Notre Dame who had come to Lviv to teach English. Apparently, they both share an apartment together now! It was wonderful to see them again - it makes the world feel a lot smaller. They took us around a bit to a huge cemetery and a jewish café, where apparently, if you want to, you may haggle to get a lower price, haha. Unfortunately, the next couple of days it rained a lot, and Misha and I started coming down with a bit of a cold. Nonetheless we still managed to have a good time, seeing a museum of an old, restored pharmacy and going to an underground Ukrainian restaurant, in which entrance is only allowed for people who say, "Slava Ukrainye!" (Glory to Ukraine!) When you enter they immediately give you a free shot of vodka and welcome you into a kitschy room of Ukrainian folk singers and drunk Ukrainians. For some reason, at the end of the night, the power went off though, so we ducked out after that happened. I also randomly ran into about 5 of my favorite students from ESS just on the main streets - they were so surprised, it was so precious! I want to go back again :)

Kiev, Ukraine
Our final destination was to Ukraine's main city, Kiev. We took a night train there and, for the first time, experienced what it was like to travel in a kupet! Kupets are 4 to a room with 4 beds, and you can actually close the doors, so it's nice. I think the beds were much more comfortable as well. We also had some awesome kupet mates - one was a kindly grandfather and the other was a young businessman. We spoke Russian with them and even had an interesting debate about the attractiveness of various Eastern European men! The only slight discomfort was that the young businessman watched Star Wars on his laptop all night and fell asleep before he turned off the DVD menu - I had my headphones in, but the light of the computer still kept me up for a while. When we got to Kiev, we were happy to find that the weather there was much better than it had been in Lviv. Super warm and not a cloud in the sky :) The young guy that worked in the hostel was another one of my favorite characters that we met along the way. When we first got to the hostel, I asked if they had a bathroom and chuckled, and said, "Noo, sorry we don't." That's how I knew he would be cool. He gave us a lot of cool suggestions for things to do including where to eat (Puzata Hata, our old friend from Lviv), where to sight see (panorama boat cruise on the river) and where to party (Independence square, where he actually drove us on Sunday when he was heading in the same direction himself). During our days in Kiev, we went to the underground crypt at a huge old monastery (which apparently used to be where the monks lived), took a trippy tour of the Bulgakov house museum, did some shopping in the markets on our way to see the giant Andrievsky Church and stumbled upon a Ukrainian talent show in the main square. On our last night in Kiev, we went to a karaoke bar where I respectively sang "Can't Fight the Moonlight" twice and then lost my voice. Luckily, the next morning hostel guy, who had already been through a 6-year medical program, brought me some kind of potion that he said would make me feel a lot better. Then Grace and I had to gear up to take a train to Moscow (so that we wouldn't pass through Belarus, where you need a visa) and say goodbye to Misha, who was going back to America from Kiev.

Grace and I then spent a night in Moscow at the cutest hostel called the Chocolate Hostel, where they served up freshly brewed hot chocolate with breakfast every morning. The weird thing was the other guests at the hostel were basically all in their 50s and 60s, except for the Russians, who seemed to be living there, and a cool Australian girl from Melbourne, who will hopefully be visiting us when she comes to Petersburg for the White Nights. While in Moscow, we tried again to go and see Lenin's body, but once again the exhibition was closed for the upcoming holiday (Russia Day, June 12). We did go to one history museum though and met up with Grace's old tutor from Wisconsin, who had been doing flagship in Moscow. We spent one evening playing a Russian card game, Durak, with the other Russians in the hostel, which was really fun, and great language practice! I had played the game a lot with my host sisters, but they could never explain the rules as well as they did at the hostel.

And now I'm all back settled in Petersburg for the summer! My host sisters are away at summer camp, but my host father said that he would take me to go visit them for a weekend at some point if I wished. We also met with the new kiddies for the first time last night and they all seem pretty cool - there are 3 other ND kids! One of which I actually sang with in Russian ensemble. I definitely feel like I'm a part of the cool kids club now though. As soon as we got to the dorm to meet up with everyone, we met up with Nathan and Marina in their office and Marina started pouring us celebratory coffee&cognac. Then after we went to dinner we had a mini-dance party together up in the office and we found out that our big trip at the end of the summer is going to be 10 days in the north north parts of Russia! Sounded pretty exciting :) Now I've unfortunately come down with something and I've been taking pills all night and day to try and keep my fever down. I didn't go to help with orientation today so that I could rest up, but now I feel a bit stronger, so I will try to meet up with them all sometime tonight.

Stay tuned for my Russian 21st Bday adventures!