back to europe... ?

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I wanted to see G
I wanted to snowboard
I started to feel that I need rest.
I was working 12hr per day, no weekends, 1 day off after every 14 days cause rules required it.
I actually thought I understand why they used to send people to penal servitude / convict labor or however its called – nonstop working will really fuck with your mind. at least that’s how I started to feel – somehow negatively strange things. and my job was not actually so bad there was little of freedom and change in it. so respect to these poor guys in old times who had to do real thing like monsieur Valjean.

back to nowhere. so:
1. I called to my boss and told thank you for all the pleasure but I don’t want to extend my contract anymore
2. I bought ticket Brisbane-instanbul
3. I bought ticket Townsville-brisbane
4. I booked night in hostel in magnetic island

2.april - my last day at work lasted 30 minutes less than 12 hours cause I had a flight to catch. it is funny and good feeling to go into plane (and it’s a bloody big one. fokker100 has 100+ seats) and to know everybody there, all these people there I had worked with were flying home for a shift change.

night was hugging Townville when I got there, got lift to ferry port from one of my now excollegue – thanx! and there was eddie. heh small world - eddie also works in nowhere but he also lives in magnetic island, he gave me lift to my hostel in island – thanx!.


long story short: magnetic island is nice and I have a friend there.

next evening I was back in Townsville airport to get high and low and back to bris. 3 hours for packing and Aaron gave me lift to airport – thanks!

BNE-SIN-DXB-IST=24 hours+n

I was back in turkey and Galyna met me in airport, with skirt and everything :) oh, darling happy days will now begin...

and we took bus to Ankara, so went another night with my body carried around. good old Ankara, odty and people I had seen before. few days later after gathering our snowboarding equipment – G had got me new jacket and pants . my first real snowboardingpants ever! – yeee &thanx!

Ankara-tbilisi its ~24hr ride and our company in bus got very jolly singin dancing, throwing up. so we got to tbilisi. almost. almost cause it was Saturday - time for demonstration against Saakashvili hence Tbilisi was closed down for buses in fear of opposition reinforcements.

but we had a friend inside and he came and gave us lift to busstation and then marshrutka gave us lift to gudauri and then Otari gave us room in same house of sun where we had slept last winter and then we gave ourselves some time to sleep…

snow, lots of snow. not as perfect as last season cause sun was working hard but there was new lift hence new places to go and altogether this week was offpiste grandiosa!. in our last day there were competitions – first time ever in gudauri


and we were there and georgian tv was there and although we didn’t win 1st place&skis we still gave interviews as only international participants.

so it was Saturday again and we left snow to mountains and went back to Tbilisi where was spring and our friend Mate and small kick scooter and good time and big empty flat with kitchen where we played tavla and drank lemonade until it was very late/early.


thanks Mate! next to Batumi where we met Koka & family and visited spectacular green cape - botanical garden and absorbed georgian hospitality in many ways. it was easter time my dear readers. and we saw ourselves in the news giving interview in georgian – movie magic :)

next day off we went to border and started hitchhiking and after some time/cars/distance/bus took tour in trabzone and took bus to Ankara. not for long we stayed here but south we went.

geyikbairi is close to Antalya and very lalalaaa (very positive adjective) place for climbing. so next 3 days we climbed and slept and rain was with us when we left.


Ankara.
some time here as G is more student than me, meaning She even goes to uni if possible.

and then we had to go to Ukraine!


bus 2 istanbul and turkish airlines flew us to Simferopol. I like Simferopol, it made me happy it is museum: old silver payphone (these used to be run with 2 kopek coins – remember old people?) in airport and tank in city square and city museum that is exhibit itself but inside its like museum in square ehh how can I not like it.


night. train. harkiv. G’s place is big, up up up under the roof. nice very karlsson like place.
9th of may. most important day in the whole year. that’s the day it was in the calendars when evil germans capitulated to russian forces in II world war. another déjà vu for me with all this flowers, war veterans, speeches and even statue of lenin in city square.


back to train and back to crimea. from Simferopol train station u can take trolleybus to yalta. we didn’t took it. it was bus instead that took us not to yalta but nikita. before nikita there was big gate by the road with big letters APTEK written over it. I first thought its funny place for pharmacy but then I understood it is something else – actually it is ARTEK. used to be promised land for all kids in soviet union. basically it is just summercamp at black sea that is still running with much less popularity but nevertheless.

we stayed in nikita – place between artek and yalta with popular climbing area and lot of small houses by the coast where its easy to find accommodation. we found. we climbed. we visited yalta. we also visited wing of swan and cat another climbing places next to siami.


weather got better every day and hence of course we had to return to harkiv to get new passport for G as her old passport was falling apart and caused heaps on untrust and timewaste on borders. passport office showed strong vitality of soviet customer service in government structures. effectively were people made feel worthless and tiny. but passport we got thanks to good connections. we went to see childrens rock climbing competition. amazing! so many children in every age and it was relatively small event. I remember Estonian competitions where there are couple of children in best case.

and then we went back to Simferopol and hang around there and took plane to Istanbul and bus to Ankara and we were back.

haa and I almost forgot. even before we left harkiv first time we did some shopping there. many people know that I have been riding board that’s old enough to be a dead dog – k2 tricky from last century it was. now I saw in shop board I like and bindings and boots too so now I’m proud owner of apo amenite 160 board with apo express/dark milk bindings and thirty two tm-two boots. very nice they are.

back in Ankara it was time to do go to lake eymir. nice place in property of odty. also nice is fact that to get there best way is by bikes. We got one very good good bike and other decent bike and we did eymir lake. striking trip even if with some bruises for G.


then we went to Istanbul and we went to airport and G went to train where she got 1st call trip back and I flew to dubai and to Singapore and to Brisbane and I was back in Australia.