We arrived from Poland on a 35 dollar including tax Ryan Air flight. So wrong yet so right. Ireland right away was everything we ever thought is would be, green grass ( even in November), fantastic accents, place names that you never pronouce right, guiness beer that is the same price as every other beer and impossibly cute towns with colourful wooden signs on mom and pop stores and pubs that looked like they stepped off a movie set. We thought we were driving through a tourist town until we realized that they all actaully look like that.

We thought we would start in Galway as everywhere sounded so good that we couldn't decide. After getting over the realization that we were unable to afford anything but the cheapest hostel bed and that the days of drinking 2 pints ( atleast) whenever we wanted were over, we settled in to a rather warm and surprisingly dry week in Western Ireland. Yes, it has been confirmed, it rains more in Vancouver than in Ireland, which must make Vancouver the rainiest place in the nothern hemisphere.

Doolin was our next stop as we wanted to be in one of those "more sheep than people" places. Doolin had only one street, 3 pubs and lots of sheep but also lots of tourists, it made us glad that we were travelling in November, not July. Ireland gets as many tourists every year as there are inhabitants. We sat by the peat fire, hiked the cliffs of Moher, were woken up by the drunk dudes in our dorm room (reminding us they we are way too old to stay in hostels) listened to Irish music with a room full of American tourists and hitch hiked with many nice people, none of whom were the American tourists we saw drive past.

The cliffs of Moher are a major tourist destination with a parking lot that charges 8 euro but we had no idea. We walked up from Doolin along a dirt road and then through cow pastures and along the precarious edge with the wind blowing the water from the streams straight back up the cliff. When you get to the top (or what we thought was the top, as we never made it to, or even saw the parking lot) you can lie down on long, tufty grass and lean over the edge and look right down to the bottom and be happy that no one has put up guard rails to keep you away from the beauty.

Also near Doolin is an area called The Burren and there is a hike the guidebook says is 35 km long and really good. What they fail to mention is that atleast half of the hike is along narrow roads where huge buses come flying past.Even though there really isn't wild, remote, wilderness in Ireland once you start hiking up the hills higher in to the burren the road gets lost beneath and all you can see is rock, grass and ocean.

We were on a mission to surf, but the swell report was not cooperating so we kept going to really wide, white sand beaches that were either as flat as a lake or had 10 lines of messy white wash. Even the cliffs of Moher, which have some of the big tow-in waves in the world, were flat. So instead it was all about hiking. And learning that Ireland would make an awesome surf vacation if you had the money and the swell.

Connemara is home to the twelve bens ( round rocky hills), a real, extremely wet bog and the nicest hostel I may have ever stayed in. The woman who runs it has her rules but as long you follow them she has a soft spot for hill walkers ( atleast everyone admits it isn't really hiking) and the living room has a lovely peat fire and no internet or tv, leaving you forced to relax through all the long, dark hours. We hiked up in to what was described as the wild part of ireland and realized that we could see the road from all points on the hike but also that as soon as the fog rolls in the bog at the bottom is the best place to go.

If I wanted to live in a small town somewhere really beautiful, the coast near Ardara (emphasis on the "Ar") is pretty much perfect, high hills, a waterfall, green grass being nibbled by sheep and then a phenomenal and empty beach hidden by sand dunes and edged by sea caves. And you are only 8 km from a town with all the pubs and fried food you could need.

Ireland had a tough postion to fill, last place at the end of an amazing trip though much stranger and grander and more intriguing places. It had to distract us from the reality of having to come home as well as provide the comforts of English speaking, western living that we were expecting.And to quote a friend Ireland " You did good son, you did good. "

Chris studied in Krakow 5 years ago so we went on a home town tour, eating at the same little cafe where she used to have lunch, except now the menu is in English ( though you still have to order in Polish). We ate pierogies and bigos ( sausage and cabbage stew...mmmm...) at the cafe and kebabs pretty much the rest of the time as they were everywhere and the cheapest food going.

Krakow is known for its jazz in little bars in cellars under the old buildings. they are all cozy and small with curved ceilings and the band we saw the first night was the best live music I have seen in years. The band was wearing variously leather vests, multi-coloured sweaters, orange pants and mustaches and their collective age must have been 500. The banjo player sang in a mumbled stream of sounds that resembled English but the woman who sang had it down.

We went to the Jewish area, Kazimierz which is the hip place to drink and eat, lots of dark, English parlour like bars with fire places and candles on the table and the last cheap beer we were going to drink on the trip.

We ended up slightly drunk after trying to drink our fill of cheap beer and somehow wound up in a underwear store that took credit cards. When Chris had handed over her credit card for the boxer briefs with a bird in a cage on the them ( for a friend), the store clerk looked at her last name and informed her that her relatives lived upstairs.

Arrving at the mall/train station we came within 10 seconds of missing our train to the airport due to being trapped in the mall part of the combo. We then climbed aboard our 35 dollar, including tax flight to ireland for one last stop in our reality avoidance whirlwind tour.

It is here also that the Chowaniec family history tour begins. I took too long to become interested in the past. This visit highlighted for me how much has been lost. In the flatness of the Ukraine I sought, if not evidence, than memories and images of people I never really knew. And I had the pleasure of sharing the journey not only with close friends and family, but with a cast of random characters all swept into the pursuit not only of things gone, but also of the memory of what remains. On a miserable Nov morning we set out from Lviv to find the fabled apple orchard and the house of my grandmother and my namesake. All I had was a last name and the name of a very large town - Kovel. We drove to the Roman Catholic church to start the search and although the priest was young and not familiar with the history, he dug up a character named Anatolli who was a historian and walking database. Enter Anatolli, complete with bushy mushtache and tan leather jacket, he kissed our hands and through an interpreter he plugged us for details we did not possess. And although he could not help us find the exact settlement he suggested that he take us to one of the twenty odd old Polish settlements outside Kovel. There was a cemetary and an old school and we could at least get a lay of the land.

We drove through the muddy countryside dodging fallen sugar beats and passing stoic statues of coal miners. There is nothing left of the settlements - the land had become communal farms during the Soviet period and all the old houses had been dismantled brick by brick to build new things. We do find the crumbling remains of an old school and here I am photographed in front of an apple tree. I take some stones from the ruins - these will be my tangible reminders of a forgotten place. Anatolli gives us a history lesson, he is meticulous in his knowlege of the area. The whole place is a vacuum of sorts - everyone who ever lived there, Polish or Ukraine, rich or poor was eventually deported. Kovel remains a huge railway junction and the very place from where people were taken away. The miriad of ramps and platforms and lines seemed sinister in the grey fall light. Nothing remains of that time and yet standing in the wet fields and driving the new roads I could at least get a sense of the place physically: rich black soil, tree lined roads leading to old homesteads, wide fields falling into red pine forests in the sandy rears of lots. Nothing remains but the thousands of smiliar stories of real people kept alive in searches such as my own and in the living memory of the few that remain.

My grandfather however was a city boy and on the same night that we came in from the fields of memory, we stopped by the apt building where he grew up. I climbed the angled wooden steps, the umpteenth coat of rust coloured paint was wearing away. The hall was cold and damp and smelled like a musty attic. The tiled entrance way bore the date of 1908 and the small courtyard out back was full of cats and drying laundry and crumbling garden sheds. It was strange to imagine a person I had only ever known as an old man taking the steps two by two on the way home to dinner. And perhaps stranger still to think that someone else now lived there and had a history all their own.

The next day I met a friend of my grandfather - they had met through the local short wave radio club of which my grandfather was a member. With his friends at the club my grandfather had co-authored some articles detailing the history and role of the club during WWII. I was hauled away in a decaying old Lada to the Monday night meeting of the club. I was led into the ground floor of a Soviet era apt building in the 'burbs of Lviv and was introduced to an interesting cast of characters. The room was piled floor to ceiling in old radio parts, trophies, posters and papers - every now and then a flash of seafoam green paint would be visible. I was welcomed by a handful of geeky old men wearing thick glasses, ill-fitting jeans and sporting outdated moustaches. But it was the warmth of their reception that stays with me - they liked that I should have come looking for the past and be interested in things forgotten. On the table before me was a photocopy of a picture of my grandfather as a young man, taken the day he was arrested (Oct 1939). In that moment, staring into the eyes of that young man, in that moment, surrounded by those quirky old men on a rainy fall night in some random apt building in Lviv, there the past came to life. There I had found that tangible feeling I had traveled a whole continent to find.

The Crimea itself is more beautiful than I imagined: huge headlands force the hwys up high and away from the towns and driving along them you get incredible vistas of blue water and steep rocks faces. Everywhere fall colours tint the landscape that cascades down steep limestone eventually falling to either pebble beaches or an endless sea. Few places are steeped in such history, even Homer spoke of the deep water harbours and after our travels it feels western and welcoming.

Later in Yalta we take a tour boat with a bunch or relaxed CIS tourists out to see Swallow's Nest one of the famous landmarks high up on the cliffs above the sea. It is a tiny castle built by a German oil baron for his mistress. It was barely used, either because she didn't think that the puny castle was compensation enough for him not leaving his wife, or because it fell apart...today it houses a bad Italian restaurant. But the views are spectacular and it has cheap beer and salted fish all at reasonable prices and people watching Ukrainian tourists is far more fun that the attraction itself. We also visited Livida Palace, built originally for the last Russian Tsar it is more famous for it being the site of the WWII conference between Stalin, Churchill and Rosevelt. It was here on a sunny winter day in 1945 that the Big Three created the 20th century map; sold Eastern Europe to the Soviets and plunged the world into the Cold War. The place is so perfect and peaceful, set high up, its vantage point so serene that it is little wonder one could forget the world and sign a document with such severe consequences. A few months later the war was over, Roselvelt was dead and the world was destined to be a much different place. Plus imagine the awkward photo shoot...on a bench in the sunny courtyard, the three of them trying to look comfortable sitting beside each other.

The next day we took a twisted and stomach churning ride back to Sevasterpol to fly to Lviv. We ate in the best airport restaurant in the world: it had lime green carpet not only on the floor, but on the walls and pillars as well. There were huge chandeliers and mirrors and seafoam green paint on the ceiling. The beer cost 75 cents. The women working there may have had nicer shoes, but nothing much else had changed in 15 years including the menu and the prices. The airport control tower was in a colonial house, the only flight was to Kiev and there were sheep on the front lawn. We had beer from a vending machine in the baggage room at the airport in Kiev, imagine if you could have a beer while waiting for your skis at YVR? We sipped them in the Hall of Expectations...whatever that means and then the check-in dude asked in English if we would like the emergency exit row.

We were picked up from the airport by the owner of the apt we were renting. It was All Saints Day where every grave in the whole country has a candle placed on it. We went to one of the largest cemetaries in the city and the entire place was enveloped in a warm red glow. I had forgotten the simple beauty of it and the warm and almost hallowed feel a graveyard can have even on a cold fall night.

Odessa is a blur of bad basketball and ballet and beer. It is much more beautiful than I imagined. Its imfamous Pushkin steps cascading to the sea and its wide cobblestone streets and old Adam's style (and coloured .... imagine if pepto bismal pink and seafoam and baby blue were in style, not to mention peach and yellow..."it was the style" seems a poor defense) facades complete with their white trim of that unfortunate period. The sheer area of the old city is impressive and the tree lined public spaces speaks to an untold historical wealth. Catherine the Great had the city buit and even its slightly worn state still eludes a regal feel and yet underneath it all you can still sense the vibe of a seedy underbelly...a port city afterall and it gives the uppity class a likeable overtone. The sea was grey and the newly renovated opera house was slick and gold even if the ballet we saw was, well, bad. We ate well and drank well and strolled the wide boulevards. And after a pint or three we talked my mom into taking the night train to Simferpol and the Crimea.

My mom survived the train - didn't fall from her bunk and in the morning we took a local train to Sevasterpol along the Black Sea coast. We spent the day exploring a forgotten Silk Road stop, a Khan's Palace in the middle of the Ukraine, the only redeeming feature of having a palace that far from the warmth and sunshine must have been the hot Pole/Ukrainian chicks in the harem. Later we followed the fall colours up the side of a mountain to a monastrey tucked half into the rock and a cave city where Khans and Jewish hippies alike lived out their days in hill top retreats. We slept in Sevasterpol where my mom had an apple war with the front desk staff...lousy service and a bowl of fresh apples behind the desk...use your imagination to put the rest together.

The next day I discovered that woolen face masks, Florence Nightengale and submarines had more in commom than the letter "e". In a perfect natural harbour, Balaclava, the place that gave the warm and unstylish headgear its name, where the English and French fought the Russians for control of the Black sea - an unassuming place with high rocky headlands and turquoise water. Here English women knit the aforementioned hats and Florence sewed troops together again and here the Soviets hid a nuclear sub repair station. Long, dark tunnels hid the secrets of the Cold War and today tourists eat fish and learn about a forbidden past. Our tour guide informed us that just three days ago her father had spilled the beans about being an electrician at the sub base 50 years ago. Imagine keeping such a secret for so long - I'm pretty sure I would have come clean after a pitcher or two at Doogies.

Beijing, Vancouver, London, these are all cities that you have heard of and that you might expect to be hosting the Olympics....but guess who is in line after the big 3...Sochi, Russia. Never heard of it? Come on now, a city of 400 000 on the coast of the black sea. The warmest place in Russia where you can swim in the ocean at the end of October and there are plam tress everywhere. A favourite of the Tsars and then a soviet retreat where all the metal workers would come for a month to the metal worker sanatorium. Now a city with more tourist tack than Myrtle Beach and cumbling concrete piers that seperate that rocky beaches in to 100m increments. How could you not have heard of it?

Going to a Russian beach resport sounded too good to be true, so we hopped on yet another overnight train and woke up to the ocean outside the windows. You can tell that they were trying pretty hard for the Olympic bid as all the signs at the train station were in English but, when you get to the information booth the man that spoke English for the Olympic committee visit has apparently gone back to Moscow.

Not wanting to repeat the experience in the spa towns of wandering around aimlessy while hotel reception clerks seemed to think we were asking if we could do our laundry in their kitchen sinks ( we were asking for a room but by they way they said "Niet" you would have thought that was what we had asked) we followed the first man at the train station who was renting a room. It turned out to be his living room with a pullout couch but the price was right and had a really cute baby we could play with.

It is pretty funny that Sochi is hosting the WINTER olympics as it was 27 degrees and sunny on October 24th and there don't really seem to be any mountains in sight. They do have dolphins though, and they swim right up to the beach, probably to look at the crazy russians who believe that the only right way to tan is standing up. so there they stand for hours, while the October sun does nothing to change their colour. I guess tanning salons will catch on soon enough.

I swam in the black sea, we lay on the beach in our underwear, we discovered the goodness of eating little, salty fish and dried squid with beer and Chris accidently ordered the 12 dollar salmon at the bus station. all in all a good beach vacation.

The place we wanted was locked up tight, but we were then taken to a huge metal door in the side of the Kremlin ( Russian fort/castle/monastery). It was like being told you were going to stay in Dracula’s castle. But strangely enough there was a cute lodge like hotel in the inside and we were allowed to wander the dark passage ways, creepy corners and peek in to the restaurant , which strangely enough, was hosting some 1980’s wedding. Way cooler to be inside the walls at night that during the day when it is full of school groups.

Small town Russia was alive the next day as it was Saturday morning and market day….gone were the bitch boots of Moscow and enter the velour and the familiar clothing selection from central asia. It was basically like being back in Uzbekistan, but it was freezing cold and muddy and I think the velour bathrobes were going to be worn just as bathrobes. We wandered down to another monastery and were forced to don skirts lest we offend the delicate sensibilities of the male residents.

Russian’s churches are way more epic the ones I have seen elsewhere….full of gold and icons, no pews, just lots of people walking around with candles lighting them at the icon of their choice as well as bowing and kissing the icons and always a few women with fantastic voices singing along with the priest who also seems to have been chosen for his vocal ability. Every Kremlin seems to have a variety of churches with onion shaped domes, the more the merrier and bonus points for having more than 1 colour or gold stars on them.

After we had our fill of rain and monasteries we did the only thing there is to do in small town Russia, go to the local kafe/bar which was pumping at 2pm with techno and drunk dudes and old women eating soup and gossiping. We drank the afternoon away and got back on the train to Moscow to get on another overnight train to St. Petersburg.

We figured out that we will have spent more than 100 hours on trains in the 2 and half weeks we are in Russia. Forget the trans-Siberian we have been there and back and there is nothing romantic about 100 hours on a train. We finally broke our Indian records of traveling 40 hours by cattle car….43 hours on the cheapest Russian cars ( though they are actually much nicer than India, mattresses and blankets and attendants who will give you mugs and hot water).

Our epic journey began badly – we had just walked the length of 9 city blocks to get to our car and were just settling in for the long ride when we were rudely interrupted by a blonde bitch from St. Pete’s and her small child. She immediately began screaming and yelling and throwing her shit and our shit everywhere, presumably because we were sitting beside each other and not across from each other as our tickets indicated. The old woman also bunking with us tried to calm everyone down – but it was too late. The young woman had made enemies, a very foolish thing to do at the beginning of a very long train ride. We spent the remainder of the ride practicing our glares, and after 40 hours I am sure had them down, and coming down from our upper bunks only to pee and eat and glare some more.

We need to speak a little about hair, it seems that mullets are all the rage and the longer the party in the back, the cooler you are in front. Ultra hip seems to be dying the business part a different colour or simply streaking skunk stripes though the entire mess which basically means many women look like they have decided to cart around dead animals on their heads.

Having had enough of the freezing north and the ultra-stylish people with unbecoming attitudes who inhabit it we headed south. First stop was Mineral Vodi, land of the sanatorium ( which we still have no idea what they entail as all we could figure out is that we were not allowed in for some reason) . People have been coming down for over 100 years to drink the cuative waters and take 15 minutes soaks supervised by (no doubt surly ) nurses. The towns are small and cute and have broad walkways and lots of little cafes and many benches for lounging in the sun,....yes, we said sun, after 8 days of grey skies and rain we thought we were back in Vancouver, but down south it is hot and sunny and people are way more chill. There is no yelling, only patience and a willingness to work with our pathetic attempts at Russian. We even got drunk with a bunch of Russians on warm beer from pop bottles. They thought it was very un-russian to drink cold beer out of glass bottles. We talked too loudly, watched endless videos on the boys cell phones ( oh do they know the way to a girl's heart) and listened to techo on the lada stereo all in the shadow of the enormous Lenin statue and eternal flame. We are more confused by Russians than ever.

Stepping in the streets of St. Pete's there was a lesser concentration of bitch boots, they still existed, but there were running shoes present for the first time as well. The people were generally still unsmiling, but the superiority complex of Moscow was gone, plus perhaps my heart had hardened slightly and I had definitely perfected the "don't fuck with me look" that Russians hold so dear. I could stare down with the best of them. The city has a low skyline and so the famous landmarks, gold spires and domes are visible from anywhere in the city. The canals and rivers are criss-crossed by a network of bridges, Griffins with gold wings were a fav as were naked dudes holding horses with massive balls. The city feels lived in - 300 years of people occupying the apts. There is less concrete and a greater effort on colour and decoration; soemthing that comes with age rather than imagination I suppose.

The famous Nevsky Prospect is pin straight and happening. At night you can see the Admiralty at one end and the circus in front of the train station at the other. We walked for days, climbing on battleships and guns at the amoury; strolling along boulevards, eating ice cream and sipping beer in hidden basement bars. We went to the political museum and stared at photos of some of the greatest tyrants of our time. What I knew already about the horrors of living in Soviet Russia was only made more poignant with dates and massive numbers. This is perhaps reason for the older generation to be mean, which we witnessed first hand at the banya where dozens of ugly naked bodies shrieked and yelled and scowled at us while beating each other with birch branches in an intolerably hot steam room. We didn't seem to be able to do anything right. But certainly this is no excuse for the younger generation with their bitch boots and cruel glares.

The Hermitage is seafoam green. Did you know that? Like that Mastercard commercial, hope the friend you wore seafoam for was worth it. But inside there was a truly remarkable collection of art - the rooms themselves hardly needed any further decoration....though in places there was a bit too much gold leaf for my taste. The place is massive and you could literally spend days in there - we picked a few things we wanted to see and spent the day lost looking for them. In the evenings we ate good food, and tried to remember what it was like to be physically unable to consume another morsel of shashlyk. Still more mullets per capita than anywhere else I have been.

In Moscow we were living in a refugee camp where babies cry and people snore and we never slept despite paying what would consider an exporbitant amout for a dorm bed. but it was the cheapest in the city so we endured.

The days of bread lines and drab dress are most certainly over...Moscow is flashy, well dressed, rich, masssive and not anything close to the 1960's spy novels we have read. There is more neon than Vegas, and classy restaurants on every corner and bitch boots on every woman, grandmother and child. seriously, people eye us up and down on the subway and then snigger to their friends.

The Red Square is actaully not a square but a very large rectangle with a very small St. Basils at the end, drawfed by the TsuM department store. The other side is the Kremlin, heart of the evil Soviet Empire, but looking more like a disneyland set. Brightly coloured walls and manicured gardens and about 5 churches. We ate lunch at the McDonalds outside the Red Square, just becasue we could. The only thing close to a bread line was the line for big Macs where children happily handed over wads of money.

We have been to the greatest show on earth- or prehaps the greatest show on earth for 8 dollars, the Moscow circus. Not for the faint hearted, it is over 2 hours of lions and camels and parrots and horses being ridden by Brokeback Mountain cowboys, and lasers and whole families on tightropes ( including the fat, balding patriarch) and sets ranging from swimming pools to ice rinks. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better they bring in the sea lions. The sea lions where standing on one fin on a spinning pedastle....defintely not Sea World.

The subways here are as grand as the ones in Tashkent but also come equipped with 1000's of zombies shuffeling along the chandelier lit hallways as they wait for the crowd to push up the escalator.

We went on an epic mission to find Yuri, the first cosmonaut but instead spent an hour wallking around the agircultural exhibition, finally finding the old museum...a huge space with many a hammer and sickle but now selling bulbs and seeds.

oh, and we saw Lenin's boady..he was short.

As I said, Samarkand is the first place I had preconceptions about: bustling markets, dust, noise, people, melons, life and energy all buzzing around ancient ruins and restored majestic buildings. This was my image of Samarkand, the jewel of Central Asia. So you can only imagine my disappointment when we rolled up to the Registran and were almost run over by a bus tour group. The magnificent buildings are set in shady green lawns and the whole place is a giant museum – not the centre of everyday life. I can’t tell you how strange it was to go from barely being able to communicate on a daily basis to being outpaced by Tilley hats and walkers. Who knew? The continuing theme of our trip; suddenly there were postcards and tour bus parking and English speaking guides and telephoto lenses and we had the general feeling that we weren’t in Kansas any longer.

The city has been occupied and ruined and rebuilt several times over the ages. Many people and empires inhabited and rules from behind its walls. Alexander the Great admired it, Jenghiz Khan destroyed it and Timur rebuilt it. The Russians inherited a pile of ruins and what visitors see today is a reconstructed part of a more meaningful whole. But the staid and manufactured recreation cannot, in the end, take away from its imposing beauty. The Registran is actually three Medressas set around a square. Two of the schools have minarets and the third one in the centre hold the picturesque blue dome. The tile work is intricate and colouful and the glazed turquoise tiles on the dome practically sparkle in the sun and the blue sky provides an unending backdrop. A rebuild façade of former glory put back together quite nicely, and for a moment, a forgotten past made whole for a new generation.

There are dozens of mosques and monuments and perhaps the other most interesting site is the Shahr-i-zindah or “Tomb of the Living King.” It is a more calm space, rows of tombs holding Samarkand’s ancient greats lie in cool shady and highly decorated rooms. From its vantage point on a small hill one can look out over new Samarkand, sparkling and uniform mixing with blue and beige of the old Samarkand. As my preconceptions fade I try to see the city for what it is. In the evening we sat down to the best kept secret in all of Central Asia: pork shashlyk. Imagine if bacon was cut into chunks instead of strips and then BBQ to perfection. The fact that I haven’t see a pig in all of Central Asia hardly deterred me from the feast. I have seen flamingos in the desert and I’ll be damned if I don’t believe there are pigs in Central Asia.

Tashkent is the capital of wide streets, more hideous soviet buildings than you could ever imagine, many decorated with aging soviet slogans or newer Uzbek ones, numerous statues and other monumets to Timur( the bloodthirsty tyrant of the 15th century who was lame in one leg but had a soft spot for beautiful architecture) but few restaurants, stores or people. Seems like people prefer to stay in the their countryards and sip tea.

Tashkent has the only subway in Central Asia and man did they go all out. Some of the stations have chandeliers in them and the walkways are lit by gold gilded lamps while other are a tribute to the cosmonauts and done up in shiny blue tiles with murals of Yuri and others peering out of “portals”. And all this for less than a quarter a ride. Equally as grand as the subway is the opera and ballet theatre that has a different performace every night…for 2.75 cents you get the best seat in the house and the pleasure of watching an obsure Italian opera sung in Russian with a cast of 70 and a full pit orchestra. The 37 of us who came to watch tried to clap really loud for the cast which seemed to include people on their way home from their construction jobs and others who were begged by their neighbours to just come and stand in the back, no singing required.

The oddest thing in this very orderly place, is the currency. The largest bill is worth less than 1 dollar and people have to bring shopping bags full of cash when they want to buy pretty much anything. Chris changed 7 Kyrgyz bills and the man had to give her a sack to contain the cash as no wallet could do it. On the other hand you do get to feel very important slapping down 20 bills to pay for dinner.

We drove from the Kygyz border to Tashkent in 5 hours and our driver did up and undid his seatbelt no less than 15 times…done up to pass through all the military check points and at any hint that he might be passing a cop and undone for the cool, free feeling of potentially hurtling through his windshield. Cops stand at the side of roads everywhere with orange batons and seem to wave cars over at random, you then need to get out ( yes, you go to the cops here) and hand over a stack of money. We just can’t figure out why people don’t just keep driving as the cops often have no veichle.

Our favorite English language newspaper, if only by default because there are really no others publishes on the weekend a special full colour edition. It is a gleaming twelve pages of randomness, news and gossip culminating in the “Weekend Report” a 2-column list of mismashed facts focusing on lackluster US foreign policy and other tidbits from the week’s events. For example, one sentence might have read like this: “Mother Theresa, being considered for canonization, had once said that she hadn’t felt the presence of God since 1949 while the North Korean President admitted to owning tapes of South Korean soap opearas and George Bush’s grade 3 report card was released to the public.” This fabulous collection of run-on sentences and disjointed sequences makes for some of the best reading this side of China. So in the spirit of our favorite column we bring you our very own concoction of almost forgotten randomness from Central Asia.

A Soviet-Afghan war vet revealed a landmine scar in the middle of a dusty, middle-of-nowhere roadside bar while the hunt for an inflatable pool toy in September ended in the purchase of one “CocoPuffs” raft and horns that sound like horses neighing are all the rage in Bishkek. Millions of melons are being sold from Western China to the Russian border, but the mystery remains: where are they being grown? Theories include: underground Soviet bunkers, offshore Central Asian Polynesian colonies and the mandatory one melon per household production requirement. Waitresses in the hip and happening Riva Cafe in Tashkent believe that hailing from Canada is “super cool” and a group of young boys in Naryn were caught pissing off foreigners by making loud (fake?) organism noises outside of apt windows. The Naryn Ultimate team is finally at first capacity. Obstacle training has begun and includes toddlers, cows and piles of garbage and hitchhikers reported that Mitubishi minivans equipped with DVD players and a good selection of R&B videos have been seen on the roads from Balichy and viewer discretion was non-existant as children’s videos were reportedly switched off in favour of 50 Cent and Snoop. A national survey indicates the average bed length in Kyrgyzstan is 5’2. The award for the most inibriated front desk attendant is given to the dude at Sary Chelek hotel in Bishkek who attended to guests at an early hour complete with vomit on his hands and underbid the lowest offered price by a hundred soms, surely the best deal in town. A lone Bristish missionary in Bishkek enlarged her vocabulary by asking two Canadians in Naryn to define the word “dude” and one very upset Canadian has a fleece that smells like horse piss as bad timing conspired to make the 30 seconds during which the fleece was on the ground the 30 seconds during which the horses needed to relieve itself. A housewarming party in Naryn was interupted first by what was hoped to be a Jehovas Witness but what turned out to be a door-to-door postcard salesman (flora and fauna of the Tien Shian) most likely tipped off by the nosey landlady and a second interuption was caused by the landlady herself obviously disappointed by her tenents choice of male guests, a timely depature ensued. 84% of Kyrgyz people picked the mullet the top hairstyle of 2007 with bad red dye jobs ranking a close second and Transformers was just released in Russian. A yurt party got slightly out of hand on Saturday night when a drunk granny stumbled from the yurt to berate foreign visitors with her two lines of English, namely repeating “my name is” over and over, a scene ensued as she was hauled away for an early night. Gold teeth remain important status symbols and wait staff feel the best way to ensure good service is to clear away plates and glasses efficiently and often before either is empty or before patrons have finished chewing. Discussion regarding altering the main routes of livestock herding off of main thoroughfares and first grade highways is ongoing while it was determined that the amount of recycled paper in toilet paper is acceptable as bits of newsprint are often legible and enjoyed by can-sitting readers and Kyrgyz wine sales are up after Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron photos were added to labels.

for those of you who have no idea why were are trying to cross dress animals...it all began at a Chinese night market in Vancouver where absurd dog costumes were being sold for a bargin price. It was determined that a goat would be way cuter in a blue plush horse costume. There are lots of goats in Central Asia and the rest is history.