Now for a long-overdue continuation of my trip to Ukraine (if you want to start from the beginning, go to My Life Changing Trip to Ukraine). I just realized that we’re quickly approaching a year since I went over there and I still have yet to scratch the surface of my trip. The interesting thing is, it’s not because I forgot about the my trip over there or that it became less of a memory. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, as time continues on, I find myself thinking about it more and more. The desktop photo on my computer is from Novograd-Volynski. Here…this is my desktop.
The background on my iPhone is from my last night in Ukraine when we did a quick walk around Kiev. I listen to Ukrainian radio stations while I work. I also have the screensaver/slide show on my Apple TV to be all my pictures from Ukraine. I often find myself taking pause and just staring at the pictures as then gently float up the screen, smiling as I see a friend, the river I walked across, the streets I walked through every day. I find it to be mesmerizing and very calming. Clearly, the absence in writing was more about life taking a few twists and turns and I simply didn’t feel as if I would be able to properly convey the emotion and wonderment I felt while on my trip to Ukraine.
ARRIVAL IN NOVOGRAD-VOLYNSKI
Novograd-Volynski is a small town of roughly 50,000 people about 200km west of Kiev. The bus ride there alone was an adventure that continues to make me smile when I think about it. Here I am, clearly the only American (and probably only non-Ukrainian from what I could gather) on this bus, captivated by the scenery as we drove through the countryside and watching the movie that I could roughly follow along with and would ask my friend Larisa what was being said on screen if I felt it was vital to the movie. As captivating as that bus ride was for me, arriving in Novograd-Volynski was like waking up on Christmas day. There’s all the lead up of Christmas eve, the excitement is in the air, but when we finally arrived in town, it all became so much more real. Here I was, finally, in the small town I was to live for the next eight days.
Larisa asked the bus driver to drop us off as close to the hotel as possible. It was a small hike of maybe five or ten minutes but luckily I packed fairly light (well, not really as I brought a few gifts over) and was able to make the walk. The hotel was very quaint by typical American standards. Something one would expect from a post card…it was nice. Once inside, well, that’s when I felt like a complete foreigner again as nobody spoke English. Luckily Larisa was there to translate for me…however I will admit I was completely lost once again and had no idea what they were saying. Very rapid Russian being spoken back and forth and some American guy standing there bewildered with an occasional questions being asked of me and back to the Russian. After a few minutes of this, my credit card being swiped, my room was booked and I was given a key to my room. To illustrate my complete naivety with foreign travel I will admit I was a bit bewildered when the woman at the desk asked for my passport. Yay! Look at me becoming more worldly.
We walked up one flight of stairs and down a long dark narrow hallway to the rear of the building to get to my room. We opened the door to the room and I will admit that the first thought in my mind was “holy crap, this room is tiny”. A tiny bathroom to the left, a CRT television in front of me and a tiny bed ahead and to the left. The large duffel bad I brought with me literally filled the space between the bed and the wall when it was full. It’s amazing the things one takes for granted or assumes is normal when not being exposed to other thins too often. In the US the motto is “bigger is better”. Bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger meals, bigger coffee cups. Of course, with all this usually comes a bigger belly as America has a pretty bad problem with obesity. I will say though (in case I forget to say it in upcoming accounts of my trip) that I ultimately found my room to be a perfect size once I stayed in it for a few days.
MY THOUGHTS
I believe there will be a third installment to my first day in Ukraine as I’m finding there is still more to the day and I want to make sure I can continue sharing the emotion and wonderment I felt. I started to write of our trip to get some food but realized it just didn’t have the power I wanted to help share with you and I feel as if I would be letting you down by continuing on.
My trip has continued hold my mind for nearly a year now. In this time I’ve been able to break apart the different pieces and figure out which part was having the biggest effect on me. The trip was certainly one of those instances where “the sum of the parts is greater than the whole”. I’m trying to take all these parts and learn from them as I believe they have plenty to teach me as I continue on in this thing called life.