Time for "my" things

I'm always try to think if I spend my time worthy enough. And now I'm mostly talking about out-of-work time. It's not that much of the day is left after you come back from work, so the question is is I do really spend it in a worthy way.
Of course, in the end everything is about attitude, but I learned (a bit) to manipulate mine, so this is not a self-sattisfying answer for me (smile).

So what I want to say, actually, is that I believe I started to make more use of it lately, i.e. started to do things which I like and enjoy and which I always lacked the time for (for some unknown reason). Those are:

1. So I've taken it a bit more serious about literature. I want to write more, I want to improve, I want to get acquainted with people from literature circles in Ukraine, I want to do lots of other related things. So lately that led me to following. I've:

• managed to finish lots of "unfinished" poems from different times.
• bought small note-book which increased my motivation and productivity in writing poems (mostly during metro or other trips).
  
• started the work on my 3rd collection of poems (2006-2008), appr. 90 of them and most of them I really do like (smile). Got in touch with various people hoping to get professional and not very help, so the eveything is in slow but still progress (smile).
• started to be more active on some Ukrainian web-resources dedicated to poetry (particularly http://h.ua/ and http://slonyk.com/).
• first time sent my poems for some literature competition. (Will see in a month what will be the answer).

So if you have any desire to help me somehow in the process, you're more than welcome! Though there's 1 requirement, you need to speak native Ukrainian for that (smile).

2. I've bought my Canon 400D almost 2 years ago, but believe that still didn't make much use of it. My knowledge in digital photography basics are still quite poor and "feeling only" is definitely not enough.

So I'm now going to the basics trying to understand properly what's aperture, focal length, what the impact of having higher of lower ISO except the noise.
I was very lucky to meet Tomasz, former AIESEC trainee and great photographer who's helping me a bit now in the process. His works can be found here http://ts-photographer.com/. Also got to the first meeting of Prague's Amateur Photography club. A bunch of nice people though most of us are really amateurs (smile). We'll see what is going to be the result of it.

Besides all of that I'm trying to work on my Czech, a bit passively but still... Reading a historical adventure book for school age kids (smile). Language is not that hard but I still have a long way to go in knowing lots of Czech words.

Also started to play football twice a week to keep myself a bit fit and, besides, I love playing the game as well (smile).

So this is how it goes so far. Hope will succeed in all the areas and update you here.

Cheers,
V.Kiyashko

Friends. Trip to Czech Beer Capital.

Friday

As Yuliya came back to Prague on Fruday evening we decided to get together with Shrek & Michala for several drinks. It needed to happen especially coz they owed us their "US story" (smile). Couple of hours passed in a great atmosphere accompanied by Polish "Zubrovka" and apple juice. Then we moved out to Zizkov area where it was not that hard to find several nice cheap pubs thus continuing and in the end finishing great Friday evening.

Saturday

Waking up early in the morning on Saturday was not the easiest thing to do, but we needed to do that as we had already bought the ticket to Plzen, Czech beer capital. Agenda was simple - see the town and pay a visit to Pilsner Urquell brewery, the biggest in the Czech Rep. and, of course, the most famous one.

Plzen appeared to be a nice town, at least the centre, traditionally with a big Gothic church on the central square and the tower which you could climb and see the area around. It was interesting to find out that the third (or second in different source) largest synagogue had been actually built here.
Under the town there's a spread underground system which you can actually pay a visit to, but the advice would be to book it in advance as we didn't to manage to get in.
Also it was nice to find our that Hurvinek (a character which I know from Les' Poderev'yanskyy plays) was a Czech famous character together with Spejbl and there was even a theatre in Prague named after them. You can see both on collage below being fed by ice-cream (smile).

After having failed to explore Plzen underground system, we headed toward the apogee of our visit - Pilsner Urquell brewery. I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of this type of beer exactly though I drink it sometimes depending on the mood and circumstances. Reasons - a bit bitter taste and more expensive price. But I do like other beers of the same company - "Gambrinus" and dark "Kozel".
The tour lasted for 1,5h and was a good time spent. The cool thing was to see the bottling assembly lines and the underground cellars. Non-pasterized "Pilsner" from a huge wooden barrel tasted great and quite different from its "bottled brother". Other things were no so impressive as we had already had our experience of "Heineken" brewery tour (post here) with all its modern facilities and exhibitions.

After coming back to Prague and having a quick dinner at home we headed towards the Old Town Square to meet friends of ours - Maarika and Hussein - and join them for the blues concert of "Alice Springs Blues Band".
The music was really great but close to midnight I felt quite tired so started slowly to fall asleep even though our table was not more than 1 meter from the scene (smile).

Sightseeing on the way back - Spis Castle & Poprad

There was still 1 place I wanted to see before heading back to Prague. Spis castle complex is actually considered to be one of the largest in Europe. I saw some pictures before going to Slovakia and was really anxious to get to the place.
Bus trip from Kosice was about 2 hours and took me to the small town of Spisske Podhradie (translates as smth like "town under Spis"). It appeared to be nice and small place (usual thing) with a very large percentage of Roma population.
But, of course, it was all about the castle itself which stood on the lonely hill overlooking the area around. Coming by bus from Kosice leads you to the valley where the castle is situated, so you can enjoy great views of the place before the time you actually approach it.

A walk up the hill takes approximately 40 minutes. Except doing the physical exercise you have a chance to observe, to my mind, one of most beutiful castles in Europe.
The weather was extremely nice that Sunday and the skies contributed so much into the overall impression of the place. Looking at Spis definitely makes you think about all the history behind the place, imagine wars and battles of the old times... and after a tiring climbing think how stupid could anyone be who wanted to conquer it (smile).

I must tell that inside the place is less impressive as it turns to the old ruins which look very much the same in any place around the world. At the beginning I joined a tour in Slovak but then decided just to walk around by myself as the real history was so much more boring than the imaginative one.

The castle complex was huge, so it took some time to pay a visit to most of its corners. On my way I also managed to enjoy traditional "klobasa" (i.e. sausage) with mustard and a glass of "cepovana" (draft) Kofola (Czech-Slovak coke).
The most impressive views were found on the top of the main tower and included the surrounding area. The play of light and the colours were amazing!

Before getting on the bus to Poprad I had 1 more Kofola in the pub next to the bus stop and enjoyed a piece of Hockey World Championship and free Wi-Fi.

There's not much to write about Poprad as at the time I got there it was heavily raining and the sun already decided to take its deserved rest. The only thing I was deeply impressed by were the mountains on the horizon - huge, massive and covered with snow... And that was definitely the place in Slovakia I decided to be back later.

Though in the evening 1 central street of Poprad looked quite cute (smile).

Poprad Pics

Spis Castle - Trip there and back

Weekend in Slovakia

After a great day in Uzhgorod Yuliya and I travelled to Kosice where we intended to spend a relaxing Saturday. At last I had a chance to properly visit Slovakia and enjoy a small nice Slovakian town, i.e. Kosice (though I believe it's quite large for Slovaks).

We arrived closed to midday and walked to the city centre to grab a lunch. Of course, we chose Slovak "halushky" which appeared to be a bit different from Ukrainian ones, esp. those that my Grandma used to cook me but nevetherless worth trying.

After having left our stuff in the student dorms where I had booked our beds, we headed back to town center to discover the city. The weather was a bit rainy but still we enjoyed a lot walking along the small Kosice streets and spending lots of time on the Hlavni (Main) street. Kosice appeared to be a very small town (at least its central historical part), so to see the most of its parts didn't take much time.

We climbed on the top of the cathedral to discover a great view over the town and neighbouring areas, we enjoyed a very tasty ice-cream at "Aida" next to Kosice theatre and beautiful fountains in front of it and, of course, we had a tasty local dark beer named "Saris" (Ukr. pronunciation "sharish"?)(smile).

(please, click to enlarge)

Afternoon brought lots of sun and warmth, so it was not hard to enjoy the rest of the day hanging around and doing nothing special in small nice town.

Also we had a small amatuer photosession with Yuliya's red umbrella, so the "raining time" was not wasted at all (smile).

(please, click to enlarge)

The evening was spent in a nice cafe/pub "Madrid". Thanks Mickey for all the tips & tricks for Kosice!

Next morning Yuliya and I had a nice "bye-bye" walk through the center and then it came the time for us to say "bye" to each other - I was leaving for Poprad from which where I had the bus to Prague and Yuliya was going back to Uzhgorod and then Ivano-Frankivs'k as she still needed to finish work on her masters thesis and submit it for the review. But the next weekend Yuliya was arriving to Prague and for much longer time than just a Friday & Saturday (smile).

Kosice Pictures

May Day in Uzhgorod

Another place/country visited by Yuliya but not me was Slovakia. So for another extended weekend I planned a trip there. I decided to skip Bratislava and bought tickets to eastern part of Slovakia - Kosice and return one from Poprad.

Chatting with my close friends - family of Karachko-Dehtyaryovy, I discovered that they had planned to travel to Transcarpathian region in Ukraine, i.e. Mukachevo & Uzhgorod, exactly the at the time I was going to be at Kosice. So the plans changed quickly considering the geographical nearness of the cities. I told Yuliya about this and we agreed that she'd come to Uzhgorod as well.

10 hours trip from Prague to Kosice, 1h at Kosice bus station and 3 more hours in the bus to Ukraine and... the best (though a bit short) time spent together with Yuliya and our best & closest friends!

The weather was extremely great and we spent the day walking around Uzhgorod enjoying time being together. Uzhgorod appeared to be a very nice town, full of green and cheap prices for taxi (smile).

In the afternoon we had a great lunch/dinner at a famous restaurant "Detsa u notarya" where one can enjoy a good meal & very special atmosphere. You can fell it a bit from the pictures below though it's be hard to do that for non-Ukrainians as it had a very Ukrainian "specifics"(smile).

Lyonya & Olya had their train to Kyiv in the evening. The time before that was spent on a bench in the yard of the place we lived at with a bottle of "Becherovka" and tonic. And it was just great!

Once you live at a different place than most of your friends, very close ones - you start to appreciate even the shortest moments of being together. And I'm very happy life gives us the chances to create such moments no matter where you are or will be.

Some Uzhgorod photos

Reception Weekend in Krakow

After a day in Auschwitz I planned to get back to Katowice, spend a night there and on Saturday come to Krakow. Initially I had just planned to hang out in the city and do nothing really special (smile). On Thursday evening by chance I found out that during the weekend there was going to be a Reception Weekend held by AIESEC and some of Ukrainian I had know were going to attend it. Having made some calls, I got telephone number of OC (aka Organization Committee) & was accepted as delegate before I left for Poland.

Reception Weekend (RW) was really great! OC made a really great effort in bringing together 40 foreigners from all over the world, taking care of them, entertaining and making sure they had great time & enjoy the most beautiful city in Poland (to my mind). I had heard before that Polish RWs had been one of the best organized and at that time I had the chance to experience that.

Of course, this weekend was a lot about being in one of the most beautiful cities in Central Eastern Europe.

(click to see enlarged)

More of Krakow

But also it was about being part of AIESEC once again and those two things made a damn great combination (smile).

So...

On Friday we had a great Polish "beverages" party with free Polish authentic "beverages". Ukrainian & Indian delegations were the most active that evening (smile). Then we spent some great time in the club. And I must admit I really rarely have good time in clubs.

The next day was about City Quest (smile). I really felt back to AIESEC running from one landmark in Krakow to another, finding the clues as well as discovering city. Was lots of fun & the weather was extremely nice which made so much different from my two previous visits to Krakow.

In the afternoon we spent some time one Wawel hill and had a nice excursion in Kazimierz, Krakow's Jewish quarter.

In the evening we had party on the boat rented specially for AIESECers. That time I had a very philosophical mood, so I enjoyed the party in a different way than the evening before. Also had some hardcore discussion with a Polish guy who dared to call Lviv "a Polish city" (can you imagine that?(smile)).

On Sunday half of the day was spent in the yard of the hostel "Good-Bye Lenin" (smile). Grilled sausages, great weather, beer, nice people - what else needed on a nice sunny Sunday afternoon (of course, love of one's life is excluded from the list (smile)).

The only negative thing was actually the duration of my trip back. I managed to mess up a bit with trains (again!) but nevertheless was able to arrive to Prague on Monday morning and after a quick stop at our flat for a quick shower to rush for work.

The weekend was great unlike my efficiency that Monday at work (smile).

Trip to Auschwitz

First two weekends of May happened to have 1 extra day in them thanks to public holidays in the Czech Rep. Usually if such a thing happens, Yuliya & I always try to travel somewhere. This time as Yuliya stayed home I decided to travel rather than stay in Prague. But my choice was limited to places Yuliya had already been to and I hadn't (smile). One of them was Auschwitz which I always wanted to visit.
So on Thursday evening I caught a train to Poland. I somehow managed to get into a wrong carriage going to Krakow, not Katowice but that caused me 1,5h delay. Kiko (aka Viktor Kryvenko), a good friend of mine, met me & helped to get the tickets to Oswiecim.

I arrived to this small Polish town around 10 a.m. I asked my way to Auschwitz museum and was very lucky to get in for the English tour at 10.30. Tour lasted for almost 3 hours during which we spent 2/3 in Auschwitz I and the rest of time in Auschwitz II (Birkenau).

I'm not an emotional person at all, but I can definitely say that Austwitz is emotionally "the heaviest" place I ever visited. Even after I left it, it was not easy to raise a smile again this day.

I'm happy about the fact that Auschwitz has always lots of visitors, so more people can know about this part of our history, so it will never repeat again. At the same time I was a bit annoyed by the "tourist attraction" attitude some of those people had.

Anyway, some pictures to illustrate the story with short notes to each:

Entrance to Auschwitz I. "Work brings freedom".

Barbed wire electricity fence. "Public" toilet in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Chimney of Crematorium I. Young Izraeli couple.

Panorama of Austwitz-Birkenau.

Ruins of Crematorium III - the biggest in Auschwitz.

More of Auschwitz Pictures