OK so have u heard of Transnistria? Well most people haven't!!! Nov 2011

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Shit everyone has a bad day every so often! Well thanks to the f*ckin airlines booking website eDreams i had one today! Used eDreams as they were the only website I could find that sold multiple destinations tickets from Istanbul - Addis Ababa- Abu Dhabi - Istanbul! (which is cheaper than 3 single one way tickets).

Hell I spent 2 extra days in Budapest just trying to organize plane tickets to fly to Kiev, Ukraine plus ticket to Ethiopia & UAE! The idiots at eDreams had given me a booking confirmation but wouldn’t issue a ticket cuz they were having trouble with the payment (their words not mine)! But they wouldn’t tell me wtf the problem was but did ask me to send them photocopies of my passport plus the front & back side of the credit card used to book my flight (no other flight booking website I used had requested that before)!
So when I got to the airport for my flight I didn’t have a booking or ticket!!! So f*ck had to buy a ticket at the airport if I wanted to go to Kiev! Wasn’t too happy about having to pay for a ticket at the airport but shit happens! But what would really piss me off is if I don’t get a ticket for my multiple destination flight from Istanbul, Ethiopia, UAE back to Istanbul!
 

Also what added to my crappy day was it was dark by the time got to Kiev! So have u ever tried to find your way around a place when u can’t speak or read the language & have to get to a Hostel! Luckily met a Sudanese chick (taking medicine in Ukraine who spoke Russian) on the bus from the airport! But shit the bus from the airport only took us to the train station so this chick tried to help me find the correct city bus to my hostel as Kiev doesn’t have normal running buses! But we had trouble so had to settle for a taxi (usually against my principles but wtf) who charged me double the price! But figure all this was happening cuz was coming down with a f*ckin cold!!!
 

Yeah so all that made for a bit of a shitty day but hell it was really just another adventure & wtf made it to Kiev & my hostel OK which is all that really matters!

So a friend of mine asked me  a) why you never learn, b) how you can travel so much and regard so many places as a shithole, and c) more generally how you manage to get by in life...? Oh, the big mysterious adventure that is your life! 

I told her my definition of Shit hole is pretty general as I think it’s a horrible city in which to live, work or party! That’s my estimation but maybe not yours!

So guess it seems like I regard many places like shit holes ! But really it’s mostly BIG cities in many parts of the world that I think of as shit holes! So I try to either miss or limit my stay in cities like Guatemala City, Managua, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, Panama City, Jakarta, Nairobi, Cairo, LA, etc, I think of Toronto as one too though I go there cuz have family there but dislike the city!!!

Hell Istanbul is a big crowded city of 10 million which is over crowded, hard to get around but really think it’s a bit of a shit hole too! But I‘m using it as a base on this trip cuz got a cheap ass ticket there! Love Turkey but find Istanbul too big & crowded but it’s a good base to go north to Eastern Europe, south to UAE, Ethiopia & east to Iran, Syria, Iraq & Georgia, etc
Guess I just enjoy smaller cities I visit in most countries. In the Ukraine I find that Odessa is more my kind of city as it’s smaller even it has less things to do than Kiev!!

I guess the worst think about my travel thru the Ukraine is that I couldn’t read Cyrillic script! So to me it’s like difficult to match say a map & street signs to know if they are at the same place! At least with Latin characters I can match words to maps etc even if I can’t pronounce or understand them! I found the same with Japanese characters when I visited Japan which is the home of my ancestors! Btw think Tokyo is a bit of a shit hole too!!

I generally get thru most countries that use Cyrillic, Kanji, Arabic, Thai or Indian characters as been to many countries using those characters ! But when u have a bad head cold, it’s -5 C with a cold wind blowing, u can’t read or understand the language, it’s cark at 4 pm & u don’t know where u;r going! Well it’s hard to form a positive opinion of a place at that time! But hey It’s shitty at the time but makes for a lasting adventure that u think of after u left the shit hole!

But hey I travel cuz it’s about the local people I meet in countries, cool interesting travelers & the crazy wild & maybe even dangerous adventures I encounter along the way! It’s not about seeing churches, statues, museums, etc as they all start to look the same after a while! But it’s the individual characters that one meets that I don’t usually forget!!! I couch surf as much as I can but not to score a free bed to sleep but to meet cool interesting locals to hang with! Hell met some in various cities along the way plus hoping to meet one or two in Moldova & Romania! Cuz to me it’s the people I meet along the way that makes my trip awesome not the sites I saw!!!