Now entering the former USSR

I crossed into Moldova on an incredibly hot bus, which got better briefly when it started to rain- but then the windows were closed and it got hot again. I could tell immediately when we crossed the border as the road became worse. Heading into Moldova felt a little like coming home- I reminded me a lot of Albania. Similar in size to Albania, Moldova surpassed it a few years ago to become the poorest nation in Europe. Like Albania, Moldova has a large part of the population living abroad working and sending money home and Moldova also has many unfinished buildings. In Moldova I stayed with another RPCV with his HCN wife. I only stayed one night, and I imagine that Moldova has a lot of secret places, again like Albania, that could be explored, but I didn't have time. I needed to get to Kiev by August 3rd for my plane home . . . But I'm getting ahead of myself . . .

I took another incredibly hot bus over the Moldovan border to Odessa, Ukraine. I had to be careful about which bus I took as some of the hisses cross through Trans-Dniester an occasionally volatile break away region of Moldova. It is listed as another one of those "restricted zones" by Peace Corps, and even though I'm no longer a PCV and don't have to follow those rules, I had heard that sometimes foreigners are sometimes asked to pay heavy bribes to cross the border and I just really didn't want that trouble.

So I arrived in Odessa- my last chance for nice beach weather. Something has always seemed really romantic to me about Odessa and it didn't disappoint. It had everything I love in a city: walkable streets, nice parks, a beach and of course falafel. In the states, we are used to a lot of different kinds of food all the time. When people would ask me food I miss from home, my answer would be things like falafel, burritos and real (American) Chinese food. I always love the randomness of ethnic food available in different places. Budapest seemed to have a profusion of sushi places and Odessa had a really amazing falafel stand. The guy who owned the stand was not just a falafel stand owner, he was an artist. Each sandwich took about 10 minutes and was a whole process, but it was worth it. Anyway, as indicated earlier, I finally found a nice day and headed to the beach to swim in the Black Sea. The beach wasn't anything spectacular, but it was nice and wasn't too crowded and so I had a nice relaxing afternoon.

From Odessa I headed west to Ukrainian Ukraine (as opposed to Russian speaking Ukraine) to couchsurf with some PCVs in Lviv. One thing to know about trains in Ukraine- book ahead, especially in summer. I had originally thought that I would try to go to Crimea for a few days, but when I arrived in Odessa I found that Crimea was sold out two weeks in advance. So I headed west instead. When I got to Lviv, I found out that the night I wanted to go to Kiev was also sold out- problem since I had to arrive in Kiev, by a certain day to fly to Norway. No problem, as I could stay an extra night in Lviv and take a day train, which brings me to the second thing you should know about trains in Ukraine in the summer---- HOT!!!! And not in a good way.

Anyway, I arrived in Lviv and met Linnea and Kari, my PCV hosts. Linnea actually lives in a town about 45 minutes outside of Lviv, but came into town to meet me, have some American coffee and sushi and use the Internet, all things which can be done in Lviv, but not in her town. Things that can be done in her town, I found, included eating borsht, shopping in the pazar and swimming in the river. I spent a really relaxing few days with Linnea and one night in Kari's weird apartment attached to her school and then headed to Kiev for my last stop on this "Peace Corps couches" part of my trip.

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