2012_11_24 Report #2 Chisinau [ Moldova ]

Off to Moldova by bus, with long pauses at the border. The kindness of strangers! I had an address in Chisinau near the opera, Peter's German language school. A man on the bus got me on the right minibus to the center and another youth directed me to the right bus for the opera. I found the right street but not the address, and a schoolgirl, Zulifira pulled my luggage and asked passersby, gave me her number  and email and promised to find me a bed if this didn't work out. I had Peter's fiancee's number, Aline, but she didn't hear the phone. Finally we found it and the secretary (Aline has a travel agency in the same suite), offered me coffee, tea and internet, so I was relaxed and happy,

Handsome Peter arrived and taught group classes in another room. Lovely Aline came, welcoming and friendly, and at last we three took a bus and then a taxi to their spacious, luxurious second floor apartment in a house just outside the city, Dumbrava. I had the bedroom of a past roommate and we all enjoyed Peter's cooking.

Aline had advertised for a German-speaking female roommate some time ago, and Peter was the only response she got. He promised to behave but eventually Aline changed the conditions and they were planning to marry soon in Denmark, where the paperwork was less onerous. They looked at flights and car rentals and decided to leave that Sunday, leaving me with the keys and the beautiful apartment. 

Moldovans don't trust banks, so the next morning we walked up the hill to a bank where she deposited stacks of 50 lei notes, then took a bus back to the office for documents they needed for the trip. Aline showed me cheap restaurants (closed), helped me purchase a ticket to the Nutcracker ballet for the next day, and change money. Peter took his pants to a poor seamstress in the neighborhood and we went to a shopping center for soup and shopping. Aline was getting over a cold and needed a blanket for their trip. Peter and Aline speak to each other in English and German. Later we met a Moldovan German teacher at a Andy's pizza, a chain, for a business meeting, and then it was back home for them to pack. They took a taxi to the bus station, a bus to Kiev, a visit to Peter's mother and a flight to Denmark. They wanted a good reference on Couchsurfing from me to increase their chances of finding a couch in Copenhagen, and I gladly filed it. I got to finish all the leftovers in the fridge!

I had bequeathed my wonderful collection of Somerset Maugham stories to them and found a 400 page novel, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, I had no trouble finishing before my departure.

Alone the next day, I followed directions and found the bus to the center. Early for the 4 pm ballet, I sat in the park across the way where a sheet reading Hyde Park was hung, and Moldovans were speaking into a microphone without harassment. There were lots of children in the audience for the Nutcracker, and the little girl next to me in the second row bounced and talked and watched me enjoy a dark chocolate bar but the star ballerina smiled throughout. On my other side was a student intern from New Jersey sitting with German, Belgian and English colleagues. The modern opera house lobby was full of photographs of stars past and present. 

Monday I hauled my luggage uphill to the bus stop and left it with the girls at the travel agency, to walk around and visit the market, My VISA card didn't work in the ATMs so I dug into my cash and with the girls' help figured just how much I needed to change to pay for the night train to Bucharest. Moldovan money has no value anywhere else. In fact there is a small breakaway republic Transnistria with its own currency and that is where Zulifira's alternate accommodation was. The Russians heavily subsidized this place and are now presenting Moldova with the very considerable bill. It seems an impossible situation, Moldova has a very high rate of alcoholism.

The girls escorted me to the bus to the train, and another girl on the bus helped me too, revealing herself to be a Jehovah's witness. I spent my last change on cheese danish and gum, then made myself at home in my train compartment, the usual 4-bunk set-up all to myself. I read short stories, finished my wine, suffered in the heat, and wore my nightgown as we went through customs. Moldovan trains have smaller wheels than normal; the wheels had to be changed before entering Romania!

2012_11_24 Report #1 Odessa [ Ukraine ]

On 24 Nov 2012 Alexa wrote: 

TOO LONG was the comment on my last missive. So I resolve to be briefer or more frequent! 

Deborah, my first American expatriate couch hostess, met me at the Odessa train station, Ukraine. She is an Ann Arbor Ph.D. candidate in anthropology and Fulbright scholar, considered an old maid at the tender age of thirty by the Ukrainian villagers she interviews about land ownership. She speaks Russian and Ukrainian, which is very close to Polish. I was impressed!

She also teaches English to village children and teenagers, using Beatles songs and Amy Winehouse to introduce the conditional/subjunctive: If Amy had gone to rehab, she might be alive today!

We took a bouncy old bus to her elegant, remodeled first floor studio apartment. Its only drawback is that the street door doesn't close or lock and needy passersby use it as a pissoir. All tenants must agree on any changes, and her parents are visiting in a few months, so Deborah is desperate for action. 

We sat down to tea, homemade apple pastry and a chat. Deborah doesn't cook much since the village fare is so fresh and tasty. We dined at the cheap and filling cafeteria, Pazata Hatta, I knew from Lviv. Odessa is not the sleepy little seaport I'd envisioned, but a vibrant lit up city with dozens of bus routes and a ton of glitz.

The next day we set off to see the sights. Don Quixote, the ballet, would be premiering soon at the opera house, but only restricted viewing seats were available. I never dreamed I would see it in Romania! We admired parks and statues and then the world renown Potemkin steps which I never expected to find here. Eisenstein's stunning silent, Battleship Potemkin, was shot here and is shown in the summer with orchestral accompaniment. The steps were a man's gift to his wife!  

We walked to the harbor and took the funicular back up into town. We ate lunch in another cafeteria in a glittering shopping mall with Soviet style tableaux on the walls. I saved my salmon skin and bones for a stray cat. The toilet turnstyle was a real bargain, 50 kopecks. Pay toilets are the rule. Which made me so desperate to change money going to Moldova on the bus!

Deborah has a spare laptop that came in handy. She skyped with her boyfriend in Germany, who shares her birthday, and I checked the Times headlines and environmental crises online. We even listened to NPR and the Secretary of State controversy. Her mother is my age, sedentary and overweight, and Deborah feels she would never be able to explore the city as we had.

Deborah left me with a map and I made my way to the Art Museum, a two storey palace with a friendly stray in the yard who enjoyed my salmon. Across the street a film crew was shooting screeching cars and fake gunshots. Again all the museum guards were ladies. After my visit I prevailed on a 7 foot sailor/student to point me back to Deborah's street. The apartment was then easy to find, between a Kodak store and an oculist with a large eyeglass cutout hanging over the sidewalk. 

That night we were to meet at the Philharmonia for a concert and I was rushing frantically, map in hand, asking where Pushkin Avenue was and finally found her. We waited for her stylish Ukrainian girlfriend coming from work who had the tickets, and then climbed to a huge hall on the second floor to hear a wonderful quintet. A giant balailaika, an accordion and three other instrumentalists made a wonderful sound from folk music to Debussy. I am normally no fan of accordion music but in this instance it was a great addition to the ensemble. Deborah laughingly informed me one number was a Nirvana hit.

We went the next day to the bus station to get our tickets for the morrow, hers to the villages, mine to Moldova. We passed through a large market and I bought dried kiwi and fresh mozarella. You must fight very hard not to be loaded down with more and more plastic bags. We had a so called business man's lunch and that night splurged on a Georgian restaurant. Since I hadn't even thought of going to Georgia, I should at least taste the food. I had a rich cold creamy walnut soup, spicy salad and tried to smuggle out the leftover cheese pizza unobserved for breakfast.

[Then ]Off to Moldova by bus, with long pauses at the border.

2012_11_16 Report Kiev

on 16 Nov 2012 Alexa wrote:

Oleksandr (Sasha) of Kiev met me at the station at 7 - his home was far from the center and his job with an Italian building company provided him with a car. We picked up his wife Oksana at her job certifying HVAC plans and drove through miles of Soviet era high rises to the outskirts. We joined their teenaged son Tymofey (the best English speaker) and Oksana's mother Galina (the worst) in her apartment for a dinner of soup, beet salad, carrot salad, pierogi, tea and cookies.   

Oksana's mother Galina is from Siberia. Though born in Ukraine, Sasha and Oksana communicate in Russian. He tried speaking Ukrainian at home and his wife said she felt like she had two husbands. The language was suppressed by the Soviets. Over the few days I stayed with Galina we managed to communicate with sign language, expressions and a dictionary. She gave me her bedroom and slept on the kitchen couch with the TV running all night.

Next morning we went to the family's apartment in the next building to meet the Himalayan cat and get on the Internet. Galina played a computer game before we left for downtown Kiev, a long bus ride to the Metro, crossing the Dnieper river. Plastic tokens are a quarter each and the escalators agonizingly long and steep. We emerged at Maiden Nezalezhnosti to big squares, fine statues, tall buildings and wide boulevards.

You don't cross the street, you descend steps to a tunnel under the traffic and climb up again on the other side. There is a second world underground in the warmth near the metro with stalls selling clothes, food, phones, flowers, beers, buns. We looked for a tourist Information booth with free maps. But I was already hungry so we stopped for dumplings underground. Galina doesn't drink coffee or food she doesn't prepare herself but I managed to treat her to vereniki dumplings with sour cream.

Once we had our maps in hand she resisted my efforts to find the National Museum of Art and took me by metro to a train station with 2-hour bus excursions of Kiev highlights. But it was getting late and overcast, the tour had no English translation, I didn't know how Galina could wait two hours for me and I didn't want to spend the money before my VISA card arrived at Sasha's. She kept insisting and I kept resisting. I had a snack and we found a 25 cent crouch-on-the-footprints toilet and headed home. Tymofey came from his private English lesson and we had the same dinner as the night before.

Sasha called after dinner to report that my VISA card had arrived, and he would drop it off in the morning before his hourlong crawl through traffic into the city. AND Obama won! A red letter day. Only one station broadcast in English, France 24. Galina put it on after her soap operas and news quizzes. I finished Scaramouche and hope Tymovey or Sasha will someday read it.

Next day we set off again to Kontractova Ploshcha and took a funicular up the hill to St. Michael's monastery overlooking the Dnieper, a blue church completely rebuilt since being torn down by the Soviets. On the way to Saint Sophia's we were accosted by a woman with a poster and a smile and detoured to a basement art gallery with paintings and videos of Viktoria, a Ukrainian woman who sings and dances in Egyptian costumes, a self-styled prophetess of the third millenium.

I took pictures of St Sophia's and St Andrews - Galina let me climb the stairs and peek inside at the bright red interior, surprisingly small and without pews. We were on Adriyivskyi Descent, a winding street lined with dozens of souvenir stalls with socks, hats, maruschka dolls and keychains with plastic hunks of pork fat like Galina enjoys in the morning. She spotted a refrigerator magnet of a map of Ukraine and after consulting by phone with her family insisted on buying if for me. 

I saw a tiny museum devoted to the sculptor Ivan Kalaveridze, of large public sculptures like Princess Olga and Yaroslav the Wise. He wrote plays and directed films from '29 to '61. We met an artist displayed in the basement; all his watercolors of the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks, I noticed, featured golfers in the foreground!

We climbed through a steep park to reach the Ukrainian History Museum only to find it closed. Then a long search for the Chernobyl Museum. Galina joined a Russian speaking tour group but I didn't care to rent an audioguide at five times the cost of admission. I heard nuclear power is so abundant they export it.

With high blood pressure and liver problems, Galina opted out of escorting me to town again but wrote out explicit directions. Sasha's father was having a birthday elsewhere on the weekend and the whole family would be going, so I would move to another couch, Yulia's flat. She is a young executive for an oil company.

Alone I took the bus to the metro to the funicular to the Ukrainian Museum of History from ancient times to recent sports victories. Then I headed for the Contemporary Art Museum opposite a showy park of the Embassy of Azerbijan. It seemed small potatoes in the huge modern building but upstairs a celebration of Harper's Bazaar magazine had me transfixed with old posters, videos in Russian, old copies available for perusing going back to the '60's. But what had they to do with Kiev?

Another tram, another metro to the Golden Gate, my reason for coming to Kiev!  I even played Modest Moussorgsky's great anthem The Great Gate of Kiev from Pictures at an Exhibition once in band! Dating from the 10th century when Kiev outshone London and Paris, it is entirely rebuilt. Once part of the city's ramparts with an iron portcullis, it has stairs to the top, magnificent views and a small church inside.

Last, I made my way to the Water Museum, in an old water tower overlooking the Dnieper. I had my own English tour guide who explained the sewage system, displayed uses of water, fish tanks, nature, urged me to save water and encased me in a giant bubble. We took the subway together and I rode the bus to the end of the line to Galina. That morning Galina had introduced me to the woman doorkeeper who stayed in a small room with a bed at the entrance and let me in the building. I arrived as Tymofey was leaving, having played ping pong after school. I cooked up carrots and gulash mix with beans but it wasn't any good. 

The next morning during a long wait for the bus to the metro I saw a hungry mangy dog looking hopefully at us all. I vowed to pick up some meat for him later that day but never saw him again and left the hot dogs with Galina, hoping she will feed them to him.   

I went this time to the Russian Art Museum opposite Taras Shevchenko University. There was a second exhibition on the ground floor, so many works of art are in storage and rarely on exhibit, I felt compelled to give them a look. I think being a museum guard must be a very dull job, and it's women's work in this part of the world. 

I must mention I seem to be allergic to food, my nose generally runs after eating. After I sneezed five times in a row, Galina decided to give me the warm salt water up the nose treatment. It wasn't pleasant but it did obliterate that runny nose! My next hostess, Yulia, had a cold and I mentioned it to her, also gave her a Benadryl to knock her out the night she slept til noon.

I was to meet Yulia at Oblone metro stop as Sasha and his family headed for the country. But she was waiting at the bus stop and I was at the metro entrance watching men unload half torsos of females to display sweaters for sale underground. A friendly English speaker with a phone called Yulia for me and minutes later we met. Her 13th floor studio apartment was nearby and it was great to have a fluent English speaker for a host. She served tea and candy and mimosa, a prepared salad confection of rich egg whites, fish and carrots in colorful layers. 

She has a treadmill in her bedroom, stress eating and free cookies at work has added the pounds. I tried her glass scale, she did the math, and I am 20 pounds lighter since June! No wonder the skin on my arms sags. One of six children and the daughter of a Lada automaker, Yulia helps her parents, since pensions are only about $100 a month. Her sister emigrated to Italy and urges Yulia to join her. She has travelled to Tanzania but says racism in Ukraine is bad; blacks have been murdered, and African students stay in their dorms. She doesn't cook but keeps a very neat studio apartment, being allergic to dust. Her bedside lamp is a crystal that lights up.

I went into town alone the next day to the Ukrainian Art Museum leaving Yulia to recover from her cold. Then I headed out of town to visit Kiev's open air museum of old thatched houses, windmills and wooden churches from all over the country. There were also giant painted eggs in the landscape!

Yulia and I met at the Metro, enjoyed Ukrainian food at a popular cafeteria, and walked the main shopping street, Khreshchatyk, pedestrian only on weekends, past boys with white doves with black fantails available for photographs. We  strolled to the University and then the ballet at the Opera house, Yulia's first ballet!

She had ordered tickets online. There were traffic symbols of what was prohibited in the opera house: smoking; bombs; cameras; umbrellas; guns; marijuana; dogs; bottles! Our seats were very cheap but we could only see a corner of the stage without standing. It was worth the effort. An orchestral arrangement of Carmnen, an intriguing set, masked gauchos and a flirtatious Carmen...Yulia didn't know the story or the music. After an hour, Carmen was dead and Yulia headed for our coats. The woman who rented our binoculars said there was a second ballet after intermission, Bolero, which Yulia enjoyed even more despite having never heard of it! 

Monday Yulia went to work, and I left too for the supermarket with all my plastic bags to stock up on food for the night train to Kiev - apricots, peanuts, bread. I had a brief panic when I couldn't find the storage locker - there were multiple entrances and storage sites in the huge shopping center. I made lucky guesses buying mustard and sandwich spread labeled in Cyrillic.

Another potential Couchsurfing host, Ludmilla, had accepted me after the others had, was a new hostess I wanted to encourage. We could at least meet on my last day in Kiev. I expected to be on the overnight train. Leaving for work with Yulia we found both elevators out of commission. Would I have to climb 13 flights that night and drag my luggage down? I took a leisurely walk along the shopping street to the wonderful Pinchuk art gallery which had had long lines the night before. But it was Monday and I was out of luck. I didn't feel like rushing back for the free walking tour at noon. I was to meet Ludmilla at 2 for lunch. I found the botanical garden on the map and read Somerset Maugham short stories in the sun.

After a furtive visit to a bare-bones woman's hospital to use the bathroom, at 2 I was back at the Opera house to meet Ludmilla.
A PhD cybernetics scientist and widow a decade younger than myself, Ludmilla took me to another Ukrainian cafeteria and insisted on paying for the borscht, beet salad, pierogi and compote juice. The Shevchenko museum was closed so we went on to a free folk concert featuring a dozen different groups in traditional costumes playing and singing to the balailaika. Even a jazz soloist from Odessa! It closed with a rousing male chorale. I enjoyed every moment of it.

Then she showed me an old palace in a courtyard where fellow scientists meet. Upstairs was a tiny art exhibit with the genial artists sharing their wine with us. We joined a crowd watching a dubbed film of Vittoria de Sica's Six Women, featuring Shirley McClain in multiple roles. After the fourth vignette it was time for me to go to make my train at 10 pm. Ludmilla walked me back to the station for a fond farewell. I was anxious about getting into the building - the buzzer didn't work, I had to wait for someone to come or go - and would the elevator work?

Things were fine, in fact the train was sold out that night and the next, so Yulia had gotten me a cheaper seat on a morning train. I could relax, shower, pack. I rose early and got the Metro to Boksal (train station) and joined Nikolai, an Odessan Turk with no English skills, eager to share the fish, potatoes, bread and fried things he bought at the station. He even gave me a tin of tea and bought me a glass of tea. The Ukrainians are nothing if not hospitable! 

2012_11_16 Lviv Ukraine

on 16 Nov 2012 Alexa wrote:

For my stay in Lviv I had found no couchsurfing host, but online the Ukrainian Home Hostel. Taxi drivers met the train but I only had a Euro's worth of the currency so I dragged my luggage to where the banks were, but they were locked. Sunday! Luckily I found a moneychanger sharing space with a pet supply shop who directed me to the bus for the hostel and exchanged my dollars. I passed a church and paused to enjoy the choral music streaming out. After numerous "Pajalusta, gde Lepkovo?" I found the hostel, rang the bell, entered the lobby full of luggage of departing guests, with a young girl in charge. There was a resident cat, as I knew from the website. Because I had not booked online, lacking my Visa card, the charge was double my expectations so I resolved to stay just a single night and headed out for the sights. The place was busy in season and on weekends, but a couple from Moscow were the only other guests. I raided the Free Food box of cookies left behind, made coffee and tea, and refrigerated my butter, yogurt and cheese.

Natalia gave me a map and marked the cheap restaurants on it, and I headed out to discover Lviv. Svobody (Freedom) Prospect was full of people. I walked its length to the opera house and then visited the National Museum - icons and secular, even modern paintings. I walked to Palatz Pototskykh to a disappointing exhibit recommended by the usually reliable Lviv "In Your Pocket" free guidebook series. I made sure to see Georges de la Tour's Payment of Dues, which was highlighted. There was also a mandatory exhibit of Trypillian gold from ancient Moldovan, Roumanian, Ukrainian cultures. 

I headed for the Ploscha Rynok, Market Square and city hall, but museums were closing. So I set off for Puzata Hata, the Ukrainian cafeteria, and shared a table with a Belarussian working for an NGO that monitors elections. He walked me to a supermarket, pointing out the statue and bar/cafe of Masoch, from whom our word Masochism comes. A chocolate shop, a strudel shop...walking past Ivan Franko park in the dark I saw dozens of lighted paper lanterns ascending into the night sky - it was a flashmob! At the hostel I saw "free laundry" and took advantage. No dryers seem to exist in Europe, everything dries on a rack.

Chatting with Natalia I mentioned the morning train. She looked online and saw that just one seat remained unsold. I dressed again and dashed for the bus. You toss your 2 hrinyas paper note (a quarter) on the carpet next to the driver to pay. My heart was in my mouth, but I got to the station and bought that last remaining seat. Though it was a day train there was bedding and everyone napped. A sweet farmwoman living on a tiny pension of $100 a month insisted on sharing her kielbasa, bread and cheese with me. A pretty stylish girl with a good command of English was applying in Kiev to be a tour-guide to 50-something Americans flying between Budapest, Kiev and Ukraine. I read Scaramouche.

2012_11_16 Slovakia (continue)

on 16 Nov 2012 Alexa wrote..

Peter saw me to the Bratislava train station. Next stop, Kosice. He had pointed out old buildings allowed to deteriorate so hotels could buy and build, and kitsch statuary that sprouted up in the old town after Perestroika. A medieval neighborhood was destroyed to build a bridge and a highway in Soviet times. On the train I sat opposite a Slovakian gynecologist working near London headed for his high school reunion.

My new host, Juraj, a bio-engineering PhD would meet me at the Kosice cathedral at three. Two ladies on the train pointed me in the right direction, in German. I dragged my suitcase to the spire and there he was, reminding me of Danny Kaye. He dragged it on to the Soviet era flat he shares with two others and my bed would be the kitchen table couch. The sink was full of wild mushrooms he'd picked on a weekend hike where he injured his Achilles heel (the mushrooms eventually migrated to the trash) so he couldn't walk me around as much as he wanted. He is the child of a single mother, a teacher, rigid and controlling, according to him. He is anxious to emigrate to Australia but failed the language proficiency test by a half a per cent. He will try again. His students are comparing how patients of different nationalities use computers in health care.

We returned to the old city. He also expected a Swiss German couchsurfer hitching from Ukraine. He showed me opposing monuments honoring Russian and German soldiers. His grandfather's farm hosted both during the war. The Germans were helpful and respectful; the Russians trashed everything. We waited downtown for Matthieu, looking for tokay, shopping in a supermarket, discussing the many gypsies hanging out, finally adjourning to Golem Bar for unfiltered beer and a Czech specialty, marinated cheese with bread. 

Juraj pointed out an elaborate sculpture called "immaculata" where people had been burned at the stake, a monument to the end of the plague. There was an arts event to go to that evening. Matthieu finally appeared in a 400-euro yellow Goretex-type jacket. He has a wife in Ukraine. Coming from that frigid land to milder Slovakia, he needed a shower badly so Juraj and I tried the tokay while he showered and dried his long blond hair. He asks people at gas stations for rides rather than hitching.  Matthieu hikes and mountain climbs. I mentioned the problem of abandoned feces, he said you should see the dead frozen bodies! He warned me Ukrainian water and soup would make me sick; he gave me 10 Ukrainian hryvnia for a Euro so I might have bus fare when I arrived at Lviv on the morrow.

We each paid 5 euros to enter the art event but it hadn't really started so we went to a restaurant on a medieval street. Juraj tempted me with a specialty usually found only in Mongolia, not cheap at 8 euros. When it was served with a raw egg, onion, garlic, a dish of worcester sauce

and toast, I knew it at once. Steak tartare! The raw meat was velvety, scraped near the spinal column, Juraj said, I let him enjoy most of it. Never again!

We returned to the "art event."  I expected art exhibits, dance performances, but it was electronic technobeats with blinking lights, loud and monotonous. I dozed off, hid in a quieter space to read. Juraj took us home at last, then returned and enjoyed the noise and spectacle until 3 am. I couldn't get into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, finished The Beach House, and started a 1921 swashbuckler, Scaramouche. Masterpiece Theatre should produce it!

Matthieu left the next morning. Bratislava Peter had downloaded train schedules to Lviv and Kiev on my Kindle. Juraj urged me to take the evening train rather than the noon one, no changing trains. He had a standing meeting with a Persian friend in a coffee shop who spoke little English, and urged me to explore the town on my own.

I set off looking for the bakery - "Pekar", like the late cartoon writer - on the medieval street, which was being repaved with cobblestones. I stopped in a small museum to inquire and the girl thought the bakery was closed due to the construction, so I became her first customer of the day. It was an old jail and executioner's home, once part of the city ramparts of Kosice. The basement has cells and torture devices.

Back at the coffee house for a capuccino, then off again to see the marathon man, a nude runner modelled on one of Juraj's profesors when he was just 17. When I came back again, Juraj was alone so we went to the Technical Museum to see a display of DaVinci's inventions made of wood - most interesting was an army tank to be operated by four men walking inside it.

Europeans use military time, the 24 hour clock, and I often confuse 8 pm with 10 pm, as it's 2200. I was happily checking emails at his flat when he asked what time my train left, and I saw my error. There was no time to take the bus. I frantically packed. Juraj gave me 3 euros for the cheap taxi and I hurriedly bought my ticket for the sleeper to Lviv, only leaving my cheese behind.

I had the compartment to myself. It included two bunks, a lit sink, four hangers, and cost 10 euros above the price of the train. I made up the bed and showed the porter - I had confused the mattress for a quilt! I washed my hair and started doing laundry, but was asked to stop, we were stationary for some hours while my passport disappeared for scrutiny by the border guards.

2012_11_01 Part 5 Bratislava and two Peters

Subject: Bratislava

Peter, my host in Bratislava, has a roommate, also named Peter. He was expecting me the day before I arrived, but still met my bus. A sociology Ph.D. at the university, he earns a third what his partner makes at an IT firm but he had the time to walk me around the old city, to a museum, up to the castle, to the blue church, and later when the other Peter came home, we went to a student pub for a Czech dinner. Twice on the way to the restaurant my Marushka earrings jumped out of my ears onto the sidewalk, and twice we found them again. I had bean soup, cheese dumplings, beetroot salad and dark beer. The dumplings and beet salad went home in a doggie bag. The other Peter was taking a train before dawn to visit his family. 

The Day of the Dead, November 1, is a national holiday. Peter helped me research how to get to Kiev by train, and then we took a bus to the cemetery, where he bought a candle in red glass for his grandparents' grave. The whole cemetery glowed with red light in the drizzling rain. He gave me a tea candle to light and remember my loved ones who have moved on. Then we stopped in a wine bar where we discussed everything from trade subsidies to the gypsy problem. And now once more it's time to pack for tomorrow's trip to Kovice!

2012_11_01 Part 4 Brno and the missing map

Subject: BRNO

Brno, my next stop, means mud. Veronicka, my next hostess, is an enthusiastic young couchsurfer who works at a travel agency that caters to schools. They had a group in New York dealing with Hurricane Sandy. She met me at the tram station and dragged my luggage to the first floor flat she shares with a retired couple who speak no English but understand a little German. 

Despite a forty-year age difference, I felt like we were contemporaries. There was a big slab of cow's tongue and a slicing machine in the kitchen we were welcome to. I shared my bread and cheese. Veronicka gave up her bed for me, sleeping on the floor, and Annetchka, the flat-owner didn't mind my sleeping in the next morning and even offered me coffee.

I went to the supermarket for celery root, apples and bread, then into town to a big shopping center, and sat reading, bought some goulash soup at a food court and suddenly realized the map marked with the tearoom where I was to meet Veronicka at 5:30, was gone. 

I retraced my steps and cursed my carelessness, finally returned to the flat by tram and threw my comb at the window, trying to get Annetchka's attention to let me in. I had left her babysitting her grandchild. Her boyfriend returned and let me in - Annetchka was watching TV in another room and would never have heard me -  and she called Veronicka and re-established our meeting place at KFC. 

I took the tram back to town, found the old square, the museum about to close, a food market where I bought a glass of 'new' wine, and headed for the castle up the hill. Most attractions were closed until tomorrow and I didn't see how I could fit them in before my bus to Bratislava especially with my heavy luggage.

I bought a winter hat at a second hand shop (somewhere I lost my warm one), then walked in circles around the castle until I had to rush to my rendezvous with Veronicka. We went to a hidden second floor tea room that offered hookah pipes of tobacco as well as tea, and sat on the rugs and talked, smoked and sipped. Some Moroccan friends working for IBM called from a nearby bar and we joined them for a beer, (they mostly had tea) and I trotted out all my Arabic from my time in Morocco in the late seventies.

Veronicka and I shared a can of kidney beans with garlic powder and hit the sack. In the morning we went to a vegetarian buffet for breakfast and she saw me to my bus. From such a short visit I found an intense friendship!

Next stop: Bratislava

2012_11_01 Part 3 Prague in the middle of the night

Catching up on posts from Bratislava, Slovakia, on a rainy November 1 planning my long train trip to Ukraine where i hope to receive my new Visa card!

Subject:  Prague

AHOY, as they say in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, for hello and goodbye, even though they aren't near any sea, Ahoy, Disaster! They don't use Euros in the Czech Republic! I got off the bus expecting to find a change counter in the station, why didn't I change money before I arrived? Information told me to try the shop, but they wouldn't take Euros. I needed funds for Metro tickets to get to my couch. Riding without a ticket means heavy fines in these countries. A kind young Czech bought me a ticket to the main train station, two stops away, but here too the change offices were closed for the day. 

Another man led me to Wenceslas Square, carrying my heavy suitcase and urging me to beware. The first place open had a very poor rate, $20 wouldn't even pay for a three-day pass. I asked a waiter what to do. Someone overheard and directed me to another place. Off I dragged myself but they had just closed. It was 11 pm and the streets were full of people. I found another place, and the more money I changed the better the rate became. Finally armed with a new strange currency, I found the Metro, and a drunk and friendly young Czech named Peter saw me all the way to my tram and to my door, and then disappeared. As arranged, the keys were in a vitamin bottle under a second set of stairs by a tram stop named for Charlie Chaplin. There is a movie studio nearby and the paving stones are arranged like film strips. Chaplin's silhouette hangs over the walkway.

Kate had left detailed instructions on Couchsurfing.org. It was midnight and the flat was deserted. I found the couch, the sheets, the kitchen, and eventually my hostess returned, and her roommate, who spoke no English and worked three jobs.

Kate came home like a whirlwind, She had lived in Scotland a few years, doesn't drink, works for an IT company and dotes on her nieces and nephews. She really enjoys speaking English and filled me in on how life used to be under the Soviets. Everyone earned the same pay, nobody cared, obsequiousness and tiny bribes were the order of the day.

Kate would always come home in the wee small hours and the gabfest would begin. She wasn't such a live wire first thing in the morning though!,

Kate recommended the free city tours (tips accepted) like I'd enjoyed in Porto, Portugal. The first day I stayed home with Kate's computer, only venturing to the supermarket nearby, buying a bottle of wine for the silent roommate who was not a Couchsurf devotee and needed a little token to tolerate visitors. But she had a pile of clothes to get rid of and at Kate's urging I helped myself to a couple of warm sweaters, for the next day it snowed. I dashed a little late into the old town and couldn't find the tour, so I went on to the Alphonse Mucha museum, the gifted 19th century illustrator who found fame advertising Sarah Bernhardt's appearances and eventually devoted himself to promoting the Slavic homeland. Another native son is Franz Kafka with statues and a museum of his own. 

I wandered over to the bus station to get the schedule for my next journey to Brno, Slovakia. At another ornate square I heard a broadcast in English. There was an outdoor video of slaughterhouse practices for cattle, pigs, chickens, and vivisection. I stood in the cold transfixed by the cruelty and vowing never to buy meat again. Even dairy cows have no freedom of movement. I had hoped Europe was kinder to animals than our factory farms but the young volunteer disabused me of that notion. I headed off for Wenceslas Square and forty minutes later found I had made a circle, so I caught the Metro back home. I finished The Forsyte Saga and started The History of Love, which another Couchsurfer had left behind.

Kate returned that night with stars in her eyes, she had met her idol at a pub and had her picture taken with...Clive Owen, moviestar! I managed to find the free tour the next day, conducted by Colin from Scotland. Kate had showed me on Youtube free tour Prague snippets with stories of the assassination of a Nazi chief - those who killed him hid in a room which was flooded, so that they drowned, and the village of Lidice was wiped out in revenge. 

Another lighter story was of the four statues of composers above the music hall on the river. Mendelssohn was one of them and known to be Jewish but the statues were not labelled, so the one with the biggest nose was tossed to the ground and it turned out to be Richard Wagner's!

Colin the Scot explained the astronomical clock, the statue of Jan Hus, the martyred Protestant, and led us to the old Jewish quarter which was noticeably low and prone to flooding. He took us to Wenceslas Square, and  answering my query said he was not a king but a kindly prince, murdered by his brother; the Christmas carol is a total fabrication. At the end of the boulevard the museum is being renovated, but there is a small portrait in the pavement of the young student who set himself on fire after the failure of the uprising. Dying in a hospital bed he begged his followers not to imitate him, but nine of them did. 

My last full day in Prague I headed for the castle across the river on the hill, hot on the heels of Belgian tourists. Part of it was closed, the gallery I visited was inferior, I sauntered down the cobblestoned hill past a vinyard to the river and over the famous, crowded Charles Bridge, and stopped at a student art museum with four huge plastic revolvers hanging in a courtyard pointing at each other. Another memorable exhibit in the derelict palace where Ämadeus" was partly filmed was a take-off of Manet's Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe, a video of naked girls re-enacting the painting with Camembert and sex for money. I took a last look at the Old Town, Stare Misto, which it seems to be called in every country. 

My last morning I headed for the Museum of Communism but worried about making my "student agency" bus to Brno and turned away after taking pictures of a frowning Marushka (the Russian dolls within dolls). The bus was nicer than Eurolines, with free coffee, tea or chocolate, magazines, movies and Internet. I sat next to a portly monk in a brown cassock but he spoke no English. I had read in Kate's Lonely Planet guide to Thailand never to sit next to or touch a monk in that country!

2012_11_01 Part 2 Vienna money changers, tickets and hosts

The next morning on the bus to leave town for Vienna, I created a sensation when my yogurt drink wet the floor but I had a roll of TP to clean up the damage. I raced to catch the bus to the metro to the bus and noticed many windmills in the Austrian countryside. 

My young Viennese hostess had her aunt's birthday party to attend and I'm afraid I delayed her. I had Euro bills but not small enough for the Metro machines and had to brush up my German and beg strangers to change them. I am a poor map reader and had to ask someone to phone my hostess. She rescued me a block from her flat and left me with her cats and computer and a vegan apple cake she made and went to her party. She had wanted to take me but her aunt was no open-minded Couchsurfer; it might have been embarassing to be the stranger crashing the party so I left the bottle of decent wine with Petra. My luggage was already too heavy and the pulls of the rolling suitcase broke completely so dragging it is awkward, it keeps flipping, catching on my feet and straining my back. Now I'm waiting for the zipper to break.

My hostess Mira told me she dropped out of school after a serious auto accident and gets up very early to work in an office, but will eventually return to college. She has all the videos of Breaking Bad, In Treatment, Weeds and more, and a nifty coffee machine with instructions for Couchsurfers. She also has Lonely Planet Vienna and helpful maps for exploring the city's riches.

The next day I took the Metro into the center of Vienna and emerged at St Stephen's Square where men in red cloaks and costumes were selling tickets to classical music concerts. First I had to get some Euros - the banks seemed to offer better rates than the change stands - then I couldn't find the young man I wanted to get the ticket from, and got it from another who assured me it was the same thing, then found the first, who forgave me, I imagine all the operations are similar. They promise you opera, ballet and orchestra and you get five people on strings, a piano, a flute, a singer, and two quasi ballet-dancers on the postage-stamp-sized stage in an old palace where Mozart once performed. Every old chestnut associated with Vienna was trotted out from Blue Danube to Wien Wien Nur Du Allein, which brought tears to these old eyes.

I passed the Spanish riding school, speaking of ballet (by horses), (which my niece teaches) and huge statues in dramatic poses over fountains lit up in the night. I was wearing my Obama '08 t-shirt and more than one unkind Austrian youth sneered, "Romney! Romney! or as I think of him, "Rawmoney. Rawmoney." I read the transcript of the debate online I wasn't going to stay up all night to see it.

Again I took dozens of photos of fierce men of stone holding up building facades, naked nymphs, lion faces, the Viennese are over the top! The big art museum was closed for the day so I headed for the Leopold's extensive collection, old and new, introducing me to Egon Schiele, a unique talent who died too young, and a special on the male nude (a t-shirt on one classical statue, jockey shorts on another, even a Mapplethorpe) and then a disappointing visit to Momek, with two floors of fluorescent lightbulbs (that's art?) and exhibits and videos of very slight interest. I was never more disappointed in a museum. 

I cooked kasha and beans for Mira and we watched an old Austrian thriller with subtitles she'd seen many times before.The cats loved sniffing my baggage, nesting in the plastic bags and one even chased her tail repeatedly.

The next day I returned to the biggest museum, with room after room of paintings, special Klimt frescoes in the ceiling, dozens of Egyptian mummies...a full day of cultural enrichment.

I had bought a 3-day transit pass and neglected to mention to Mira I hoped to stay another night to get full use out of it, but she had another couchsurfer coming. Kate In Prague was expecting me so I charged off to the bus station to be sure of a ticket, after a morning visit to the Art Nouveau Secession museum to see the Klimt in the basement and then raced to Sigmund Freud's home and office, tarrying too long to be in time for the Spanish riding school tour of the stables at 2pm. So I rode the tram through the old city for an hour, then found the 3pm English tour sold out. I dared not wait for the 4 pm tour with a bus leaving at six, so I headed back to Mira's for the last time for my luggage, and made the four hour trip to Prague.

2012_11_01 Part 1 Budapest Again

Catching up on posts from Bratislava, Slovakia, on a rainy November 1 planning my long train trip to Ukraine where i hope to receive my new Visa card!

Subject: Budapest again

Back to Budapest to Petra and her Deux Chevaux and her whippets! She showed me the website airbnb (bed and breakfast) where she is renting her spare room to tourists. The website has exploded with activity since she joined. We sipped the bad wine in cardboard from Zagreb and the eau de vie from Croatia. It gave her a headache.

The next day we dropped off the dogs at her mother's and drove out to a nearby village where she was to interview smokers for market research. But she had left behind her display of cigarette packs, so I rode back to the flat and stayed to write you about Croatia.

Petra went back for more interviews the next day and I descended to the city to buy my bus ticket for Vienna and for a last day of sight-seeing, visiting the big city park with its old castle/museum, peeking into the hot baths, walking through a contemporary art exhibit and by the House of Terrors. In the lobby was a video of a man weeping, asking why, why did they have to hang them? The outside of the building is lined with cameos of some of the many who were killed within. Petra has never been inside; it is beyond her budget.

I stopped in a bike/Segway rental place with used English books and looked for the short story collections with the most pages. Can't travel with nothing to read!

Dinner was in another nearby village, and Petra was sorry to learn she could have brought Boris the whippet to the restaurant. Margit's beau was too shy to join us so we three enjoyed beer and soup and I forgave them for lapsing into Hungarian with each other.