PART 2 OF MY TRIP REPORT
The 3rd day she came to get me about 8 am. We went to her house for the first time. Her sister was home now. She is dating a man from Cypress and might be getting married soon. She cooked for us and it was delicious. Had some type of fish cooked with onions and put over rice. The rest of the day we just kicked back at her house. I brought Sveta some American movies so it will help her learn English. We watched Forrest Gump and I had to explain to her many things in this movie. Of course, it’s understandable because there are so many American references. I even told her about the RUN FORREST RUN comments used for guys show should run from a bad woman. She enjoyed that story as well as the movie. We were starting to get closer and maybe things would work out.
That night we left on the train at 10 pm. Headed to Simferopol where Eugene from “Around Crimea by Car” website would pick us up. By the morning Sveta and I were starting to feel very good about each other. We originally had plans for Eugene to show us some sites on the way to Simeiz. We changed our minds, as we were tired. So we went to Simeiz but we stopped at a few places where Eugene showed us some very nice views. The Crimea is very impressive with its mountains blending in with the forests and seashore.
When we arrived in Simeiz it looked very beautiful. It was green with very thick trees. Eugene pointed out a few parks we could walk in. The town was very small, maybe only a couple city blocks but it had a few cafe’s and markets. Eugene dropped us off at our flat. It is the one pictured on his website on the Simeiz page. It was nice and for $40 a night it was perfect for us. We did find out later we could have got a decent place for half the price but we didn’t want to hassle with that. This trip was to see if we were in love or not, so not having to worry about anything was very nice. Eugene showed us around town including how to get to the beach. We walked into town and stopped at a cafe for breakfast. Eugene asked if I wanted an omelet so I said sure. I didn’t realize they didn’t know how to make one. I should have just stuck to eggs but I ordered a ham and cheese omelet. Lets just say it was interesting. Eugene gave me a Ukrainian treat called HALVA (sp?) and said we have peanut butter but they have halva. It’s made from sunflower seeds and was very tasty. Eugene then left and we spent the rest of the day in the flat talking. By now we started to really like each other like we did before meeting.
By the end of the 3rd day in Simeiz, we decided to stay for 15 nights. I can say those 16 days there were very special. We did not do a lot but we spent each morning on the beach for a few hours. Simeiz has two beaches. One is a very small beach about a 5-minute walk from our flat down the cliff. The other was a large beach that was always crowded. We liked the more private beach. The only problem I had with it was the rocks. I am from San Diego where we have huge sandy beaches. Here there was no sand, just rocks. My wimpy American feet just couldn’t take it. By the end of the first few days I had a hard time walking, as my feet were all bruised. Everyone else seemed to love it.
Everyday we enjoyed walking into town. It was a 15-minute walk and it was very nice. I already miss that walk. We would walk holding hands and we’d go through the parks. It was so relaxing. We would go buy the food we needed and we’d try a new cafe. Other days we would just stay in the flat and eat there. We were very comfortable with each other and very much in love. We wrote for 8 months so we knew so much about each other. Her English was very good and we had very little problems talking about almost anything. We decided we wanted to explore some of the Crimea area so we called Eugene. We set up a day with him.
He came by in the morning and we headed to the northwest of Simeiz. It was a very beautiful drive. We stopped at Foros Church on the cliffs looking over the Black Sea. There was a service going on and we watched a little of that. We joked about getting married there, so Eugene said one couple that stayed in our flat, did just that. They loved each other so much, they ran off to get married right then. That definitely would not happen with us. That day we also went into Sevastopol and spent a couple hours there. We just walked around and saw all the monuments from the wars and of war heroes. Eugene was great and told us many stories. I really enjoyed his stories. One of Eugene’s clients changed his plans so we had to go back. That was okay as we were tired. On the drive back Eugene’s car “broke” down at the right time. It was a perfect place to see where Gorbachev was held when the Soviet Union fell. It was interesting, as I saw this place on TV.
MORE COMING SOON
