Deckard's trip report - POST #4
Traveling to Luda * July 3rd - July 4th, 2001
Fast forwarding through the trip quickly...
On July 3rd, 2001, I caught a 10+ hour flight from Dallas, Texas, to Brussels, Belgium with Sabena Air (declared bankruptcy since then). Sat next to a young Belgium man who was returning home after visiting friends in Dallas. Had a very long conversations with him between/while eating neat airplane food, taking winks of naps, taking my first look at the Atlantic Ocean (from 39K ft. though), exploring the coolness of the new (new to me anyways) interactive inflight movie/games console which each passenger has.
Got my first brief look from the air of Europe while landing in Brussels. 1.5 hours later, caught Ukrainian airlines plane to Kiev
(~about 3 hours).
The internet agency had a friend of theirs pick me up at the International airport and take me Julany airport to catch the final
plane, which was with Crimean Air.
****SIDENOTE*
Kiev was fascinating to me. There was so much to take in, yet so little time to absorb it all in such a short length of time, especially as my driver raced by it all. I was in an alien world, bustling with activity. And oh my gosh! The drivers!!! Hah! If you think the drivers here in America are bad... Yes, there were median lines on the roads over there, but I think they are merely to indicate a *direction* of travel, rather than here where we are supposed to occupy a lane and stay mainly within it. It was commonplace to see 3 cars abreast of each other in only 2 lanes 
. Somehow, they manage (most of the time) not to get into accidents, but there is no margin for error. My driver drove at crazy speeds, and I constantly thought I was going to get into a wreck. I found myself stepping on an imaginary brake every few seconds. If a driver is not paying complete attention, he/she is probably going to get into a wreck. The horn is used all the time as opposed to here, but the impression I got was quite different from here, it is often used just to alert other drivers of your presence, or that you're going to pass another driver. Drivers don't seem to really take offense to all the honking. Here it is mainly used to say "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING YOU DUMB @$$!!". Tailgaters over there are commonplace, in fact, it seemed that just about everybody was tailgating even in rare areas where traffic was light. During my stay in Simferopol, I noticed the relationship between drivers and pedestrians is reversed from here in the U.S.. Here, drivers often stop for pedestrians. There, pedestrians yield to drivers. If you don't, you'll probably end up dead pretty soon. Any of you going to Ukraine, for your own safety, throw out everything you know about driving/walking safely, and treat every moving car as a danger.
*END SIDENOTE ****
The Crimean Air turboprop plane was very hot. No air conditioning I guess. Everybody was fanning themselves with the air safety sheet. Here I was, getting ready to make a good impression on Luda two hours later, and I'm getting soaked in my own sweat. Just before landing I tried to wash off a little in the bathroom/brush teeth/shave. It took me more than 2 minutes to figure out how to turn the blasted water on in the sink in that cramped bathroom, until I figured out you use a foot pedal. I was so immersed already in the culture. I was sitting amongst Ukrainians and Russians. I was hearing the language everywhere. I was seeing how they dressed. How they interacted with one another. The sights, the smells ... I was finally there, after all those months of waiting for this trip. Was it going to be all that I hoped for, or was it going to be a let down? ( 11% success rate ) I really wanted to be in that 11%. I tried to keep calm by writing in my journal and trying to take winks of sleep over the humdrum of the loud engines and sauna like weather. I was only mildly successful at either.
My perception of time passing seemed to change. There was a surreal quality about everything my senses took in. Was I in a movie? Were these my hands in front of me that I'm looking at?
The plane's wheels touched the runway in Simferopol slightly after sunset when it was still light out.
I would be meeting Luda in a moment. I was nervous, and everything started to feel exactly like a dream...
---- To be continued in POST #5 ----
