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The first time I saw Europe (excerpt)

UKRAINE | Tuesday, 13 May 2014 | Views [167] | Scholarship Entry

During last winter a revolution took place in our country. The initial impetus for it was the desire of Ukrainians to eurointegrate. Many Ukrainians were marching with streamers “Ukraine is Europe”, “The youth of nation is for Euro integration” and so on.
"What is this Europe about that everybody want there like that?" - asked me Inga. - Let's go and see what's the trick there”. No sooner said than done.
And our bus started for. People who live in the western regions of our country, love to smuggle into Poland every now and then. They tried to negotiate with us so that we stuffed part of their projects up in our backpacks. Inga and I refused them flatly. But our inexperienced friend Dima decided to show his mercy. As soon as the smugglers felt his favor to them, they immediately foisted on Dima three bottles of vodka and a few cartons of cigarettes.
Somehow at customs problems emerged up not with smugglers, but with us. Customs officer told us to get off the bus. Smugglers afraid that Dima will take their possession away and began to demand it back. Dima took a backpack off and began to give all the smugglers’ belongings back to them. Customs officer watched him with misunderstanding.
This evening we got to Krakow hitchhiking. In Krakow we settled in the dormitory of Franciscan Order in a Catholic cloister. This was absolutely amazing. I always thought that Gothic architecture is breathtaking, and here I am living in it.
We lived there with a wonderful monk Martin, who enjoys to hitchhike himself, doing it right in a cassock. Across the road to Franciscan Order was the Dominican Order and Martin called us to play snowballs with monks.
Somehow, we were asked whether it was true that the fascists-banderovtsi want to capture the Polish lands. We did not know anything about plans of the fascists-banderovtsis, so we shrugged and moved further to Vienna.
It was pretty simple for us to stop cars. That's what we said:
"Hi! Can you bring us up to Vienna? We're travelers from Ukraine ".
The answer was usually something like:
"Ah! Ukraine! Cocktail of Molotov! Yeah-Yeah! Get in '.
The lessons that can be drawn from this passage:
• To travel around Europe you need to learn the language up to the level of A1. This is enough
• One of the ways to seem more likable person and a pleasant companion to people around you is to say that you have a revolution in your country. This works better when your speech backed by BBC News

Tags: 2014 Travel Writing Scholarship - Euro Roadtrip

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