Month: July 2012

Jim is out getting the car dealt with. In Aktau. By himself. I am at the hotel wondering if I should get in a cab. By myself. In Aktau. Need to deal with the immigration police and register ourselves. A necessity if we are here for more than 5 days even though we have a 60 day visa. It’s a hassle. The Immigracionetz Politizia are not open every day and not open 9-5 so it’s a total crapshoot. At least they are in this city. I am catching up with transferring and sorting photos. Takes a long time. We have 2 cameras and 2 video cameras and 2 iphone cameras and we use whichever one is handy so it’s a lot of devices to keep charged and synced and sorted.

Here are some pictures from the market in Berdyansk, Ukraine. We woke up and went looking for coffee and found this market and had such a great time walking the stalls.

 

 

 

Imagine you are driving on a two lane road, one lane in each direction; like that pretty road from the 101 freeway to Ojai. If there is a really slow car in front of you, you can pass it. It’s that kind of road. A little winding so there will be sections that you cannot pass but for the most part you get the drift. Can you see it? The leafy oaks shading both sides of the road, a little bumpy, sun shining through the canopy here and there, little houses near the road, fields. You get the picture.

Now close your eyes and imagine that the steering wheel is on the right hand side of the vehicle. Now imagine it’s one of those really narrow sections but instead of 45 mph everyone is hauling along at 65. Imagine that every other car is a semi 18 wheeler truck with a former weightlifter representing Bulgaria behind the wheel with teentsy little Skodas and Ladas in between and pimped Audi 7’s. See the bouncing semi tires as tall as your window with diesel exhaust belching out the side through your open window because you have no AC. Now imagine the drivers in Rome: see them with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of their mouth, techno blaring, nonchalantly steering with one hand while they careen around every curve possible and gesticulate with the other: likely at you. Now imagine that on both sides of the road there is a ditch about 8 feet deep. Uh huh.

Welcome to our world.

How are you going to pass eh? You are on the right side of the car and can’t see around the trucks in front. No passing on the right, there’s a ditch. In front of you is a truck loaded with manure that stinks to high heaven in the 100 degree heat and its crawling along at 20 mph shifting through the 17 gears it takes to get up to 40 mph. You need a wing man sitting in the left front seat to be your eyes on the left side of the car. Never knew that driving was a team sport did you? Never knew that driving a right hand drive car on left hand drive roads requires a Pilot and RIO. Neither did we!

 

 

We arrive at a hotel we stumbled across, as per usual, in the dark. Which by the way makes the mornings more fun.

So we throw down our bags and head downstairs, via the stairs, not trusting the elevator, six floors. And I HAVE HAD IT with navigating. No more for the day. Period. And Jim I am sure had passed enough cars on two lane roads for one day (more on that later).
We go to dinner in taxi. We have cocktail. Okay we have vodka shots then cocktails. We are eating dinner and with my extraordinary 24/7 planning radar I think, “we are going to have to take a cab back to our hotel”.

For those of you who have known Jim and I for a while or have had the inimitable good fortune of being raised by us; you will love this next part…

We had no clue about the name of our hotel. It probably had one vowel and the rest were consonants, maybe no vowels?

Drama ensued. Phone calls by restaurant managers to cab driver whose cell was off for the night (or by choice). Get in cab, google earth on iphone (long story why that works when my phone is off with no service here), big tip and there we are at OK Odessa.

Who is paying attention here? We need our kids!!

Yesterday we got pulled over by a traffic cop who was standing in the center median of a highway. He carries a black and white latitudally striped baton about 20 inches long. If you are chosen, he points the baton at you while you obliviously drive 90 kph in a 50 kph speed trap. Next to the baton man is the radar man, holding a device made in the USA, Jim was told, while undergoing interrogation in the station while I waited in the car. It cost us 250 UAH on the spot. Every sent we had. The next ATM was a 2 hour drive. Thats how we round up here in Berdyansk Ukraine. Little seaside city. Spent the morning at the market, so fun! The stalls and vendors and smells and colors are like a magnet.

Our hotel is our second in The Ukraine. There is nothing in the room that can be removed. No lamps, pictures, rugs, etc. You sign an agreement to follow the “rules” and get into an elevator that barely fits us and 2 duffle bags. We haven’t been in an elevator yet that stops flush with the floor. They creak and wobble and bounce and its always a little surprising when the doors open and you have actually arrived intact. Odessa was amazing but a whirlwind. We arrived in dark, of course, and had our first hotel experience. We thought the Bentley in the parking lot meant it was 5 star. Not. It likely belongs to the mafioso that owns the place!
Cisenau Moldova was beautiful and much more European than the parts of Romania we saw. Our hotel was gorgeous when we saw it the following morning, another 11 pm arrival.
Today its off to mother Russia…

If it’s Sunday we must be in… Oh. It’s Monday. Soooo confused that way. Monday must be Moldova! I feel as if there is so much catching up to do. I’ve just organized the pictures to date. Got up at 5:00 a.m. because my throat is still so sore and started organizing pictures. On the way to the Czech Out Party (yup, that’s party with a capital P on purpose), we came across this field of sunflowers. Little did we know that thousands if not millions of hectares of Eastern Europe are devoted to growing sunflowers. They are so beautiful and so militant with all their little faces exactly lined up obediantly following the sun and one another I presume.

Fire dancers, a band, a techno lounge, a biergarten, creepy ruins, rain, klieg lights, there was nothing missing from that party. Including a stellar cast of characters…

I can’t get that picture to turn upright without re-uploading and that took five minutes and we need to get moving.

After Czech out we drove to Ceske Krumlov, the most adorable town with a castle on a river.. I have lots of pictures but the wifi here is so slow… We need to get a move on. We were supposed to be in Astrakhan today and have 30 hours fo driving to get there…

We miss our family sooooooooo much. Great seeing the pics and we love the comments on the blog and the spotwalla posts. We are not able to respond because our wifi time has been so limited but LOVE getting messages.

Off to Odessa, Ukraine, Ciao!

 

 

 

We arrived in Bratislava just after 9 pm as it was getting dark, which has pretty much been our MO. We have not arrived anywhere in daylight.

This place definitely has that ex-soviet feel to it. Nobody smiles but one on one everyone we have talked to is warm and friendly. Here people are much more curious about the car and the trip. Here being eastern Europe as compared to Europe proper.

The War looms huge over Eastern Europe. There are reminders everywhere of the atrocities suffered by the Jews and so many others. It is sobering and appreciated.

This is a picture of the presidential palace across the street from our hotel. We will take off shortly either deeper into Slovakia or straight into Hungary. We are a little behind schedule and I don’t want to get to Astrakhan too many days later than planned just in case we need the time when we get to rougher roads.

I have been thinking about this trip. The scale of it and time commitment it has been for the last three months and the next month… Aside from wanting to test my limits; limits of comfort and freedom and patience and just about everything actually, I hope my children and grandchildren know that the adventures are not over. Not every place has been explored BY YOU. And that’s what matters, what you do, and thanks and appreciation to those who went before you to pave the way. Literally.

Stopped for gas and there’s wifi here, woo hoo! We are a little behind schedule and not sure how much time we will spend in Budapest. There has been a surprising lack of down time considering we are on vacation. We are always on the move or partying. (Sorry mom xo 🙂

Last night in the adorable village of Ceske Klumov we wound up in a czech pub with songbooks and a piano player. It was late and we were tired but we sat and had a beer and sang czech songs by reading along and guessing at the pronounciation. What a riot. There were some songs in english too, mostly Beatles. I’ve heard Adele playing everywhere, How cool that her gift transcends cultures, languages, everything.

The hard part so far is not stopping to see everything we want to. And not being able to share the moment with our kids 🙁

We need to crack on to make Budapest, Ciao!

Wow. It seems so much has happened in the last few days with no time to sit and write. We are on the ferry from Dover to Calais, way cool and i dont want to spend the whole trip writing, much as i want to put things on “paper”. We have to map our way to brussels for tonight and find some smaller bills while on board.

Amazing Goodwood party and parade. The other teams are so fun and everyone is just psyched to be a part of this. RAIN RAIN RAIN TORRENTIAL RAIN ALL WEEK. Even while camping last night, but we were warm and snug in our dry tent.

We arrived in London Monday afternoon and proceeded directly to the home of Ray and Ritta and their sons Riley 10 and Reid 6 (Ray is a childhood friend of Jim’s brother Jeff). We couldn’t have waved a magic wand and wound up in a more lovely and congenial home with nicer hosts. Located in Windsor, it is on “Crown lands” and the backyard is The Queen’s farm with a view across the fields to Windsor Castle, pretty incredible actually! Everywhere you look there is a picture postcard in the making, albeit through a drizzle of rain 🙂

We have been picking up the last bits we needed as well as sorting through the stuff Ritta so kindly ordered online and had shipped here for our arrival. Post to follow on the amount of “stuff” one thinks one might need for a 10,000 mile road trip… We’ve had to get more in the way of clothing and pull out jackets and things we didn’t think we’d need until Tajikistan and the Pamir mountains. Our plan was to wait until then to buy heavier clothes that were appropriate for the climate, but turns out we need long pants right here in Windsor.

I’ve had a fever and sore throat so Jim has been the energizer bunny getting things going. While at LAX waiting for our flight the two of us had a chance to sit down and talk about the trip. Something we never seem to have had time to do before we left, oddly enough. We talked about our hopes and expectations and fears. Well, I have fears, but Jim said that he did not think anything about this trip would be the least bit scary for him. That was before we went out for our first drive in our car; on the wrong side of the road. After driving to the village of Datchet yesterday morning (for a jet-lag breakfast at 6:00 a.m. and wondering why only one place in town is open…) Jim said it was the most anxious he has ever been behind the wheel of a car. This from a man with nerves of steel who drove the Baja 500! It is pretty nerve-wracking, you are constantly thinking you are about to be in a head-on collision. On top of that the car is a stick so the gear shift is in your left hand. I am not sure I will get up the nerve to drive in England. Even on these country roads these little cars zip around. Just as we are getting used to this wrong-side-of-the-road-thing we will be on the ferry to the continent and switching our brains back the other way.