Back from one crazy trip, time to plan another!

Last week I learned that I will officially complete my Peace Corps service in Macedonia on November 1st. While that is by itself a big deal, and worth reflecting upon, I won't be doing that in this post. Mainly I want to share my epic travel plans that will cover November 1st until December 12th.

I wasn't kidding. This is pretty awesome. 

Here is where I'll cover most of my 'land' time

It is probably confusing trying to interpret the lines and everything, but basically I'll start my trip after flying from Sofia to Barcelona, and then catch another flight the next day to Marrakech, Morocco. From there I'll travel for about a week, spend at least one night in the Sahara Desert, then take a ferry to southern Spain, and spend about 5-6 days in the vicinity of Seville and Granada. Next, I'll fly (amazingly the cheapest option) directly to Valencia on the eastern coast, stay in a comfy hotel, and run the Divina Pastora Marathon on November 17th. After that, assuming I'm still alive after the race, I'll make my way to Madrid (with side/day trips), and then finally end up in Barcelona again around the 23rd of November. I'll hang out there for about four days, maybe see FC Barcelona play a match, and meet up with a few other Peace Corps Macedonia volunteers. On November 27th, those same volunteers and I will hop on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, and take the slow boat back to America, not before stopping in the Canary Islands and the Bahamas. Onboard, I'll eat ridiculous amounts of food and read the first two Game of Thrones books. And relax too, because traveling for 3 1/2 weeks and running a marathon will make me TIRED. After 14 nights on the ship, we'll arrive in New Orleans on December 12th.

So, the level of awesomeness in this plan is difficult to quantify, but I think it's pretty high. Some other interesting aspects about the trip:
- I will be prepping for a marathon the entire time I'm traveling in Morocco and part of my time in Spain. Part of me wants to do a tempo run through the medina in Marrakech for the sheer insanity of it
- This will be my first time crossing an ocean on a ship since I was in the Navy. Sadly, I won't get to drive...well, we'll see. Anything is possible when Julie Tumasz is on your ship!
- Several members of the ship's crew are likely to be Macedonian, because working on cruise ships is a popular job for recent university graduates from Balkans
- I studied Spanish in high school - will it come back to me on this trip, or will I speak Russidonian when a local asks me '?Que hora es?'? I'm betting on the latter.

With a little over two months to go before this trip starts, I have a lot to plan for and a lot to look forward to. It's hard to believe that I'll actually be home in the US by December. I don't know when will be the next time I come back to this part of the world (easily could be sooner than I expect), but I might as well leave in style this time around!

Back to Poland

Besides living in Macedonia over the last two years, I've spent more time in Poland in the last four years than any other European country. My most recent trip, and the last stop after 9 days in Ukraine, was my third visit, but the first time I've been back since May 2010. In my previous two visits, I was a bit...in love with Krakow. The only other places I saw in Poland were the city of Wroclaw and the mountain/ski area of Zakopane south of Krakow. My love for Krakow is validated by the fact I've visited 18 different European countries since 2009, and yet Krakow is still my favorite city in Europe. Nevertheless, on this particular trip, I wanted to see the 'non-Krakow' part of Poland. Which, surprisingly enough, is a pretty big part of the country. I only had four more nights after leaving Kyiv, so I split my trip between the capital city of Warsaw and the Baltic Sea port city of Gdansk.

A rough map of non-Krakow Poland. As you can see, there are other places in Poland to visit. 

Before I managed to leave Kyiv though, I learned that sometimes when you reach your backpack during airport security screening, it's possible to cut off a nice chunk of skin from your finger. This would have been a little more humorous had I not been bleeding all over the place as the Ukrainian security guy checked and re-packed my bag for me, as I was busy trying to stop the bleeding with a dirty sock. I had no idea how deep the 'cut' was, nor did I know what actually caused this injury. As far as I was aware, there was nothing in my bag capable delivering this rather malicious freak wound. Thankfully I cleared security in time to go to the bathroom and managed to just cover the finger with extra bandaids and hoped it didn't bleed through all of them before I got off the plane in Warsaw. I got through the quick flight and made my way to the hostel I was staying at, just a short walk from the central train station. Of course, my concern for my finger was overridden by the Starbucks awaiting across the street from the station. It's a Peace Corps thing, I think.

Enjoying a nice frappuccino, I sampled some of the modern landscape that makes up the 'business-side' of Warsaw today.

You could almost fly a helicopter through that opening. 

Eventually I got to the hostel and the first order of business was finding a pharmacy to get more bandaids, and then check out the damage. Well, taking off those bandaids was a little bit like that scene in Die Hard where John McClane is picking glass out of his feet. I felt sorry for the other hostel people who had to walk by that scene in the bathroom as I yelped and cursed. Anyway, it was a nice chunk missing from the finger. Luckily, it was just shallow enough that I probably didn't need a doctor (actually based on the advice of the med student who was working part-time at the hostel). She said, "It will probably stop bleeding." Ha! I was also relieved because if it was serious, I might have to take time off from running! At least I have my priorities straight. And I didn't want to have to call Peace Corps medical either.

Yummy. This was taken 3 days later. 

So with my finger sorted out, I brought some extra bandaids and set out to eat something for lunch because it was like 2:30pm at that point. My intentions were clear when I asked, "where's the nearest cheap pierogi place?"

A glorious, glorious sight. So good. 

After pierogi heaven, I walked down the main thoroughfare of Novy Swiat in the direction of the main square and the hub of tourist activity in the city. Warsaw is a much different city than Krakow. I believe a lot of that has to do with the fact it was almost completely destroyed during World War II after the Warsaw Uprising. Of all the horrific and tragic stories from the war, the Uprising and its aftermath rank pretty high up there. It was actually one of the big reasons I wanted to visit Warsaw. Not only to see what the 'restored' Warsaw looks like after close to 70 years, but also to go to the Warsaw Uprising Museum and learn more about what happened in 1944. So in walking down Novy Swiat, it felt as if something were missing, despite the incredible restoration work. Maybe the contrast is that before the war, the area around the main square was truly a hub of activity in the city for all people, whereas now it just seemed like more of a tourist trap. In Krakow, it felt like everyone used the square as 'their place', whether you were just visiting or lived in the city itself. Regardless, it was still enjoyable, and here are some photos I took in the vicinity:

Statue of Adam Mickiewicz (also found in L'viv if you recall)

Warsaw's Castle Square

Market Square

Old city fortifications

The Vistula River, the longest river in Poland 

This could have been added to one of the BBC 'hot weather' photo albums that they do occasionally. It was definitely hot.  

The following morning, I went out to explore more of Warsaw with my running shoes, crossing the Vistula into the 'Praga' part of town. I saw the brand-new stadium built before the 2012 European Football Championships, as well as parts of Praga that weren't destroyed during WWII. Warsaw took 2nd place on my trip for running routes. It has an extensive network of bike/walking paths, particularly along the river, and it offered some nice views. It was difficult to turn around and go home because I was enjoying it so much, and consequently it ended up as the longest run on my trip.

When I got back to the hostel, I met up with a fellow American traveler and we set out for the Warsaw Uprising Museum. It was as powerful as I expected, and fascinating to learn the stories of some of the fighters and other aspects about the conflict I didn't know about. While it was clearly a betrayal that the Soviets left the insurgents out to dry after encouraging the uprising and having a large military force in striking distance, I also learned they probably should have seen it coming given that the Soviets consistently disarmed and arrested the Polish Home Army insurgents who fought with them in other parts of Poland before the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin recognized that Warsaw was the hub of the Polish resistance and it was in his interest to see its leadership decimated and the city of Warsaw itself destroyed, so in the post-war 'new order' he would be free to shape Communist Poland the way he liked. Stalin was no idiot. Just one of the most ruthless people in human history.

After a few hours at the museum, we walked all the way to the beautiful Lazienki Park to try to catch part of the free outdoor Chopin concert held on Sundays in the summer. Of course, this did not disappoint, as the pianist was magnificent (you better be if you're playing Chopin in Poland), and the picnic-like atmosphere in the park by the Chopin monument was quite nice. Most people just sat on the grass or on blankets. I sat on my Warsaw map.

After spending the whole day walking after a long morning run, I was totally exhausted by the time we returned to the hostel, and I had just enough motivation to order a pizza for dinner before calling it a day. The next morning I left for the port city of Gdansk, my final stop before returning to Macedonia. I didn't know what to expect from the 6 hour train from Warsaw, but I didn't think it would be so packed. All the passageways were packed with people because there were no available seats in the kupes, and it was really hot. At least there was a cafe/restaurant car, so I was able to get some lunch there and enjoy a little bit more personal space. Whereas Warsaw was relatively quiet in the vicinity of the central train station, Gdansk was completely the opposite. I recognized quickly it was tourist season and there were just thousands of people walking around everywhere. I think I would have appreciated the city more if it weren't for the sheer volume of traffic on the streets. It's also not a particularly big city, so it makes the impact of all these people more dramatic. You could see why people would want to visit, though. It was another city largely destroyed during the war, but I'd have to say the restoration was even more impressive at first glance in Gdansk (also not to forget reconstructing a city of 1.5 million is much more difficult than one with 400,000). Gdansk is a city that changed hands numerous times over the course of history, at one point part of the Prussian partition of Poland (known then as Danzig). Gdansk is also famous for its role in the fall of Communism. The Polish Solidarity movement, starting in the Gdansk shipyards, heroically stood up to the Communist Party and inspired similar movements across all the Warsaw Pact countries in the 1980s.

Fish restaurant on a boat

St. Mary's Church, the largest brick church in the world

View from inside the city nautical museum

Later in the evening, several people from the hostel went out to a bar with 4 zloty beers (a little over a dollar) and traditional 'drinking food' like Polish white sausage, bigos (sauerkraut and meat), and smalec (lard spread). We all had a good time, though one of the people we were with decided to go on his own to a club (not so bright) and woke up the next morning with people going through his wallet. He also apparently was planning to go to eastern Ukraine on his own and couldn't speak a lick of Russian. Godspeed to that one.

One of my last full day in Poland, a Scottish friend from the hostel and I went by boat to Westerplatte, where the first shots of WWII were fired. Westerplatte is a man-made peninsula and at the outbreak of war in 1939 was lightly defended by a Polish garrison. Facing overwhelming enemy superiority in firepower, the Polish forces still held out for 7 days before surrendering. Today it is a park/memorial with the remnants of some of the fortifications, a memorial, and one bombed-out barracks. It also faces the Baltic Sea, which was a unique experience for me in my travels. I didn't get a chance to go swimming, though the water looked nice.

Gdansk Shipyards

the beach at Westerplatte

The Baltic Sea

Boardwalk along the Baltic

Cemetery for those who died in the battle 

Inside the bombed out army barracks

Monument to the defenders at Westerplatte

At this point, I was pretty much done with traveling. It had been two weeks since I left, and it wasn't a leisurely two weeks. I was constantly on the go, with long trips between destinations, and there wasn't a single city where I just sat around and relaxed for long. In my first 48 hours of travel, I got around 3 hours of sleep. Since I tried to run every morning that I didn't have an early train or plane, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost weight (well if that's even possible at this point), which generally doesn't happen on vacations. So I was ready to head back home, even if the idea of being 'at home' was not particularly appealing. I'm also at close to my 2-year mark in the Peace Corps, and I feel like I've pretty much exhausted the possibilities with that too. With my 'big trip' out of the way, all I hope to do in these few months is train for the Valencia marathon (and plan that big 'post-PC' trip to Spain/Morocco) and avoid offending too many people with my impatience to move on to something else in my life. Thankfully, I don't have much longer to wait. This exhausting but incredibly rewarding trip through Ukraine and Poland definitely confirmed that I'm ready for a change of scenery.

So with no big trips to talk about for a while, I'm going to start writing about running. There are just too many random and funny stories to be told that I have no choice. Hope you've enjoyed reading about my trip and there will be more to come soon!

The Soul of a Nation

Before leaving for my trip, every article and review of traveling in Ukraine recommended that if I did nothing else, I had to visit L'viv and Kyiv. So, naturally, that's what I did. Starting in L'viv, I learned over the course of a week that these cities were vastly different but yet both seem to be good representations of what makes up the cultural soul of today's Ukraine.

Welcome to L'viv

L'viv makes a strong first impression. The closest comparison I can make based on my experience is with Krakow, and that probably makes sense because L'viv was once a majority Polish city and isn't really very far from Krakow in southern Poland. The city was named after Lev (meaning 'lion' in Ukrainian), the son of the king of Halych-Volhynia back in the 13th Century. It was conquered by the Polish Kingdom in the late 14th Century, and from then until the Austrian Partition in the 18th Century it steadily became more Polish in character and ethnic composition, while at the same time maintaining one of the largest Jewish populations (over 100,000 by the late 1930s) in Eastern Europe. Like many other cities in Poland and Eastern Europe, WWII completely changed L'viv, and by the late 1940s the former Polish inhabitants had been largely 'relocated' to the city of Wroclaw in the new Polish Communist state, while the Jewish population disappeared completely due to the Holocaust. From 1945, L'viv became a cultural hub for western Ukraine and the overall Ukrainian national identity.

Today, L'viv has a well-preserved and/or restored old city filled with many narrow, cobblestone-lined streets where you can just wander around for hours, along with impressive museums, old churches and cathedrals, and some of the best coffee shops I've seen in Eastern Europe. They are truly obsessed with coffee in L'viv. For a visitor, it is a bit of challenge because you have to pick and choose (I set a limit at 3 coffees per day) and there's no way you can visit them all. As a testament to that, my hostel near the main square was called Coffee Home Hostel.

A particularly creative coffee shop/souvenir store, says something like "Here L'viv Coffee was born"

A really big coffee machine...says something like "here the coffee is made (cooked)"

 I never would have thought a city in Ukraine would have potential for 'coffee tourism', but L'viv proved me wrong. Besides the coffee, there is a whole range of interesting restaurant options (and cheap beer, I'm a fan now of L'vivske 1715). But given that I'm an American Peace Corps volunteer that hasn't seen Tex-Mex food in 8 months, this happened:

These enchiladas look good and they WERE good. 

For most of my time in L'viv, I just walked around for hours, taking in different sights and letting my curiosity guide me...along with the help of one of the best Iphone apps I've found for traveling. It's called Lviv Places. For free, it provides a comprehensive GPS-enabled map of the city, so basically you can wander around the city and just click on the next landmark you run into, and it provides a detailed description of each church, museum, statue, etc. It also includes restaurants and bars. Thanks to the app I actually had a clue what I was looking at without having a physical tour guide. So download it before you visit L'viv.

So what was the highlight of L'viv? Probably just the atmosphere in general. It had a very laid-back vibe, and it was very easy to get around. I took tons of pictures of old historical buildings just because they looked neat. It's a beautiful city. There's an old fortress up the hill where you get an incredible panoramic view of the entire city. The people are friendly. Food and drink are cheap. I met really cool staff and travelers at my hostel. It has a beautiful city park called Stryisky with miles of wonderful running paths. To be honest, there isn't much not to like about L'viv. I wouldn't be surprised if it is the next big 'discovery' on the tourist map for Eastern Europe if transportation options are improved and people lose the unfounded fear of crossing into 'dangerous' Ukraine. I don't usually visit places twice as a traveler but I'd give serious consideration to L'viv. I think these pictures do it some justice:

St. George's Cathedral, the largest in L'viv. Unfortunately I came at bad time of day so it was tough to get a good angle thanks to the sun.

L'viv Opera House

around the main square

Walking around after a brief rain shower

L'viv town hall in the main square

View of the main square from a window in the L'viv City Museum

The beautiful old streets of the city. B/W filter seemed to make sense

Dominican Cathedral

I think the only Gothic-style cathedral in the city

Old Soviet-era water machine near a bus stop

Main square at night

Outside a church I can't remember the name of....so many churches!

A small monastery in the city

The view from the Vysoki Zamok (High Castle)

Looking to the main square

My beer of choice in Ukraine, at a beer house. Wanted to go to the Beer Museum but it was unfortunately closed that day. 

So with some sadness I had to leave L'viv after three wonderful days in the city. To my next destination, I booked an 'express' train, and I was curious to see what that meant other than saving about 5-6 hours of time. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the L'viv - Kyiv train is nicer than any train I've been on in the United States. Granted, that probably does not mean much given the sorry state of our passenger rail infrastructure. But honestly, free wifi throughout the trip? Lots of leg room, nicer bathrooms than most airplanes (train bathrooms don't exactly have the best reputation anywhere in the world, so comparing favorably to airplanes is a step up), and traveling practically the distance from DC to Boston in 5 hours? Oh and the best part: 25 euros.

After the delightfully fast and comfortable ride to Kyiv, I made it to the city around 11am. My first impression of Kyiv: it's big. Like, L'viv and Kyiv have nothing in common. L'viv would be a large neighborhood in Kyiv. There were people everywhere upon exiting the train station, and I had no clue where the metro station was (it was right behind me as I walked out). So I wandered around a little, got hassled by taxi drivers and other random people, before I realized where I was supposed to be going and got to the metro station. So yes, Kyiv has a metro system, and a rather extensive one. One of the stations, Arsenalna, is currently the deepest station in the world at over 100 meters, and I learned on my 2nd day in the city that it really feels like it too. I felt like I was taking a journey to the Earth's core given how long I was on the escalator.

And hello Kyiv (at Maidan Nezelezhnosti, Independence Square).

Once I figured out the station and bought my metro tokens (they really belong in some kind of board game), I took a few stops and got off at the Khreshchatyk station, and from there it was a short walk to my hostel. Khreshchatyk Street is the equivalent of Kyiv's 'main square,' and despite the fact they also have Independence Square sort of connected to it, I didn't get the impression that it was the main artery of the city. At any time of day, Khreshchatyk is teeming with people, some going to work, some just going for a stroll, many for an ice cream or coffee, and it's the best place in Kyiv for people-watching. Another thing I noticed on Khreshchatyk is that I was hearing Russian much more than in L'viv. As a much  more ethnically and culturally mixed city, it wasn't surprising, and it actually made it easier to get around because I didn't have to try to recall the handful of words I knew in Ukrainian and just stuck to Russian. Or at least, the current Russian-Macedonian hybrid language that I speak. Understanding Russian was not particularly difficult, despite using it sparingly over the last two years. More complicated conversations or rapid-fire speech were a challenge, but they always are and probably always will be that way for me. Russian is just a really tough language. However, when I opened my mouth to speak, out came Macedonian like a reflex. I'd then stop myself, and stammer something partially intelligible in Russian, and sometimes they'd just switch to English if they knew it. Definite fail. At least after a few days I started to get a little more comfortable, and I think if I had another 2-3 weeks in the country I would have at least minimized the Russidonianisms.

Since my hostel was right on Khreshchatyk, I didn't have far to walk, and I checked in at the small but comfortable TIU Khreshatchatyk hostel before I started some wandering around Kyiv. Thanks again to the Kyiv Places free app, I was able to do the whole self-guided tour like I did in L'viv. Some interesting places on my initial stroll:

Independence Square

'The House with the Chimeras'

Taras Shevchenko monument- every Ukrainian city seems to have one. Ukraine's most famous and celebrated poet. 

St. Volodymyr's Cathedral

Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gate)

Just a nice building near the Zoloti Vorota

On the square across from St. Sophia Cathedral, facing St. Michael's

statue of Bogdan Khmelnytsky, somewhat controversial national hero

St. Sophia Cathedral

Love how the camera filter setting brings out the green here. 

St. Michael's Cathedral

Looking down at the Dnipro River

The Dnipro reminded me a smaller version of the Bosphorus in Istanbul. 

Pedestrian Bridge crossing the Dnipro

My walk through the city made it clear that it is a completely different from L'viv, with its own unique and storied history, and the confidence of a place that knows its been around for over 1,000 years. Coincidentally, Kyiv celebrated the 1,025-year anniversary of the creation of the Kievan Rus state a few days before I arrived in the city, so I watched the celebration/concert held in the middle of Khreshchatyk Street on TV while I was in Chortkiv. The golden-domed cathedrals in the photos are even more impressive up close. Just absolutely stunning. Another interesting aspect to Kyiv is the Dnipro River and how it divides the city into the 'Right Bank' and 'Left Bank'. I was able to explore this more through morning runs across the bridges, and in particular the route to the 'Hidropark' island allowed me to really appreciate the vastness of the Dnipro, one of the largest rivers in Europe, along with getting some great views of the famous Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra (Cave Monastery). Off all the places I explored on this trip through my running shoes, Kyiv easily took first prize.

For the rest of my time in Kyiv, I made sure to see the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra, the Great Patriotic War Museum, and hopped on a short river cruise on the Dnipro on my last day. If I have one complaint about my time in Kyiv it was that my hostel did not really offer a chance to meet people. At least, people I consider normal. It was generally quiet as a morgue, and most of the travelers who stayed there only wanted to enjoy the nightlife and so were often still asleep into the late afternoons when I returned from sightseeing. I did meet one person who I would not say is a traveler, though I'm not sure what to call him. Maybe just an expat from Mexico, since he owned businesses back there but largely lived abroad. But wow, what a piece of work! We went out for beers one night and proceeded to tell me all about his women problems, how his one lover from Poland didn't appreciate him having a lover in Ukraine, and how he was still in love with some other married woman in Ukraine (he's married too), and how miserable all that is. His wife is clearly a lucky woman. On the other hand, beyond my fascinating Mexican friend, I did get a chance to meet some RPCV expats living in Kyiv and I enjoyed learning about their lives in Kyiv. It seems like a good city to be an expat, and I might see whether are any options sometime in the future, once I'm back at Monterey to finish off my MPA.

Before I veer off on another tangent, some photos from my last few days in Kyiv:

The Kyiv Obelisk of Glory - dedicated to those who defended Kyiv during WWII

Monument and museum to the victims of the Holodomor - the man-made famine (many say genocide) perpetrated upon the Ukrainian people during the 1930s, killing millions

Entrance to the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra 

Map of the monastery grounds

View from the lavra

This was near the entrance to the 'Near Cave' where you buy a candle and walk down some steps through some narrow passageways that constitute a cave church. Within the church, there are chapels and coffins from some of the most revered saints from Ukrainian Orthodoxy. I would have lingered longer but it was so crowded I could hardly breathe or move. 

I believe a MiG-17, part of a small exhibit of WWII and post-war Soviet military gear near the war museum

The colossal Rodina Mat (mother of the motherland, it's a Soviet thing) near the Great Patriotic War Museum. Definitely makes an impression. 

Some interesting sculptures depicting the war outside the museum

The view from below the Rodina Mat

Outside the Great Patriotic War Museum

St. Andrew's Cathedral -  by the same architect who designed the Winter Palace and Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg

A shrine/church dedicated to sailors along the Dnipro

On a Dnipro river cruise 

The waterfront

Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra from the water

So this has become sort of an epic blog (at least one with an epic number of pictures), so it's about time I wrapped things up. Going back to my original thoughts, I feel like I did briefly get a chance to glimpse the character, at least on some level, of what makes up Ukraine today. Not only in L'viv and Kyiv but also in the rural areas of western Ukraine and the smaller town of Chortkiv. There are a lot of contrasts between every place I visited. I don't know which one is the 'real' Ukraine, but after visiting Kyiv I get the impression that it is the appropriate capital and cultural center for a nation that is still striving for that next level of progress. It is a symbol of what was possible in the past, with its role in establishing the first Eastern Slavic state, as well as a symbol of its future potential after 22 years of independence.

With my time in Ukraine at an end, I made my way to Borispol airport for the last leg of my trip - Polska.