Crimea

Ok, before laziness and the passing of time renders the whole thing moot, here's my first installment of my trip to the Crimea at the beginning of the month... I started out flying to Kiev on Friday, and then on to Simferopol on Saturday. I met up with my Ukrainian friend Nata in Kiev on Friday night and I had my first meeting with the insanity that is Ukrainian businesses. We went to a local pharmacy (aptek) to get me some cough syrup (as usual the Universe was conspiring against me) and I first had to go to the "medical counter" to ask what to get, then the lady there wrote something down on a piece of paper which I then took to another "payment window" and paid, before bringing the receipt back to the first counter. The whole process was designed to employ the maximum amount of people and take the maximum time and money away from the customer.

Saturday I met up with Nata and her friend Masha at the airport in Simferopol, where I was going to rent a car. The local Avis office turned out to be inside a van that was parked just across the street from the terminal... By the time we got our stuff in the car and were on our way, it was dark. We set course for Simferopol and managed to navigate our way out on the other side of town and find the road to Yalta.

Nothing very exciting happened on the way, but we stopped and had some dinner at a place just outside Alushta. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it had some very nice areas outside, and the room we saw on the inside (probably the bar) was decorated with heads and skins of various animals and some nice paintings and stuff too. I got the distinct feeling we were in some kind of ancient royal hunting lodge, but that was probably intentional, I think the place was built more recently than that.

We managed to get the only avaliable table, since the rest of the room was occupied by a large bunch of singing, dancing and drinking Ukrainians. The music changed between modern Russian and Ukrainian pop from a music channel on TV and the stereo of the restaurant itself, which played even more obscure stuff. The only western song I heard that evening was "I'll meet you at Midnight" by British poodle-rock band "Smokie"... I rest my case.


The outside of the restaurant:


The bar. We were on the inside.


Hi!!! I'll be your host for the evening!


Masha and Nata, my two Ukrainian friends. I probably wouldn't have made it out of the airport in Simferopol without them.


Yours truly. Evil minds might want to switch whose head is on the wall.