Marching About

My first mission upon arriving in any country is to learn a few key phrases that I have found will make my life substantially easier and help me to find nicer, and more helpful people (although I'm sure I still look like a stuttering idiot). Generally just saying hello will prompt someone to babble at me full speed in whatever language I've spoken to them in. Causing my eyes to widen and a profoundly confused look to come over my face. Despite this, I generally answer in the affirmative. I feel very strongly that even this small gesture in single-word communication shows an immediate respect for someone in that you have come to their country and make even the slightest effort to respect and speak to them. I'll admit that after getting to the fourth language I was starting to slow my roll a little bit. After about a week in Poland I was able to ask for and understand directions and express interest in a variety of different foods and road hazards. I guess more time would...

Local knowledge is always helpful. And often essential. In this case were it not for my CS host, I may not have successfully made it to the airport. I needed a taxi large enough to accommodate the oversized box in which I had put my bike. So she called the service and asked for a large taxi - something like a van or minibus. They said no problem, they would send one since they have several, it was slightly more expensive but not by much. Cut to this morning at 5:00. Fortunately, the cab was on time but there was no van, only a compact car a little smaller than a Corolla. They guy didn't understand any English at all and when I showed him the bike box he just stood there, dumbfounded. My host, Friederike, was fortunately on-hand at this ungodly hour (amazing) and watched the scene unfold from her balcony. She came down and expressed her disbelief that a van wasn't sent. The guy was confused, saying they had no such thing, but he would call another car and one would take my b...

While browsing the internet from my blog. I came across a story from the school in Przemysl (possibly written by Aneta?) offering a detailed account of our visit, including our visit to the preschool, lounging in beanbag chairs. Link (in Polish)

You would think that in most major cities, especially popular tourist destinations, that postcards are a dime a dozen and found on racks in every touristy shop and supermarket around town. Well in Odessa, you would be wrong. We spent hours looking for suitable postcards to send to our hosts from the trip. And found only two sets of postcards; a terrible set, and a mediocre set. I am reminded of Jim Gaffigan who said: Have you ever spent a bunch of time selecting a postcard to send to someone, and you've spent all this time agonizing over finding the right one, then the next time you see the person they are like, "Hey thanks for the shitty postcard, what did you pick it out in 5 seconds?" Nothing can really properly show how humbled and appreciative we feel towards our hosts and the experiences that we were able to share with them. But to be fair, we scoured every place we could find! The next step was buying stamps. We met up with a couchsurfer, Julia, today who too...

Our exit from Tiraspol was just as uneventful as our entry - we barely made it within our 24 hour time limit, but the incredulous looks at our bikes allowed us to be waved through without confrontation. We had a very eventful morning consisting of a back-to-school party with our host and all 600 of her classmates in a forest in the south of Tiraspol. Our host is a student in a University preparatory school - after they have passed their high school exams they go to one more year of high school to prepare for university elsewhere. But first they get a full day of partying, not bad. As students, they learn Russian and English and have the option of taking either Moldovan or Ukrainian. Some students, like our host Susanna, had excellent English, while others seemed to have trouble with even the most basic vocabulary. But they were all part of the same class. But everyone was eager to try to teach us Russian. The theme was fairy tales and everyone had dressed up as some fairy tale characte...

Mission accomplished! We rolled into Odessa this evening. I'll put up a more specific post about Odessa a little later once I've spent more time here. However, I can give a run down of our final stats for the trip: Distance : 2,182.27 km  Time : 114:50:04 h:m:s  Avg Speed : 19.0 km/h  Max Speed : 54.9 km/h  Avg Heart Rate : 132 bpm Max Heart Rate : 204 bpm  Avg Bike Cadence : 66 rpm  Calories : 55,217 C  Elevation Gain : 12,456 m  Avg Ride Distance : 72.74 km  Max Distance : 186.08 k

Yesterday, we spent the day in Chisinau to get a better picture of Moldova. We got to wake up on the 15th floor of our host's apartment building. The horseshoe turns in the pipes are for district heating. This view looks out over the industrial sector. We first had a walk in the "historical center" whose layout predates the Soviet Union, but whose architecture is a direct product. Housing from after the second world war. Chisinau was heavily hit by American warplanes, not because it was a heavily contested zone, but because planes could not return to the base with a full payload from other campaigns in the region (Ukraine, etc) so they dropped them on Urban areas in occupied zones. We then walked to the center which, in that it is the capital, is filled with 4-5 star hotels and embassies. Moldova isn't particularly equipped for tourism however, I got the impression that most of the activity was business or politically related. We met up with some other couch surfers f...

Another century (100 miles) today! Andrei, our host from Iași came with us partway because he had never been to Moldova even though he lives 20km from the border. But first we were treated to an incredible breakfast of mămăligă, stuffed peppers with sour cream, hard-boiled eggs, and some of his mom's incredible eggplant-pepper spread. And some Țsuică, his grandmother's home-distiller plum brandy, to wash it all down (yes, we started drinking earlier than usual today, but I suppose it's the customary Sunday morning shot). As we were getting on our bikes to leave she brought us out a packed lunch - a seriously 5-star fare - filled with the eggplant spread, spiced pork loins, cucumbers, bread, and homemade vegetables. This was perfect fuel for biking and easily carried us all the way to Chisinau. The road to Chisinau from Romania is not logical at all. A trusty Google search shows a border crossing at Ungheni into Moldova. From there, there is a large detour to the north whi...

It was a great, albeit hot day of cycling. But reports that it is cold back in Berlin make us happy to have actually cycled enough to have changed climates (in our favor). There were a fair amount of hills on the road but Romanians were quite vocal in shouting encouragement from the roadside as we huffed and puffed up some of the steeper climbs. The reward was that we were treated with some great views of the expansive landscape, and in one case, a nice refill of our water bottles with cool refreshing mountain water. Romanian landscape at sunset We were welcomed after riding 160 km (100 miles) with a large table full of eggplant purée, a cornmeal/polenta style mush called māmāligā, and a tomato and pepper salad. And finished it off with plum-filled fry bread. Bed came soon after. Today Andrei, our host, showed us around Iasi. He was an architecture major and has a deep knowledge of not only the buildings in and around Iasi, but also their history, and the history of the people who occu...

Although a Google search for the village that we are staying in tonight, Romanesti, brings up a different village 70 miles away, I assure you that this one exists. Google has been getting less accurate the further east we go. We headed out of Chernvitsi this morning into a strong headwind and up a bunch of hills. Fortunately we didn't have to bike all the way to Suceava (or maybe unfortunately since we have a longer way to go tomorrow). I feel that my legs have progressed very well over the course of the trip and they didn't complain while climbing. Our host, George, lives in a house that looks quite rustic from the outside but very modern inside - with buffed tile floors and even a radio built into the shower featuring a dazzling display of lights and water jets. In the region are several famous hand-painted monasteries but unfortunately I will have to see them on another trip to Romania. George took us to the top of the hill behind his house. The Romanian countryside look...

After leaving Kolomyia we biked and biked and biked. No shortcuts today. The highway is a fairly good road, it is normally pretty eroded off to the side and has many bumps and potholes closer to the edges but overall it is a very ridable road. I mentioned before about horse traffic. There are some horse carts that trot along the side of the road, they seem to replace the tractor traffic we saw in Poland (there are some tractors here too). While this picture may look staged, I simply asked Graham to stop and turn around as the cart passed by us, this is just along the highway. We've also seen a large amount of enormous, delicious looking watermelon by the side of the road and being transported in huge trucks. Today was an especially hot day while riding and I had a huge craving for watermelon. So we bought one and ate it whole by the side of the road. There was a woman who controlled a rail crossing where we were eating. Every time a train passed by she had to bring the traf...

Yesterday was a fairly uneventful riding day. 130km from Cherche to Kolomyia. We stopped along to way in Ivano Frankvitsk'a to visit the center of town. It seemed like a very bustling city but everyone was simply meandering around on a Monday afternoon. We passed an enormous coal power plant belching out gray smoke from 3 stacks in front of a mountain of coal. As we passed under the power lines I felt a tingling under my skin. I thought I was imagining it until Graham noticed his arm hair standing on end. His compass was also spinning out of control and could not find north. I suggested we leave before we contract brain cancer. A note about Google maps in the Ukraine: not reliable. First, I cannot find any addresses, in either Cyrillic or Latin characters it routes me to random places or just simply does not find it. Yesterday it showed us a shortcut to skip a large portion of a highway. This was welcome to get away from all of the fumes and large trucks (although to be f...

From L'Viv to Kolomyia there were no Couchsurfers and the trip was more than 120 miles so we decided that we would be able to find some forest along the way and pitch our tent there to avoid cycling too much at night. Well that's not quite what happened, but let me back up a few hours. We had a pretty slow start to the morning, mostly due to the normal attachment we feel towards our wonderful hosts. We had a leisurely breakfast and chatted a bit. Then Olga brought us to a souvenir shop run by her mother because we had seen some formal Ukrainian shirts while passing by a wedding the day before and were quite taken by them. Although we were recommended white ones because they are for more celebratory formal occasions (i.e. weddings), I was sure I couldn't keep something like that clean. We said our goodbyes and headed off. Green and expansive Ukrainian landscape The countryside is vast and beautiful. It extends further into the horizon than in Poland, which was do...

2 full days in L'Viv, 2 packed days of activities. One of these days was a little extra because Graham was sick (he stayed in bed and I got to play). Our first full day started with a wild ride through L'Viv traffic following our host Marta's car. Chaotic is about the correct way to describe the traffic with buses, cars, and trucks charging through intersections while simply leaning on the horn. Traffic lights are sometimes present but almost always ignored. The best way to get somewhere seems to be to sit in the middle of an intersection until traffic backs up enough in all directions for you to advance. At least during rush hour. We followed behind Marta as best as we could, sometimes advancing ahead of her in a queue of cars, sometimes rushing to keep up. This was often made more difficult by the very erratic state of the roads. Occasionally covered with asphalt, but more often uneven stones that resemble something akin to large rocks strewn across an uneven surface. And...