Brett v. World round 3: Ukraine is not VEAK!!

Europeans and their Goddam jeans... I have never seen so many superfluous zippers, pockets, compartments, fades, and basically anything else you can install in a pair of jeans. There is absolutely no pragmatism in a vertical zipper pocket located in another pocket on the back of the knee, with a sparkling dragon embroidered into it. So why do Europeans go to all ends of the fashion world to express themselves through these ridiculously flamboyant and non-functional jeans? ... I don't know. But to quote Zoolander, I guess I prefer the young, hot, brash rookie Male Model of the Year, Hansel's attitude... "who cares? It's only fashion..."


Hello Everyone!
Its been exactly 2 months since I left my cozy little (parents') home in Colorado. I'm here at this computer once again attempting to articulate my experiences from the last few weeks- hopefully without putting you or myself to sleep. However, if I do put you to sleep, at least this blog served some functional purpose because sleeping is effing awesome in my opinion.

Ukraine. Probably to the dismay of all the beautiful Polish women, I departed from Krakow via bus to Lviv, Ukraine. I consider Ukraine my first real experience in Eastern Europe, and certainly the most interesting. People in Ukraine are assholes. I know that I shouldn't generalize 50 million people based on my encounters with a couple hundred, but I will because I've begun realizing the cultural mindset of that bitch, mother Russia. Smiling is frowned upon. Laughing is not joked about. Politeness is bad manners. You get the picture. Ukrainians possess a different scope of judgment on someone's character, and it is quite different from the western paradigm. Is he strong or weak? The answer to this question and in turn, the judgment of someone's character, is strictly based on an odd form of conduct that seems entirely unfriendly and anti-social. Smiling at a stranger or saying thank you when making a purchase or attempting to socialize in public, all constitute weakness. Obama shaking Putin's hand with diplomatic intentions is seen as weak (most Ukrainians that I met like Bush and hate Obama). Basically, being mean is cool and being nice is soooo last year.

Although this seemingly social backwardness was difficult to grasp, especially as a lonely traveler, I did meet plenty of local Ukrainians who were willing to accept my social faux pas and have a good time. Alcohol is extremely popular in Ukraine and because beer is cheaper than water... drunk Brett was more than ready to get some face time. Business men drink beers while walking to work at 8 in the morning on a Monday. Anytime you walk anywhere for whatever purpose, why not have a beer? It makes walking more enjoyable right? That seemed to be the Ukrainian attitude and I quickly adopted it as well.

Anyway, about Lviv. Although its located in western Ukraine, which is supposed to be more pro-west, I thought it felt incredibly Soviet. All the old men looked like hard-nosed communists that could build a house out of a hammer and probably beat the living shit out of (the weird smiling tourist guy, with tattoos and earrings) me. This was a stark contrast between east and west Europe, insomuch that I could probably beat up most of the western Euro-permed, 5'8", Armani suited, men (with too many Goddam zippers on their jeans), whereas the Ukrainians acted and looked tough as nails. Not to imply that I'm the world's strongest man, but I felt less secure in Ukraine because of the loss of my size and strength advantage.

The women in Lviv were..... beautiful of course- a close second to the Polish women. However, it really doesn't matter how beautiful the women are because I can't speak Russian and NOONE in Lviv can speak English. Unfortunately, despite my charming aura and stunning good-looks, the communication barrier could not be breached and all those lovely women were left Brettless. Heartbreaking really.

The lack of English was not my only problem in Lviv. The Russian alphabet (Cyrillic alphabet) is completely different and contains a plethora of funky symbols that might as well be ancient Mayan hieroglyphics to me. What does this mean? I ate a shitload of pizza in Lviv. Pizza is the universal word meaning 'I'm hungry and I can't read your stupid menu and you have no pictures and you don't speak English.' Not necessarily the worst problem in the world, but hey, I'm on vacation.

Lviv was also extremely difficult to navigate. At 7 in the morning, the bus station that I arrived at was conveniently located 9km south of Lviv in some wartorn landscape filled with Ukrainians that I (or any sane person) didn't care to meet. After realizing that noone spoke a lick of English, I hopped on the first local northbound bus and prayed that it would take me at least to a point that was actually on my map. Luck be the lady, I ended up in downtown Lviv somewhere and wandered aimlessly for about an hour until I gave up and hailed a taxi. For whatever maniacal reason, all the maps of Ukrainian cities are in the English translation and don't use cyrillics, yet all the actual streets are marked with the Russian cyrillic spellings (and they don't look remotely similar). What does this mean? Take a fucking taxi.

All in all, I felt the greatest amount of loneliness while I was in Lviv. Because winter season is near, there are very few travelers making it out to Ukraine. My hostel was an eerie flat with very few beds and loads of odd, seemingly unnecessary furniture. Igor, the owner was an amazing man that possessed a wealth of knowledge on basically everything Ukrainian. The only other people staying at the hostel were two gay Russian opera singers; one was probably 40 something and the other 20 something. My nights consisted of talking to Igor about politics while the two gay Russians continually forced vodka down my throat, in hopes of miraculously turning me gay (I found this out later, I didn't assume this). Anyway, the free vodka and good conversation were nice, and I even got the Russians talking in broken English about life as a gay couple in Russia. The drunk older one got worked up while on the topic, and yelled in broken English (with a Russian accent) "Its my cock, its my mouth, its my ass, and not Mother Russia's business!" Needless to say, I made sure to write the quote down before I went to bed.

Moving on, I took a 10 hour overnight train to Kiev and upon exiting the station, I knew I was going to like the capital of Ukraine. Kiev has successfully converted every square inch of concrete, on every building, on every block, into some form of advertisement, apparently directed towards the .05% of the Ukrainian population that can actually afford luxurious consumer goods. The hyper-capitalist atmosphere of Kiev is entertainingly ironic.

So how did I celebrate my first night in Kiev? The strip club of course- the best method for experiencing Ukrainian culture, while curing my loneliness hangover from Lviv. So I and four other guys from the hostel became new best friends for the night (this is pretty much how traveling works every night) and we hit the strip club sloppy drunk, of course just to 'check it out'. Well about 60 dollars (and that's a lot of money in Ukraine) later I came to my senses while getting a lapdance by some gorgeous stripper. Unlike the USA, in Ukrainian stripclubs it is important to note that strippers are offended if you DON'T touch them. As you can imagine, me being the classy gentleman that I am, proceeded to feel some boobies and kiss the stripper, which apparently was OK. Hey, I didn't want to offend the lovely girl! I have no idea how I got home that night, but all five of us ended up by ourselves at opposite ends of the city at around 4 in the morning and I apparently ate McDonalds for the first time on my whole trip. Like I said... nothin' but class.

Although Kiev provided plenty of fun in the party department, I also accomplished a thorough site-seeing agenda that included copious cathedrals and churches (you know with the funky dome-shaped roofs), the Lavra cave monasteries, and two museums. The Chernobyl museum chronicled the horrific disaster that occurred after a Soviet nuclear plant exploded in 1986 and not only accounted for a multitude of radiation-induced deaths, but the entire evacuation of the town of Pripyat. Much of Belarus and northern Ukraine are still permanently damaged by the nuclear fallout and not surprisingly, the Soviet Union did a fairly good job of covering up this atrocious disaster. Unfortunately, I did not pursue the opportunity to visit the actual quarantined site that is apparently still being dismantled and tested. Crazy Goddam Soviets.

Kiev also provided a great mixture of nightly parties with beautiful and beautifully non-beautiful sites (does that make sense sort of?) Graffiti-ridden shithole parks seemed to complement beautiful bustling plazas full of rich women shopping for their next weeks wardrobe, accompanied by their tough-looking asshole husbands- all of whom smoked like lung cancer never existed (I guess its appropriate when the life expectancy is only 55 for men). One gloomy day I took a trip out to some Ukrainian redneck gun club where I fired a few rounds out of an AK-47. Firing a Soviet assault rifle Rambo style (from my hip) is quite the rush, especially when you are surrounded by 'pro' marksmen firing sniper rifles and whatever other killing machines exist as recreational sport... and in Ukraine.

As most cities are, Kiev was difficult to depart. When traveling alone, it seems like as soon as you make some friends, understand the layout of a city, consider the hostel home, and find a good bar to call your own, its already time to move on. However, I left Kiev with high hopes and headed to Odessa.

Odessa is supposedly 'the place to be' for Russians and Ukrainians to hit the beach during summertime and party 'cancun-style bro'. However, I visited during the last week in October. Not only was the town completely void of any form of tourists or local vacationers, but I quickly discovered the 'beaches' located on the black sea were nothing more than ghostowns run by stray dogs and bums, and probably consisted of more broken glass than sand. Shitty graffiti covered everything and the backside of the beach housed a creepy dilapidated childrens' playground that really should be in a horror movie already. Although at first I was completely bummed out by the absence of a legitimate beach (or anything legitimate for that matter), I quickly discovered the strange photogenic attractiveness of such a shithole, and after careful deliberation, I decided to call it the "Soviet Cancun."

One day in Odessa was all I needed to see the majority of the city and its beaches. After my duties as a site-seeing tourist were fulfilled, I really began to fall in love with Odessa. Life is easy in Odessa, and considering how many foreigners I met that live there, I quickly understood how it sucks you in (aside from the beautiful women that hate foreigners). While some people may call it lounging or being a lazy tourist, I found the homeliness of Odessa invigorating. It was the first time on my trip that I performed normal everyday activities without the looming thought of what tourist attractions still required my time. One night, me and 3 guys from the hostel went bowling at some disgusting excuse of a bowling alley and got too drunk to know which direction to throw the ball. I used the kitchen and cooked most of my meals. I watched TV! (online) and couldn't make it through the first episode of the new 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' because its too painful of a show to watch. And to top everything off... I even went to the gym! I was a little apprehensive at first because I figured it would be some ex-Soviet bathouse filled with a bunch of "World's Strongest Man" contestants lifting cars or throwing full kegs over pole vault bars, while screaming roid-rage Russian obscenities at me. However, the gym turned out to be some five-star hotel fitness center and I was the only person in there, meaning nobody could tell that I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

I celebrated Halloween in Odessa. Our hostel had a 'party' and although noone dressed up, we all contributed in varying degrees. There were probably about 20 people at our party, which was pretty impressive considering there were only about 5 of us staying at the hostel (we recruited 'outsiders'). Some people were carving pumpkins, some people brought beer, some people provided food... and what did I contribute? Well of course the classic American tradition of jello shots. For whatever reason, leading up to the party, my Russian friend Alex (who is a dentist) kept begging me to make jello shots because he "had seen it in some American movie, and couldn't remember which one." Anyway, after searching through every dam grocery store in Odessa, I finally found some Ukrainian version of Jello and decided to go for it. I googled a recipe for jello shots online (shit I've never made them before), and wrote it down on a scrap of paper. I'll be damned if every single Ukrainian or non-westerner in that hostel didn't think I had some sacred family recipe for jello shots that had been passed down through dozens of generations and represented one of the oldest American traditions known to man. They also didn't realize that there IS still alcohol in them, despite their tastiness and fun texture...
After the party I went out to the bars with Alex and another drunk Ukrainian guy and they were cut off by the bartender before receiving their first drink. However, I continued to drink, and I think they were too drunk to realize that they weren't even drinking and we met some friends, then some friends of friends, then some friends of friends of friends,.... then I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and had to get ready to leave for Moldova.

It was time to leave Ukraine. Not only was I ready to leave for personal reasons, but the outbreak of the swine flu had hit Lviv, killing 30 some people. Its astonishing how quickly the entire city of Odessa (1 million people) obtained HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) masks, and during the span of my time there, I quickly became the minority without one. Although I was cautious about the epidemic, I couldn't help but laugh when seeing people pull their masks off their face to smoke a cigarette about every 15 minutes.

Crossing the Ukrainian-Moldovan border was nerve-racking. Why? Primarily because I didn't know which route my particular bus had taken and whether or not it would go through Transdnestr- an unofficial separate country that is hardly recognized by anyone in the world. However Transdnestr has their own police force, government, and currency and is technically autonomous, although not legitimate. Regardless, if I go through this section of Moldova I will potentially have to pay a bribe of some sort to someone with a fucking machine gun, which doesn't sound fun.

Luckily, my bus went around the south end of Transdnestr, and I entered the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe unscathed. And this my friends, takes me to where I am right now at this very moment. Moldova.

I have only explored Chisinau, the capital city, for one day, and I think I have already seen enough. I think Chisinau might be the most fascinating shithole that I have ever experienced. In no way way does this place feel remotely similar to the rest of Europe. Although its only been one day, I think Moldova is analogous to one of those really shitty movies that are so bad that everyone loves it- and accumulates a cult following. Moldova is fascinatingly egregious.

That is all I got! Thank you for reading once again- I know this blog turned out much longer than the others. If I put you to sleep, then Hell Yeah, sleeping rocks in my book. I just want to say that I've really appreciated anyone who has sent me an email, facebook message, smoke signal, telekinesis, or even tried to call my phone (which is off). Traveling is a fun but lonely game and contact from home really means a lot to me, probably more than you think. Take care and peace be the journey.

dust.