Briefly: Romania

We toured another little reconstructed village. This one had kitties!


The "People's Palace" is the second largest building in the world, a temple to Ceausescu's megalomania.




He and his wife would do things like make the workers tear down entire completed marble staircases and rebuild them... five times. All of this was related with a cheerful lilt by our young local guide, the unspoken punchline to every such story being, "And then we shot him!"

Speaking of which, we also saw the location of his last stand. As soon as I got home I looked up the video on YouTube. This is one of the most poetic sixty seconds I have ever seen. The crowd goes from cheering for Ceausescu and chanting his name, to spontaneously booing and hissing as soon as he starts talking. Look at his face when he realizes what is happening. He escaped from the rooftop by helicopter, only to be apprehended hours later. Extra volunteers for the firing squad had to be turned away.



Travel fatigued, Kate and I got a bit silly.



A man on the tour turned to my mom and said, "You've got to marry those girls off." HAHAHAHAHA! Wait, what does that mean?!

We had dinner at a lovely old restaurant in the centre of town. I ordered schnitzel, mushrooms, and cigarettes.


And then the cossack joined us for dinner! Man, that was great.


While in Bucharest we stayed at the Hilton Athenee Palace hotel. I love staying in hotels, especially like this.


And then, at two-thirty in the morning on the final day of the trip, we gathered in the lobby and boarded our bus and left.

Briefly: Farewell to our ship

We were a hit with the crew.

Briefly: Odessa

Odessa was a free port for centuries, very cosmopolitan, its modern version built in grandiose marble and limestone by Catherine the Great, which managed to survive Stalinist redecorating, I think because the city is honeycombed.






The famous Potemkin steps were built gradually wider towards the bottom, which makes them longer than they actually are when viewed from below, and look perfectly parallel when viewed from the top. I guess this means I am going to have to break down and watch that Eisenstein movie now.


Cathy makes a point of taking pictures of things coming out of her head, because that is the kind of thing that would drive her dad crazy.


The streets are lined with wonderful restaurants and shops. We people-watched in a square for a while.




Then we went for dinner and ordered stuff life this.


Smalets, it turns out, is lard seasoned with dill and garlic, frozen and sliced and served with toast.


The portions weren't as small as we thought they were going to be. This meal is a lot of the reason I got so fat on this trip.

Briefly: Bakhchisaray

Bakhchisaray is the centuries-old Tatar capital of the Crimea. We toured the Khan's 12th century palace.



And saw the fountain of tears, as memorialized by Pushkin.


But! On the way there a flash flood happened, and the streets turned to rivers, and as we were approaching one intersection, a brilliant, greenish flash of light exploded right in front of us. Followed by another one. It turned out that a utility pole had slumped against another, and the cross wires were igniting. A woman ran over to the bus, looking at us piteously through the door. Eventually the driver opened it, but it turned out all she wanted was to make sure we were okay, that we hadn't been electrocuted by the fireball.

Briefly: Yalta and the Crimean Coast

The Crimean Coast is famous for the charge of the light brigade

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Which our guide read to us in its entirety as we drove through said valley.


It is also famous for Livadia Palace, where the treaty of Yalta was signed




And for its unique climate, supposed to be good for health, enjoyed in the many health spas or "sanatoriums."


It was exceptionally hot and humid. I dipped my feet in the Black Sea, bringing the total to: Dead Sea, Black Sea, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic.

Briefly: Sebastopol

Arright, so by now we have sailed all the way down the Dnpr or Nypr (whichever way you want to pronounce it) and are on the Crimean peninsula.


First stop, Sevastopol, the capital of the Black Sea fleet. I had no idea that Sebastopol was in the Ukraine (nor Yalta). As it turns out, the Crimea is mostly ethnically Russian and Crimean Tatar but was gifted to the Ukraine by Krushchev during Soviet times.


We were greeted by these guys:


Took a tour of this diorama (my new favourite diorama)


Were entertained in the evening by these guys


Saw a lot of these guys


Once again, Mom and I (this time with several people joining us) took as many chances as we could to run away from the boat and eat caviar and "Diversity of fishes" and "Vodka appetizer" and champanski.

Briefly: Kherson

In Kherson we disembarked and took a smaller boat to a sleepy dacha village where Valentina fed us zucchini pancakes, and bread and cheese, and pickled herring, and tomatoes and cucumbers from her garden. More importantly, there was a lot of toasting with her homemade chestnut hooch, chased with her homemade plum juice. To your health, to your journey, to the host, to hospitality, to your visit [hic], to your journey home, etc. I brought some back.