In Russia, I mean, Ukraine

Right now it is hard for me to believe that I will be home in less than two and a half weeks. Time moves in fits and starts, but for the most part it has been extremely fast. Some of my students have asked me if I'm looking forward to going home. I tell them "yes" very quickly, then try to put into words just how excited I am. Failing to think of anything that could be both understood by and interesting to an English Language Learner, I just grin and repeat "yes, I am looking forward to it very much."
I know I'm slack about posting on this blog, which is a shame. A lot has happened in the last month. The most exciting thing was our trip to Ukraine. The other two American teachers and I met up with one of their friends from back home and together the four of us toured the Crimean Peninsula for a week. There a person doesn't have to choose between the mountains and the sea. Both are to be found right next to each other to spectacular effect. Before I say more about Crimea, I must explain that culturally, Crimea is still very Russian. While the official language is Ukrainian, few people speak it nativily in this region which was given by the soviets as a gift to Ukraine back when it was one republic and nobody though it would ever actually matter who owned what. We began our journey, of course, with a long train ride. Volgograd to Simferopol takes a little over 24 hours, with over an hour of that devoted to border crossing. No one tried to extort a bribe out of us, so it was a fairly pleasant experience. We shared a coupe compartment with a man and his extremely active six year old son. They, along with about 14 other parents with children, were heading to do a bike tour of Crimea. At one point in the trip, a number of the children came into our compartment. Apparently thinking that we also were with their group, they sat down across from us. I don't know whether they were expecting entertainment or what, but when we explained who we were and where we were from, one little girl expressed her shock and the others just stared. It was pretty funny. The one girl talked to us a bit, but for the most part, it was just them staring at the first Americans they'd ever seen for about 15 minutes.
When we arrived, it was cold and rainy. This continued as we took a bus to Sevestopol, home of the Russian fleet and site of the baptism of the first Christian Czar. In fact, the rain continued most of the time we were in that city. That didn't stop us from recognizing that the city would be extremely beautiful in the sun, and we did get to visit the Greek colony which was the site of the baptism. We also met a strange young man with a pet rat who lived in his jacket. He offered to let us pet the rat, and the first thing I thought was "The plague entered Europe through Crimea." Of course, he only spoke Russian, so our conversation was quite limited. He did draw us a picture of the monument to the scuttled ships in the harbour (from the Crimean War). I'm not sure that if I had his drawing skills I would be so quick to put them on display, in fact, I think I do have his drawing skills, but to each his own. Speaking of the Crimean War, there is a panorama museum of the war in that city. Housed in a beautiful building with a convincing panarama depiction of one day of the battle, this museum could teach the Volgograd Panorama a thing or two. Our evenings were relaxing as we stayed in a church's guesthouse that was both comfortable and very affordable.
After a couple of days, we moved on to Yalta, the gaudy yet beautiful playground of Russian tourists. While our accommodations in Sevestopol had been very affordable, here they were dirt cheap. We found an old woman renting an entire apartment, granted, a relatively small one, for what worked out to be less than 5 dollars each per night. We enjoyed our time in Yalta as we mixed kitchy activities, like visiting the Swallows Nest (see pictures) and taking the bucket chair lift, with more intellectual ones, like visiting Anton Chekhov's dacha and the site of the Big 4 meeting. We tried to celebrate Cinco de Mayo there, but Lonely Planet failed us. The Mexican restaurant they touted was closed and dusty looking. We tried a place that looked Chinese instead, but it turned out to be regular Russian food with Chinese decor. Pretty typical. Determined to make our own fun, we went to one of the pebble beaches(there is no other kind in Crimea) to write a message, put it in a bottle, and throw the bottle in the ocean. A quick assessment of the tides showed us that the bottle would likely wash up on the same shore in about 45 minutes, so we claimed in the note to be from Bulgaria, just to add more interest in case anyone found it. We included our e-mail addresses but have so far heard nothing.
We continued on to Feodosia, which is similar to Yalta in many ways but, at least when we went, much less crowded and therefore more charming. The long-distance bus station is on the very edge of town, so at first we thought we were the victims of some elaborate ruse and had been left in a village. After getting settled in, we walked through the city some and along the ocean front. Maybe it was because it was the off season, but the city seemed to roll up its sidewalks at 9, leaving us to eat in a fast food place that turned out to be amazing. The next day we went on a hike in a nature preserve with stunning ancient rock formations, and a guide who alternated between stoical silence and blathering on during our frequent stops to appreciate some particular formation. Perhaps I would have enjoyed his speeches more if I knew Russian, but it was pretty cold and I think many of the Russians in our group felt as I did about these delays during which the wind whipped around us.
A little poor planning on our part meant that the busses stopped running before we got off the mountain. Some ladies in the information booth had told us that one should be there shortly if we waited, but we soon realized that it wasn't happening. They tried to find us a taxi number and failed, but recommended we walk down the road to a shop where taxis usually wait. The shop was closed and there were no taxis. We continued walking through this village about an hour outside of the city until we found a bus shelter. Thankfully there was an ad for a taxi there, so we called and he soon came and picked us up. You would think that a taxi trip like that, which involved him driving us nearly an hour and then returning home, would have been really expensive, but it turned out to be around twenty dollars. At that point I would have gratefully paid double.
Our return trip to Volgograd was a little less pleasant. We were riding in 3rd class to save money, which meant people coming and going all through the night. Also, we crossed the border at about 8:30 in the morning, and the lady in charge of our car decided that meant we should be woken up around 5:30 to fill out our migration cards. It took me all of 10 minutes to do so, and that was only becuase I was so tired I was having trouble seeing the boxes. I tried to go back to sleep, but this officious woman kept coming by to make sure everyone was ready.
All in all, the trip was wonderful. The views were fantastic and I got to walk where greatness had been. As a break from Russia, though, it was quite disappointing. We kept finding ourselves calling it part of Russia and then quickly self-correcting. I don't know nearly enough to have an opinion about such a politically loaded question, but if you want to see a lot of Russian people, eat a lot of Russian food, and hear a lot of Russian spoken, you can save yourself the hassle of getting a visa and just go to Crimea.