Brannon's Meanderings

so here i am sitting in a cafe near ethan and i’s apartment in downtown nikolaev. we are going on our six consecutive day without internet access at the casa, welcome to the world of living in an emerging market. it was worse, we were without electricity after a particularly aggressive rainstorm on sunday, so i’m not complaining. at the moment i’m sipping a beer, smoking hookah and enjoying the remaining minutes of sunshine, life is good.

i’ve been out here in ukraine for over a month now, it’s about time for an update. so where do i begin? i don’t know, i guess i’ll just do one of my usual wildly embellished, stream of consciousness things that i always do.

so, the past month i have made nikolaev my home base and tripped around ukraine on weekends. i spent a week on the crimean coast in yalta. yalta is essentially the summer spot for rich ukrainians and russians looking for warm weather, nice sea and lots of nightlife options. i was there about a month before its season so it was relatively quiet while i was there but i thoroughly enjoyed spending a week with my russian buddy anton and ukrainian buddy oleg. we stayed at oleg’s dad’s hotel gratis, which was nice. i’ve also made a couple of trips to odessa, a much larger city than yalta or nikoalev, right on the coast. odessa is about a two hour drive from nikoalev and only about $15 one-way by bus. odessa was really nice as it has great beaches, a thriving city center and rich history as a port of call for the old ussr and now ukraine. interestingly, there is a divide in ukraine between allegiance to the west (western europe/usa) and the east (big brother russia). odessa’s close proximity to russia and it’s deep reliance on russia for economic stability make it a city that is largely pro-russia. in ukraine everyone speaks both ukrainian and russian, but the closer to russia you get, russian is the only language you hear. if you go west and try to speak russian, as a ukrainian, you risk a strong rebuke by locals. fortunately, i don’t speak either so i’m good. and i digress, both of our trips to odessa we have stayed for a weekend and rented an apartment in the city center. we spent our days either at the beach or touring around odessa with local friends there (thanks again marina for your unbridle enthusiasm in showing us odessa). the nightlife is what surprised me. i’ve lived in london, nyc, rio, blah blah blah, and i would put the nightlife in odessa up against anything i’ve seen in other cities. one club in particular, ibiza, is fantastic. it’s a sprawling outdoor club, set on the black sea, that on friday and saturday nights has upwards of 1000 people partying till the sun rises. the scenery, in oh so many ways, is phenomenal. i’m looking forward to one final trip before i head back to the states.

there are many places i want to go but haven’t had the time to see yet. there’s a cool little beach city about an hour from nikolaev called khoblova, that ethan has been talking about since i arrived, that i will check out. i also want to try and hit moscow for a weekend, but the visa issue will likely sabotage that trip. my final trip will be kiev for a few days before i fly out of borispol back to the states. so, in short, i’ve got a ledger full of ukrainian travel plans for my final three weeks here.

so what is nikolaev and why am i here? well, nikolaev is this small city of about 260k people and it’s situated on the bluh river about 40 miles from the black sea. it is most famous for being a ship building hub for the old ussr. ethan and i live right in the city center, next to the park, on sovietskaya street. we’ve got a nice apartment (although i’ve been told it’s decor is undeniably ussr era with ornate wallpaper) and we have a weekly cleaner and a cook that makes us traditional ukrainian vittles. we’re living quite comfortably and on the cheap, i spend about a third of what i did in nyc to live.  the city has three clubs and a variety of decent restaurants, but the main social activity is strolling along sovietskaya street until sunset. it’s become a daily ritual of ethan and i’s to toss the football on sovietskaya or walk with friends down to the river. life is much simpler here than in nyc, and surprisingly, i kind of like the simplicity of it all. we routinely run into friends while walking around and we’re in close proximity to our gym, ethan’s office and pretty much everything we need to sustain ourselves. fortunately, ethan speaks a good amount of russian after four years here, so we don’t really have many of the problems that foreigners often deal with in a foreign country. sidenote: i’ve been attempting to study russian while i’ve been here, but this language is insanely difficult to speak and i’ve not made much progress beyond being able to order food.  fortunately, most of the folks in our friend circle speak a modicum of english. this has been the perfect spot for me to unwind after an extremely busy last two years in new york. i also had my buddy bryan law come out and visit for about a week, it was nice having another person from the states out here to experience all of this with.

so what comes next? well, i’ve got three weeks left before i head back to nyc to gather my belongs and make the move to seoul. i’ve already got my temporary housing sorted out in seoul and i’ll be arriving on august 14th. august 15th i start my intensive korean language courses and september 1st i start work. that gives me about two weeks to find a permanent apartment which shouldn’t be too difficult as i’ll be given real estate agent assistance and a healthy housing allowance by samsung to help expedite the process. i’m getting really excited for my impending move to asia and i look forward to a nice experience with samsung. fortunately, i have one of my good friends, ed bogart, from columbia heading out there with me and we’ll be working in the same group at samsung. a familiar face should make my transition a little easier.

alright, time to wrap this little nugget of worthless information up. if you made it this far in your reading, you deserve a medal, i think i put myself to sleep writing this. it’s a wonder i have any readership at all with my infrequent postings and tantalizing writings. thanks for humoring me.

take care and please, keep in touch.

B