I also went ahead and put all my links back up, but I’m doing some brainstorming on some approaches to re-do those as well. There will be a second entry forthcoming on this as I’m going to ask for some input and help.

The Crimean Peninsula juts into the Black Sea and has quite a history as well as a rather unique place in current Ukrainian politics. The landscape is beautiful, much like what I imagine Greece looks like. The language of the streets is definitely Russian and Americans aren’t overly popular as evidenced by grafitti saying things like “NATO - NO!” and “Crimea is Russia.”

We were gone for about three days and I would rate the vacation as a B-. We had four primary destinations: Bakchiserai, Sevastopol, Yalta, and Sudak. If it hadn’t been for Sudak, I think the vacation would have been firmly in the C range. Part of the problem was that we made a classic travelers blunder, we didn’t allow enough time for the actual travel part. Therefore, we spent a good chunk of the weekend in various taxis (mostly Ladas) and minibuses. We should know better by now.

I don’t have any pictures uploaded yet, but I’ll try to get some in the near future or I’m sure Patchwork Planet will provide them. Here is the quick rundown of the trip.

Bakchiserai

Hot as hell. In the mountains and historic homeland of the Crimean Tatars. We saw the Khan’s Palace and hiked up to Uspensky Monastary. The Palace is decent if you have never been to Istanbul, but sort of pales in comparison otherwise. The Monstary was interesting, but a tiring hike up the mountain and they only allowed you to see about two rooms.

Sevastopol

Everyone says that Yalta is way overdone and too crowded so I thought I was being pretty clever by getting us a hotel in Sevastopol instead. The problem was the quaint guest house I booked our rooms in was in the middle of absolutely nowhere and required constant taxis to see anything. Sevastopol had a pretty little waterfront, but it didn’t take very long to see everything. Compared to Kyiv, the servers at the restaurants were remarkably friendly.

Yalta

We just did a quick stop in Yalta before heading on to Sudak. It was a two hour bus ride from Sevastopol, a quick stroll along the boardwalk and lunch, then a 3.5 hour bus ride to Sudak. It was a long day. I caused quite a commotion at the bus station when I asked a taxi driver if he knew where Celantano Pizza was (a popular chain in Ukraine.) He gathered about a dozen other taxi drivers together and they discussed. In the end, he said he did know and would drive us there. Instead he took us to the main boardwalk and just dumped us out. We went to McDonalds. The beach in Yalta is fully of cheesy rides and wall-to-wall Russians in Speedos.

Sudak

Sudak was quite a bit further off the beaten tourist path in Crimea and involved some nauseating switchback driving through the mountains to get there. It was definitely worth it though. The town seemed to have a nice little downtown area with lots of shops. Our hotel was a sprawling complex scattered across several buildings, but with lots of character. Best of all, Sudak is crowned by a large, 14th century Genoese fortress and our hotel rooms were right at the base. Jennifer and I got to scramble around the grounds and climb the walls. I even dressed up in some arm and did my best “storming the castle” impression. (Pictures sure to be forthcoming.) All in all, a fun time was had. Our only lament was that we spent too much time driving around and in Sevastopol that would have been better spent in Sudak and the surrounding area.

For the right person, being a Diplomatic Courier could be a really interesting job. I doubt anyone in the Foreign Service travels as much as these guys. On the other hand, I don’t know how often they get to see the places they travel to. The courier I met was literally in Kyiv for about 45 minutes and never left the tarmac. He told me he’d been in St. Petersburg just the day before for what was probably a similar experience.

Still, the couriers get to keep all of the frequent flyer miles they earn and those most add up quickly and provide all sorts of travel opportunities during their free time.

Also, I’m down to about nine months to go here and I need something to keep me distracted before I go crazy and start hurling beets at random Ukrainians on the street.

Young Man looking at the McDonalds menu board:

What is the McFresh?

McDonalds Pimple-Faced Cashier:

It is our new sandwich.

Young Man:

Mmm…I’ll have a double McFresh.

We’re going to Nassau, Bahamas in summer 2009.

Things could be worse.

We’re still in the research phase at this point, but we do have a few that we think we would really like. We also have a few that we would really not like. Hopefully, we’ll get on the former.

There is a good assortment from which to choose. We have your traditional “nice” assignments like Sydney, Auckland, Paris, Brussels, and various Canadian posts. We have “hard” places like Monrovia, Port-au-Prince, Algiers, Lagos, Tashkent, and Addis Ababa. We have some more exotic locales like Singapore, Bamako, Baku, Fiji, Casablanca, and Mumbai.

I wish the process moved a bit quicker. I’m already tired of thinking about it and we haven’t even turned in our list yet.

Jennifer makes fun of me because she says every summer I claim that I don’t mind the snow and cold. When it finally arrives, I complain endlessly. I say she’s full of crap, but she is right that I seem to get to a point where I just can’t handle the cold anymore. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m approaching it quickly. When I was in college this saturation point used to manifest itself by me no longer going to classes until it warmed up. (I was that sort of student.) I don’t know what will happen here in Kyiv now that I’m a responsible grown-up. Probably about the same thing.

Luckily for us, we have a vacation planned and soon we’ll be soaking up the sun on a beach in Thailand. We can’t wait! Also lucky for us is that our bidlist of options for our next post is supposed to come out this week. We can read it and think about how warm we’ll be at our next post. At least, we hope we’ll be warm in our next post. Time will tell.