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Frankfurt, Germany
The trip started in Frankfurt, where we flew to from SFO for only 430 bucks! We watched the movie "Supersize Me" on the flight and swore to never eat McDonalds again. I vote Frankfurt for having the best food on the trip. The train station is full of fresh pastries and meats.
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From Frankfurt we hopped a train to Vienna (152 EU for both of us) and stayed at the ## youth hostel.
Vienna, Austria
Rent a bike at the trainstation
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Inside our hostel
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Kebabs!
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On the train to Krakow, Poland
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Matt has a cold
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Krakow, Poland
The train from Vienna to Krakow was 46Eu/person.
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Don't get your ass run over
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Shawn the Kiwi, we had met in Vienna and ran into him again in Krakow
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Going out to dinner with Viki and Shawn, we met Viki on the train to Krakow
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We were on the train from Krakow to Kiev for 30 hours. Our 2nd class cabin was had no electricity and thus no lights. We communicating with this guy Majecon the train for several hours by drawing pictures. He was 22 from Ukraine, and has a 33 year old Polish girlfriend. We tried giving him our Polish currency but he insisted we should save it for the mofia once we got to Ukraine.
The train cabins deadbolt and door locks can both be undone easily from outside. I brought a strap with me just for this purpose. The train rideonce we got in Ukraine was so turbulant, I swear we got airborne a few times.
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Dubbed the "Monster Garage Toilet", it looks as if a motorcycle gas tank fabricator spent hours welding and grinding this toilet.
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The coal powered heater on our train.
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Kiev, Ukraine
We were off to a bad start in Kiev. My atm card got swallowed in the machine, and we waited an hour for it to be retrieved. Nobody speaks English, and their alphabet looks like a scrambled mess of backwards numbers and funny shapes.
We couldn't find any hotels near the trainstation. We spent 4 hours attempting to find a hotel, and finally got an apartment to rent. We decided not to stay at the apartment cause it was quite literally a crack house. We stayed at the "Typnct Hotel" (Tourist Hotel). You can see it immediatly after exiting thesubway on the Livoberezhna exit. The hotel staff spoke english, I reccommend staying here. The subways were the easiest we've used in all of europe.You can go as far as you want on any train you want, once you buy a token for .50 Grevna (about 10 cents American). People are litterally packed in, pressed against the glass like sardines on the subways.
A street view from our taxi cab.
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If you need to hide out from the KGB for a while, this is the place for you (the apartement we rented).
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The apartement is on the 5th floor
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Just down the hall
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Just keep walking
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Room 58 is on the right side
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Welcome to 1985
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Living room
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We decided it wasn't the safest place to spend the night, so we took the bus back to a hotel we saw on the way to our apartement.
Our crazy alarm clock. As soon as you plug it in it plays music and theres no way to turn it off. Pushing any of the buttons just causes the clock segments to flicker
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Trying to keep healthy
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The food at our hotel was terrible. Breakfast was included, it consisted of an omlet made of a thin sliver of cheese and egg whites (or eggs with very pale yolks).
View of the subway from our hotel room
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A Billboard for a brand new car in Ukraine
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This is how hot chocolate is served in Ukraine, if you want normal hot chocolate you need to ask for Nescafe.
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Typical decorated church in Kiev.
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The year Matt was born.
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Display of Russian Military stuff
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Our train tickets in Ukraine are filled out in tripplicate. Some police officerasks for all three copies of our train tickets and our passports. He gets off the train, we wait for aboutan hour, and the train starts leaving the station, but we still don't have our passports. Luckily we were justgoing through another 3 hour wheel change, but makes one a bit distressed. We eventually get our passports back.
Pripyat (Chernobyl), Ukraine
Prounounced Pre-pet, this is the location of the Chernobyl power plant. It is a two hour ride by taxi from Kiev to get there. The town is 2km from the reactor, and before the accident, had a population of 50,000 people. It was a very new city built to support the staff of the power plant. The city was evacuated in 2 hours, the population were told they would be evacuated for only 3 days, and instructed to leave there belongings. Their belongings were supposedly all burried by the government. The government still attributes only 32 deaths as a direct result ofthe accident.
On the way to Pripyat we pass through the 30km exclusion zone. Nearby there is a monument to the firefighters who died fighting nuclear fire. After 9/11 the twin towers were added to make this a tribute to all firefighters.
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A cutaway model of what lies inside the sarcophagus. Aparently the structure holding the suspended lead sheilds (lead hair) exploded, and the hair went flying out. With the lead sheilds no longer in place, the nuclear reaction went full throttle with no possible means to slow it down. Here's a better explination .
Some brave soles decided they would restart the chernobyl reactors, but after an electrical fire occured, international pressure forced the closure of the facility permantly.
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Our tour guide Rimma showing us the radiation levels on Ashphalt. The Ashphalt is kept clean because the rain washesthe radioactive material away.
230 mirco Roentgens per hour would be typcal in an airplane at 20,000 feet. San Franciscowere told by Rimma would be about 20 mirco Roentgens/hr. 500 million micro Roentgens/hr = death.
On the ashphalt the meter reads 33 micro Roentgens/hr.
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Off the asphalt the meter reads 91 micro Roentgens/hr.
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Picture of the Sarcophagus. It was built in a hurry and as such is not sealed. Water needs to be pumped out of it when it rains.
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Slogan on the side of the building reads: The Party of Lenin Will Lead Us To The Triumph Of Communism
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Hammer and Sickle. We walk to the top of this building to take pictures later on.
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I get the impression Pripyat was a happier town in Ukraine. All the apartment buildings in Kiev were grey and identical. we never saw any colorful art elsewhere in Ukraine.
Lobby of the theater
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Some sort of DJ Mixer in the theater, translation means Edison 2
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Books scattered about
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Entrance to the theater
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Props which were to be used for the May Day (labor day) parade.
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Ferris Wheel, another indication this wasn't just another borring town in Ukraine.
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Mail boxes
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Typical bedroom furnature
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Items too heavy to steal
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Clothes still drying on the line
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Matt finds the front page of a news paper dated #?? 11th, 1985.
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Lenins picture on the inside cover of a book. Translation "Key moments in the history of the USSR Communist party"
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Bathrooms
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Highest reading of the day. The meter was set up to read a different range and a metal plate was removed from the back of it, I believe this configuration was to read Beta particles.
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Looks like such a beautiful town. Taken from the building mentioned earlier with the hammer and sickle.
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Picture of the plant.
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Early warning missle detection radar antenna
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Inside the Preschool.
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Rimma makes a comparison of Mother goose to Father Lenin. Children were taught at a young age that they are the grand daughter of Lenin. The CCCP (USSR)is the best country, and workers in the rest of the world are oppressed and the people are homeless. This propganda lasted until people started to travel, and mass media infultrated the iron curtain.
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Entrance to Pripyat
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Contamination control. This detector looked like a prop in a 60's scifi movie. I picture someone on the otherside of the wall flipping swtiches to make the green "OK" light turn on.
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Scrapyard. This is where contaminated machinery is scrapped
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Kiev train station
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Buying a sleeper car ticket doesn't necessarily mean you bought a pillow. The conductor charged an extra 8 Grevna for a pillow, about 2 American dollars.
Before entering/exiting Ukraine, we had to wait 3 hours for the wheels to be swapped. The rails in Ukraine are spaced differently from the rest of Europe.
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Our train from Kiev to Suchava, Romanina cost us 246 Grivena (45 dollars). The train trip took 22 hours. Once in Suchava the train to Iasi cost us 83,0000 Lei for two of us (about $1.50/person).
Iasi, Romania
There is supposedly 1 dog for every 3 people in Romanina. This was because when communism took over, massive apartment buildings were constructed. People moved from their houses to apartments, and had to let their dogs free. Romanina is filled with cute little puppies, they seem to like sleeping on the railroad tracks. We didn't see any dogs older than 2 years old.
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BYOB, people bring empty bottles and fill them up. Wine is about $1 per liter.
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National history museum
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Our Romanian buddy Florin
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Our hotel room was pretty nice, although pretty expensive. For the two of us our hotel was $50/night. We had satelite tv, and watched Return of the killer tomatos on HBO.
Looking off in the distance we could see a clothes line with clothes on it. After remembering we had our laundry done by the hotelwe realised those boxers are ours.
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Perhaps the next candidate for MTvs Pimp my ride?
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Art deco in Romanina
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Germany has BMW, France the Peugeot, Italy the Ferrari, Czech Republic the Skoda, Romanina has the Dacia (pronounced Dacha), a french car from the 70s which is still manufactured new.
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Bucharest, Romanina
We stayed at the Elvis Hostel in Romanina. It was filled with lots of cool people and was cheap. I used the internet for 3 hours and only cost me 2 euro.
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Thoughout the whole trip, we only went out one night. This club in Bucharest played some weird music including the dance remix of "Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.
Romania is a haven for beautiful ladies! Every girl we smiled at, smiled back
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"The peoples palace". I don't know if it became the peoples palace after the people executed their dictator or if the dictator named it the peoples palace. Ceausescu, the dictatorhad started exporting food to help fund this palace, while people in his country were starving. They eventually over threw him and had him executed by firing squad. The palace is an amazing feat, none of the materials or labor were outsourced, everything was done by Romanians. The palace construction was completed in 1990. Installation of lighting fixtures, and painting still continue.
This is the second largest building in the world in area, second only to the Pentagon.
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An artist finishing the varnish on the door.
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The world's longest corridor. Interestingly, the wood doors you see are also pocket doors and can fully retract into the wall.
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I believe these were named the worlds heaviest curtains. They are made of pure silk and weight 500 Kilos (1100 lbs) each.
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Bucharest has commonly been refered to as "Little Paris of the East". The shot below is Buchrest's "Champs-Elysees", they don't hesitate to mentionit is 1 meter wider than the one in Paris.
In a contest to find a architect to build this palace there were 700 entries. The sole designer of the palace and surrounding buildings was a 28 year old female. This is a pictureof the main strip in Bucharest
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Workers digging a ditch for sprinklers. Unusual shovel-rope technique, check it out
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Downtown Bucharest
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On the train, we had talked to a Romanian Lawer about Romanina entering the European Union. He didn't seem to think it was a good ideaand didn't think the Romanian people could compete when big businesses started to move in. It would take 2 generations to recover he explains;His parents are stuck with one way of thinking, to wait for the state to provide, they are not business oriented. He is learning how to be business oriented, and will teach his children to be business oriented.
Working at McDonalds you get fired if you don't smile at the customer. In other resturants, if the customer doesn't smile at the server, they don't get service. Going to McDonalds is often described like going on vacation. My server at McDonalds had a glumlook on his face until the last second when he hands me my food, then he throws up this big grin from ear to ear, then I smiled back at him =)
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A first class sleeper car cost us an extra 2 American dollars, it was well worth it.
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Thessaloniki, Greece
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Well, the picture doesn't do Thesaloniki much justice. There are lots of trendy resturants and bars along the waters edge.
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Athens, Greece
We found Athens a bit boring. If we go back to Greece we probably won't spend much time here, the islands are where to go!
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Me in Athens
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Katina, one of the friends we made at the Hostel in Athens.
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Gyro Pitas!
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I think this place got Matts vote for best Gyro Pita.
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We took a day cruise to 3 Greek islands. The cruise was awesome, and cost 80 euro, about $100 bucks (worst ever exchange rate by the way).
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Picture of our ship
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After dinner we rented a scooter, it was 10Eu/hour.
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The meat market in Athens.
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Mmmm tasty. Most of the goats/lambs for sale still had eyeballs.
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Lots of different olives to try
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The Acropolis
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Group picture. Im actually the one taking the picture =)
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This little kid was selling roses, and needed to sell them fast. Looks like he has some rose bushes to water.
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A tasty gyro pita for the road
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We flew EasyJet from Athens to Berlin, it cost us 40Eu! On the flight you could buy all sorts of snacks and lunches, it was much better than typical airline food. I was very impressed with easy jet, our plane was brand new.
Our hostel in Berlin, the Hearts of Gold hostel
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The Christmas Market in Frankfurt
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One slammmmmin Citroen
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