Look at the bucket? Is it empty or full? It is empty! Fortunately Jill has managed to not vom, and you find us at 3pm the next day, poor Sexy Jill already having been up and gone to work for a half day came home and gone back to bed, unbeknownst to us in our stupor enjoying the respite of a good lie in. Susan, upon rousing after about 10 hours of sleep, in her vodka addled fog thinking “I can’t wait for the night train to have a nice sleep”, despite being slap bang in the middle of a nice sleep. If only if wasn’t for those pesky awake moments between all the nice sleeps! Informing Jill of this on waking and gaining her agreement we have renamed the expedition “Soups and Sleeps of Eastern Eastern Europe”.
Surprisingly Susan is first up today and finishing off the Sommersbys to clear the fog whilst cleaning up last nights demolishing of The Hammered & Sickle. She has been dreaming about bread and cheese. Sexy Jill, the hostess with the mostess, has provided a variety of both for breakfast and her cutting of both has awoken sleeping beauty from her sick bucket! After a painful waking up period and deciding Jill being ready for a mender we were dismayed to find we had polished off all the brown boozes, the last of the vodka and all that was left was the hideous honey & chilli vodka and some sweet cloying cherry liqueur, which Jill was trying to force down last nights remnants of mixed with flat cola and vodka, but we were both dying for a nice lager bottom. Put the rest of this in your face
Tag Archives: Micro Travelling
Dnipropetrovsk Episode One: The Northern Menace.
It seems a million years away reading our last post about Kiev and even from the point in time when we were writing it! So it seems we have been brought back a billion years to getting off the night train in Dnipropetrovsk. Despite the horrendous hour of 6:30am, Sexy Jill (as she is now named to avoid confusion with our half a cup Jill) and Stuart had dragged themselves out of bed to come and meet us so we were treated to the most joyful welcoming greeting ever. We were impressed with Sexy Jill’s adopted Eastern European grim demeanour, fur coat, high heels and full make up even at that hour. We were escorted through the wide almost empty streets of Dnipro, trying not to smile at people as apparently it makes them jealous that you are happier than them, enjoying some strange looks for wearing vests in what apparently was -1 but we don’t believe it was, and can now understand “What are you doing! Put your coat on, you’ll get sick!” in both Russian and Ukrainian. We arrived at Jill’s lovely apartment – aka The Hammered and Sickle – where she proudly displayed the amount of alcohol she had bought for our visit, a challenge we were afraid to accept in our delicate condition, but we did manage a refreshing breakfast Sommersby over a nice catch up before poor Sexy Jill had to go off and teach her nursery class. Put the rest of this in your face
No Radiation but a Sombre Historic Moment Nonetheless – Kiev (Part 2)
Today should of been the day when we were gonna throw it back to Chernobyl, by now we should of somehow realised that nowt ever goes right for us, as despite having emailed the hostel 3 days in advance to book it for us (and the government require 3 days advance notice to sort out your documents etc) they didn’t reply until a day later when it was too late. Factoring in our as yet unresolved cash flow crisis this was probably for the best. So over a spot of breakfast and beers in the hostel we decided the only thing for it was to head into Maidan Square to soak up the aftermath of an historic event – how often is history happening right up close to you, like an onion?
Now being experts at the Kyiv Metro Location Unit, we jumped on the metro for the two stops to Maidan and headed up the infinite escalator, quite unsure as to what we would find at the top. The metro emerged slap bang in the middle of the protesters encampment – a desolated square, covered in khaki tents with fires on the go, banners with patriotic slogans and Ukrainian flags, huge barricades of debris, tyres and burned out vehicles, the charred remains once-grand international bank headquarters and literally MOUNTAINS of flowers and candles for the people killed during the most violent couple of days of the riots. Words can’t describe the atmosphere – it was very sombre and triumphant at the same time. Someone we met later that day summed the feeling up very well – “We have won our freedom, but the cost was very high.” Continue Reading
Helmets on Fire (Terraced House!), Street Drinking, Absinthe and Mini Giant Kiev Island Police Station – Kiev, Ukraine (Part One).
We arrived at Kiev with the bouquet intact where we resisted the harassing offers of taxis into town (with the aid of our cunningly scribed hand dictionaries) and decided instead to make our own way on the little old rickety mini bus that took about an hour to get to the train station. From there, our hostel had given us directions of the various Metros we needed, so we (upon finally locating the underground station and having a quick beer next to it – after Lithuania’s non-street drinking/no kiosks with booze on the street corner, we were very relieved to find the streets packed with little shacks selling cheap booze for the thirsty traveler) we bought tokens for the metro and attempted to put what we thought were the tokens into the turnstile, only for it to spit them out and the security man shouted at us until we sussed out that we were actually putting our loose change into there instead of the plastic tokens. Michael Bayed that right up like! We then descended down into what seemed like the core of the earth on the massive escalators and pushed our way onto the packed Metro, trying to perfect our non-standing out, dour Eastern European demeanour of not smiling at anyone when making eye contact.
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Your Two Girls Become Comic Book Authors, A Reunion and Killer Hangover – Vilnius, Lithuania.
You find us one week ago, on Susan’s birthday, stepping groggily off the luxury bus from Riga to Vilnius. Bedraggled and hideously hungover. Susan’s friend Laimonas met us at the bus station (with a lovely birthday bouquet for Susan, that is still with us on our travels!). He drove us to our hostel (which was fortunate as we would never have found it on our own), which was a very bizarre little place that seemed apart from us, to be occupied by lone male travellers, all of whom were wanting to stick their man parts in the little blonde receptionist who was git loving the attention and treated our arrival as a bit of an inconvenience breaking up their worship of her. Plus we had to take our shoes off, just to check in, and then put them back on again to walk back over the road to the building where our room was and it was a TILED FLIPPING FLOOR so what the fup damage would shoes do? And we didn’t get our welcome beers!!!Â
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No Latvian Anthea, NO!!! Fish Charts, Marketing Martin and the Finding of the Fisk – Riga, Latvia.
So where did we leaf off? Sitting in a camper van bar in Riga drinking Fisk! After an afternoon spent boozing it up on the amazing hemp and ginger beer that was 7% and writing our hilarious blog that NONE of you could even be bothered to comment on (not that we’re bitter or owt), we finally found our way through the bookcase into our dorm room where we came upon our roomie, German Marketing Martin, who would become our endearing third Privvy Leg for our time in Riga. He didn’t take much persuading to join us in a beer or ten and offered to show us the sites of Riga which he had found the evening before. We fuelled up with some fisks which inspired Susan to teach the Latvian bartender the joy of Austins (fisk bombed into cider) and force him to drink some with us (Katie you are spreading across the world!!). Unfortunately, as it was a Sunday night, pretty much all of the bars that Martin took us to were closed, so we ended up in generic tourist bars rather than dubious dives where random old Latvian men would talk to us, which was what we had requested from our tour guide. We still managed to have a great time as Marketing Martin had some good craic and would do owt. We went back to the hostel around midnight and realised it was Susan’s birthday, much to the joy of our new nemisis, Latvian Anthea, who from then on insisted on plying us with as many black balzams as possible, despite us shouting at her “NO! Bad Latvian Anthea!” and “Fup off Latvian Anthea I dinnit want it!!”. We have no idea what her actual name was but she looked like our friend Anthea (damn pages again not letting you tag people in it anymore!!) and was Latvian. Turned out they were having a staff party and we had inadvertently lucked into/had the misfortune to get stuck in the middle of it. Put the rest of this in your face
Lards of the World, Soviet Soldiers, Danish Angel and the Start of the Soup Tour – Tallin & Saaremaa, Estonia
Let us take you back…back to Gatwick, where it all began.
After an emotional reunion (involving many bottles of wine and a big bucket of ice, and we’ll say no more about it) we made it to the airport on Friday morning in time to brave the hideous queues for beer. The 2 hour flight passed in to time, mainly due to the delicious 40 Euros worth of wine and nibbles.
Arrived in Tallinn to find it bracing but sunny and set about demolishing a couple of cans of local cider from the kiosk before getting the bus to the city centre. Which we stayed on until the last stop which was actually a ferry terminal nowhere near where we had to be. So we walked in the general direction of the church spires, hoping that would be some kind of central square, and with the help of Google Maps managed to locate our hostel (The Red Emperor) which was on the top of a nice pub called The Beer Garden which served a nice range of local beers and the food that the table behind us were eating looked quite nice so we decided to get some dinner. Susan had a smoked cheese, mushroom and sun-dried tomato soup with a pastry lid that was basically an Estonian fondue and fupping delicious. Jill had a platter of lards of the world, with gherkins and a shot of vodka on the side. The soup was definitely the winner, but you cannit be having the option of a lard platter and not try it!
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IN WHICH LADY LUCK IS ON OUR SIDE FOR ONCE, AND WE GET BACK ON SCHEDULE (LIKE A BOSS). LEON TO OMETEPE (NICARAGUA)
Adventures continued (sorry for the delay, we both have back at home depression!): after the volcano boarding we arrived back at the hostel looking like black and white minstrels, we were so covered in ash. Had a quick chill in a hammock and a mojito before going to find the bloke who was sorting our car hire out, only to find that we couldn’t get one from Leon to drop off at the border and would have to go all the way to Managua for one. This wasn’t really an option as it would have taken forever and we were already half a day behind schedule! Instead the hostel man sorted us a shuttle to the ferry port and said we had to leave NOW in order to make it to San Juan del Sur in time for the last ferry to Ometepe at 5:30! Susan had time to grab a quick shower while Jill was packing up, and we were again bundled into a van with seats down the side for the next leg. Despite our rush we of course made time to stop off for some road boozes and stretched out on the long seating (Jill firmly pressed up at the front end while Susan had fun luxuriating in leaning against the back door and scaring Jill (what with her fear of falling out of car doors, at her time of life and with her knees) enjoying a few cold ones and delighting our eyes with he gorgeous volcano dappled scenery along the route. We had sewious weservations (Paul Bawwon) about making the ferry, as the roads were horrendous and our bloke was driving like a nana (despite Susan banging on the window yelling “Vamos! Rapido! Rapido!”) and we had pretty much written it off as a failure and started rejigging our proposed trajectory when we arrived at the port shortly after six. To our amazement though, the ferry still hadn’t left, and our van screeched into the landing spot beeping its horn and yelling at the ferry men, and we made it on board just as they were pulling up the gang plank to shouts of ” Chicas! Chicas! Vamos!”.
The ferry ride itself was absolutely gorgeous! We parked ourselves on the front deck, opened our last two beers and relaxed enjoying the amazing view of a hazy sunset over Lake Nicaragua and the spectacular twin volcanoes of Ometepe. It really made all the day’s stress worthwhile and we couldn’t believe our luck and that we had actually made it! Our smiles have never been wider.
We’d decided on a hotel in Chaco Verde, a beachy place between the two volcanoes, so grabbed some more beers from a kiosk and jumped in a taxi. It took about 45 minutes to go the 10 miles down the road due to them being tiny cobbled tracks, having to circumnavigate volcanoes and more impressively, we had to stop as a tree had fallen blocking the road and within fifteen minutes the driver and a load of local lads had set about it with their machetes and cleared us a path. Susan offered to help, informing them she was a qualified lumberjack, but they were adamant that it was ‘mens work’. The comaradary of the whole thing was lovely, and the more we saw of the island (lots of poky little bars by the roadside and always something going on even in the middle of nowhere) the more we loved it!
Our hotel was lovely and right on the lake (complete with swan shaped towels and a complimentary gecko) and after a much needed shower and nap, we found a nice little beach bar for mojitos and fresh (but fiddly) fish for dinner before walking back having a paddle in the lake. Our luxury room even had a little TV and a DVD player so we settled in to watch the 1 DVD provided, curiously titled “Resident Elvis”. To our dismay it was neither Resident Evil or anything about Elvis, but some forgettable romantic comedy. Being the troopers that we are we still watched it and then fell asleep to the sound of the waves lapping against the lakeshore. Tomorrow – we try to touch some monkeys!
Utila – Roatan – Tegucigalpa – Leon – OH MY!
It’s been a mental few days! Our Paddys Day bender was a hoot, didn’t end up seeing any whale sharks due to all the boats having left by the time we sorted the flights out, instead we had a gorgeous day on the beach with our new friends Laird and Bonita who kindly lent us their snorkelling gear so we could a least get in the water and try to touch some animals. Retired back to the hotel to get changed and ended up drinking rum on the balcony with more awesome Canadians until Susan transformed into Mandible who demanded we headed down to Skid Row to do the Guifity shot challenge. Which we did. Can’t remember much else apart from riding around the island on a scooter and some fat american trying to kiss both of us.
The next day (Jill’s birthday) started with hideous hangovers at 7am when we had to leg it down to catch the boat to Roatan, where we met MORE great Canadians (Audrey and Janine) whose arms didn’t take much bending to persuade to join us in a mender on the boat ride, which Susan spent the best part of hanging over the side trying not to vom.
We ended up having a hoot on Roatan with the lasses and after sitting drinking and giggling for a couple of hours in the bar (Susan was miraculously revived by a margarita, after poopooing a variety of other boozes in favour of a nap). Roatan was absolutely stunning and we were glad we got to spend an afternoon here with the most amazing company (we had so many funny things in common with the girls and they were totally our sisters from other misters). We were all well topped up so wandered the five yards to the beach to have a dip and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming about, eating road barbecue and  snoozing under a palm tree until unfortunately it was time to taxi to the airport. Roatan airport is so tiny it makes Teeside look like LAX  and we were dismayed to find when we got through security (which was less secure than the flipping BUS had been!) that there was NEE BAR there! We had got there really early so it was an anxious hour to wait without boozes. Our plane to Tegucigalpa was also really wee and the flight over the mountains and rainforest was gut-wrenchingly beautiful.
A slight hiccup on route from El Salvador to Utila, Honduras
Well, we’ve had a logistical nightmare of a couple of days but can confirm that we are in Honduras and still alive. Our sunrise hike to the highest point in Parc Nationale Impossible was amazing (although we both nearly died – we were gutted we didn’t have time for the full day hike but are now glad we didn’t do it as it would have taken twice as long due to us having to stop every 10 minutes to have our hearts restarted), saw the sun come up over the volcanoes and the view was incredible – you could see as far as Antigua in one direction, Honduras in another and the Pacific in the other. Irene (the legendary Manolo’s lovely little Swiss missus) made us coffee on the fire in their little mountain cabin and set us up some hammocks and blankets to get cosy and enjoy the view. After the company we we’re hoping to book a shuttle from Santa Ana to Copan with refused to answer the phone or emails (until THIS MORNING!) we decided to head back onto the chicken buses to take a ‘slightly’ less direct route. The duck was especially sad to see us leave, and kept trying to grab us by the shorts on the way out.
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2 Girls 1 Country (per Day) - an Adventure in Pinge and Wang 