Ukraine - Day 1: "the ukraine is strong!" or "jungle love"

"the ukraine is strong!" (or weak) as many readers will know are constant calls from any of our spirited 16 hour long Milton Bradley's Risk matches.

"jungle love" is for the upholstery (pictured stage right)adorning the two lovely chairs already residing in my apt here when I arrived. I guess someone else also thought of much spraying and love in the air while the kids watched and played. No comment on the splash marks in the art.

So, onto Day 1, my arrival. I'll post about the airplane part later, i think.

Ok, so I started writing this about 5 mintues into the drive , right after I
tried to use the built in laptop webcam to take a video. I can't post it
cause the upload speed here is 56Kbps quality (not KB). I stopped writing after I reached my destination, Dnepropetrovsk (nye-pr pa trov-sk):

{ed - I'm the editor editing as I post this stuff that was typed hurridly in the car}" Wed Aug 22nd, 2PM. the police just kind of chill in the shade, outside the car with clubs in hand as we go through an orcherdy area, just chilling in the shade. the city is a mix of new, old, and really old. the roads are 2 lanes, but of varying size. holy ^$&$# the driver just passed a car with furniture on the roof, not even thinking about the brakes, with a transport truck looming head on, as in 3 cars, 2 lanes. it would never happen in the US. I really want to drive here now. wow. as i was saying, the lanes and road laws are more of a suggestion. My driver also created a lane when ppl wouldnt let him in. the road looked like 2 columns of traffic per direction, well, he created a third between our two. then he wanted to get me some water, he pulled over, thank god passing the gasoline vat looking thing from the 30's that 2 women were selling some hand labled liquid out of, and went to where there were 3 conveniece stores next to each other. while there were 2 of the same modern gas station across the street from each other. the 3 places we stopped next to were a little farther
along and all 3 looked like Merrick's (THE blt place in chapel hill, near campus). i dont think he wanted me to get out, so i didnt. the driver hurredly ran from one store to the next, i guess one specialized in water. maybe the other was for "professional" women. people just stand about in spades, of almost all looks and ages. i was sitting parked in the bus stop, with the big bench next to me, so the bus just stopped in the road a little farther along. i dont think i was in the way, as people just seem to stop where ever. some cars were parked along the side of the road, some others were parked up on the sidewalk at random angles. Oh, yeah, the airport. the parking lot was a mess of cars and getting out was hilarious. people just sort of created a lane for their direction in this giant mass and we had to honk through what I guess were morons. {ed - I opened and closed my laptop to preseve the 2nd battery as much as possible, as the first was already used working on the plane}

we're at about 20min into the drive, out of kiev, and it is all fertile countryside. gorgeous plain of corn after plain of corn, divided by obligatory tree lines. i see a couple old hangers (like WWI or II) or storage sheds. massive things. skeletons of the past and hopefully not from the famine {ed - when various countries or Stalin would doubly work the farmers and take their food}. my driver's name is James {i found out later it's Jenya in Ukrainian)..and he is a shoe in for the next Stig {ed - the mysterious masked driver persona from the BBC show Top Gear. Did I mention I want to drive here? But not a sports car, the roads are rougher than jailhouse love, to put it nicely. oh , i just saw a cow grazing with a chain, no fence. awesome. shortly after that is the stand of apples, about 16-17 buckets of apples manned by women..and furs. About 30 feet of apples or furs, whichever you need. Oh, I forgot to mention it's like 90 out.

i can see for 10 miles likely, if not more. hazy trees in the distance over a black tilled field. they're maybe a cm tall in my view and obviously old tall trees. the black soil is Ukrainian gold. 1/4 of the worlds "awesome black soil" or whatever {ed - I read this in one of the books my parents got for me - thanks mom, dad, sis!}. it's part of why everyone kept fighting over the right to exploit ukrainian farmers over the past century. all the power lines look like ours, but the metal ones are rusty. I thought i understood the roads, like the dotted white line, but really it just goes solid for a long time, then has dots for one car length maybe. people seem to pass regardless. in the hour of driving so far, i only saw the one cop set in the apple orchard. we just passed some sweet water towers that look like old german grenades. Its endless miles of farm land and the rare house. I can't wait to take pictures. Ooo, a massive field of sunflowers. you know what is awesome? going 80mph on a road that is like hwy 86 towards hillsborough headon at someone else going 80mph. one field has a mound, like an island tropical sitting in the middle of a brown ocean. we slowed down to 120kph for the police van, then passed 3 cars at 140kph.

50min out, we hit the first town. there are billboards for what i can only guess are traditional wear. no way, the houses all look like that midget proportion house on 751, near where JTB lives (between southpoint and 54). the police station looks like a small modern church with 30ft ceiling. no one in it, the cops are just chilling outside. back to the houses, it's unreal. almost the whole town is diminutive. with even smaller little sheds surrounding the houses, each unique but similar in color or texture to it's "parent." This is 500+ houses I'm talking about. lf i was japanese and a girl i'd have to scream "kawaii!" so far i've seen mud huts, log cabins, and things that look like theyre from honey i shrunk the american 30s. Like Norman Rockwell complete with whitewash or accented fences.

Now we are driving through forest. the trees are evenly spaced and the land has gone from absolutely flat to hills and curves. All the trees are the same sort of bark shedding pine completing some kids nightmare of where to get lost. I just saw a billboard with a girl in traditional flower wear, then 2 19th century villagers selling food, and finally what looked like Montel williams with a bad Kanki {ed - japanese steakhouse for those not local to me} uniform and a basket of vegtables just randomly spilling out. These were 3 different billboards and I really couldnt be sure what any of them were about. {ed-i've described nearly all the billboards so far} Instead of milemarker signs, theres a 1 wall carolina blue hut with pink dots and shapes on it. at the top is a crappy burgandy roof with 54nKM on it. I think it is a bus stop/mile
marker/pretty in pink 16 present to some lucky farmer. I do see some cranes in the middle of the field nearby, but no structures. I can only imagine it is a far walk from that bus stop. oh snap, James has just explained to me that the apples on the seat are for mushna (sp?), for my eating, just like those sold from the stands. we just got passed by a 2007 dodge charger. wtf.
james didnt feel it, so we sped up and went head on at some Lexus, half pushing the slow guy in front of us off the road. i might just take a vacation to drive in the Ukr. i'm giddy, i just got scared. imagine driving on hwy 40 with me and other ppl like me and being allowed to go head
on. then imagine ppl making the start of moves to the minimal tolerance, as another guy starts coming out into your lane before you are past him. (head on {ed - I'm saying head-on a lot. guess it's really a new thing for me to be a passenger, cause I do it too...}). i dont think they have stop signs either. but if they did, and it followed common practice as observed by yours truely, then it would be a "dont stop, but try and get as close as possible to T-Boneing or PITTing
the other car as possible" sign.

its been 2 hours of fields now. after that it was a 300ft strip of houses with a dirt path, normal size 1 level homes. we got to it just as Space Odyssey came on the driver's CD. I asked for "Musika" shortly before, but a scan through the radio station had turned up nothing. I think Mission Impossible is now playing or something. this James rocks. he's jamming out on the wheel - maybe we'll get to go even faster in this , oh, just passed a tank, in this Nissan X-trail. I just saw old women all dressed up in babayaga gear selling apples next to an orchard, then 40 ft after it were 3 teenagers sitting in the grass the same way, in khakis, no shirts, selling apples. After that started weeping willows by the road and birch trees directl oh, here comes the first billboard since the last described, and women selling potatoes. the 2nd bb looks to be selling windows. wow, windows. ouoo, police harassing an audi driver, everyone slow down. i swear it was the same [police man] who happpily chatted with me about xbox and ps3 in customs. he had a smile on his face then and now. potatoes for sale!. another sign, it has a window on it and
a family. i think they are selling voyeur services. the song just switched to "Love is a four letter word" sung by some brit bird, which is awesome cause james doesn't speak english. ago. billboard update, a fireman, he looks like an american, and then some goldbars {ed - there was a fireman on one sign. the next had just a pile of gold bars. i don't think there was text on them, or if there was, it was minimal}. the country side has started to roll again, hills and trees. theres a local swimming damn/creek. everyone is in black speedo gear. I'll fit right in. very few shirts in the ukraine so far, too bad this only applies to the men. Aw, a scenic single house, ugh, and large graveyard, overlooking and even shadowing the farmland with cows sheltering beneath. the rest of the houses are a good 3000f away. so far the speedlimit seems to be whatever the vehicle tops at. truely befitting a country eager to join in with all that the european union stuff, we've started hitting large roundabouts in the countryside {ed - like really large, multi-lane, out of nowhere.}. also, the billboard distribution appears to be roughly 90% windows, 9% random stuff with food.

the guide book came in handy. 2.5 hours in, the large bottled water started to call for release. I said "toilety vanya" or something, and we stopped at the next town to use the restroom. There were a bunch of random buildings, sort of like a small beach town {ed - at first. then the look went more like mid-income mexico, as in not-cardboard}. After asking the locals, we had our bearing for what would become the great restroom quest. It took us past numerous ovens, shanty looking structures, empty buildings, and lots and lots of stalls with various hanging cooked fish. Everything was sort of just random wood boards stacked or nailed seemingly without measurement and shared roofs of rectangular anythings stuck together. Also walking around were women in little shorts also selling fileted open cooked fish, I had to decline. We finally made it to the restroom. we understood where it was from the big 'M' on one side in blue. It was a white building with 2 doorways, but instead of doors it just had a piece of wood at a permanant angle. Oh, and in addition to the big 'M', an understanding was easily due to the odor. Inside, I realized what all the advice about taking toliet paper was about. Thank god I only had to take a leak. Once inside the cave, there was a 1 foot raised platform that had 2
holes with planks of wood on the side to put your feet on. Luckily I didnt have to get up there to take care of business. My shoes would have cried {ed - i traveled in the Mark Nason loafers cause they're so comfy}. There were also make shift toliet seat templates made out of wood along the wall, none of which were clean. A small shoe box next to the hole was full of various pieces of paper, whether it was from a notebook, a wrapper, an advertisement, or a napkin. Much like the wood, they were not all clean. I guess that is for the unluckies in an emergency. After finishing my business, it took us a little while to find the water spigot. while I washed my hands, taking care not to get water anywhere near my mouth {ed - suggestion from books and citizens alike}, James went to go use the restroom. While he was in there, a policeman was only a step behind me in his quest progress. He asked me where the bathroom was, because when I pointed after he was done talking, he became happy and said things that sounded happy. Although from what I've read, if it were in angry tones, that could be happy Ukrainian speak. I guess I passed as a local today somehow.

All that adventuring made James hungry, that and the women in front of the various ovens. We took more random turns here and there,, seriously 200ft deep from the road in a close 2 to 1 abreast maze, we admired various kabobs. I settled on a beef kabob, fresh tomatoes, onions and a bunch of basil garnish (I had read about the famous "what a real tomato tastes like" after being grown in the black soil and was eager to try it). I said "nyet" to the cucumber as I want to take on the pollution/radiation slowly. The fish was likewise declined. I did swap a piece of my beef for one of James fish - he was eager for me to try everything in large quantity. The kabobs had a fresh taste to them with the basil and the tomato was quite good. James has been a great guide, driver, and even friend as he tries to explain things to me in the native tongue. Some of it seemed to be about "the beautiful women should be at the oven while the men sit inside and eat." I had to agree - how can I say I love to cook? Being gay was only recently decriminalized and I don't think I can explain metrosexual. I think dinner was like 90 kopeks, or 1 quarter. {ed-I think it was more like 9 hryvnas and 90 kopeks, or 2 dollars. food in the city is like $5-10}

I must be nearing some city, there are a couple skyrises, 12 stories, blue, brick, or other brick color. They look similar to the hong kong movies I watch when it depicts where the vietmanese live. the concrete sags all-over and has what I hope is rebar protruding."

After that, my laptop croaked. I arrived at the apartment and it was nice (lion king and love for the win).

More updates and pictures later. Oh, and I'll start a list of lessons learned about the ukraine from my limited understanding.