We leave. We are really tired (me at first) and arrive at Cherson after midnight. The Fregat Hotel (the meetings' one) it's too expensive. Valerio wants to go there, Leandro isn't so sure, then he comes with us looking for a less cheap one. We ask in one or two, then we find a cheap on (even if just with cold water). Leandro doesn't want to go there, either Brave-heart. So we carry them to the Fregat and we go back looking for another hotel. We cross the bridge and we are on the isle. We find a hotel there. It has two stars. There's a man dressed with a pyjamas and a woman. The hall is huge. The man approaches to a table and he opens a register. Two black beetles come out of there and run off the table. We go out of there completely speechless, without even asking for the price. We decide to go to the cheap hotel we had seen before. It was near the river and it seemed quite clean. But I take the wrong way and at a certain point I can't see no more Francesco's car behind me. I turn about and I come back. Over there there's a car. Got it: it's theirs. They're all out of it and the only light is the car's one. They've got a flat tyre. The rims are broken. So we change tyre and we look for the hole they've fallen into to break it. We find it.. it's really huge. They begin to argue: "you were going too fast... but I have to follow her... you had to pay attention at the road... but if there's no light at all..!!!... Michal, can you come with me to the tyre repairer tomorrow?... yes, but now it's better for us to go to sleep, it's 3 am...", they go on with the discussion, but in their car.
Meridien Hotel is clean, nice.. the receptionists, too. It's a pity just for the cold water and for the communicating balconies.
A pity for the balconies, I said. This because the following morning at 7.30 am Francesco begins to call Michal from the balcony. He wants to go with him to the tyre repairer. I was doing the washing, Leopoldo too: he was washing his shirts. Michal is exhausted, but he gets up. The tyre repairer solves everything and it costs really a little (about 5000 liras). Everybody's happy.
The burden and the disburdenment are a nightmare:
We arrive 15 minutes before: at the reception desk they tell us to go to an office at the 11th floor. There they laugh (at least they're cheerful!) and tell us they've made a mistake: they would have waited for us the following day: -the meeting room is not ready yet. We have to clean it, you can't use it! - -We don't mind, we can't postpone, even if it's untidy, it doesn't matter.. -We convince them, we will pay the same price even if the room's not in order, they bring us to the 22nd floor. The room is a theatre. On the tables there's 1 cm dust.. A woman who has to clean up arrives with the pail and the floor-cloth and she begins to clean it... : when she finishes everything is dirty as before, there's just a little bit more dampness. It's really hot: there are no windows and we are in a garret on 9th August!
Women begin to arrive and I hear some noise: at the door there are two big bouncers who are quarrelling with Leandro and ... the teacher, unrecognizable. His lip's swollen, his eye's shut and he's literally covered by his blood. The bouncers want to send him away, Leandro tries to stop them, but he can't manage to. So I intervene: -what are you doing? He's a friend of us, let him go.. They leave him, totally incredulous, and they ask me if it's really so, have they well understood? -Yes, it's our friend! And they go away. But .. what happened? Why are you hurt like this? Tonight I've been assaulted by three criminals, I was sleeping on a bench in the center. Leandro brings him to his room to let him taking a shower. When he comes back he's got an other t-shirt, but the impression is just the same.- I'm sorry, but in my opinion he should not behave like this, a normal person should not go around dressed like a beggar and sleep on the street...
the third meeting: Cherson ...
In the hall there's Leandro with a crying girl, what does he did to her? Someone has stolen her car, near the hotel. Now she's gonna go to the police, then we're gonna go out for dinner.
We decide to dine in the same restaurant where we went 2 years ago with Alice (my daughter), a very elegant place, near the square. We've got Francesco's phone, because he wants us to talk with his girl from Mariupol, at 9 pm. At the restaurant there's nobody and it's really elegant as we remember. We sit and we order the hors d'oeuvre: every one's different from the other. To drink: mineral water. Then steak with sauce and onion, steak with mushrooms and some roasted fish. Michal goes to the toilet and comes back troubled:"But.. how can it be possible!... If I were in the waitress' place I whould be ashamed!". The waitress comes back and while she's pouring us the water, a drunken man approaches looking straight at her. She moves like nothing's happening, but it's difficult to pretend. She whispers to him to move a little. He moves a little. She disappears behind a door. After 15 minutes I've eaten all the bread which was on the table also if it was quite disgusting. She arrives then with three identical hors d'oeuvre and she tells us that the dinner ends there because the cooker has gone away!! We are really disappointed, but we pay as well. In our minds just some thoughts:
we don't have to pay, how can she ask us for money, I want my money back, why couldn't she tell us this before, we have to get out of here!!
We go back to the Fregat hotel. The girl who was crying before is still there, she's doing the denunciation. The others are all there waiting for her. Then they go to dinner, Leandro with the crying girl, Valerio with the hands in his pocket, sly.. and Brave-heart.
So we go back to the hotel, where there's Giuseppe with a girl (he tells us that he knows her from more than a year.. but I don't believe him). We give him Francesco's phone back and we tell him to remember to Francesco and Leopoldo that the following morning we would be leaving at 7 am: who is there comes, who is not.. well.. we don't mind.
At 2 am there's a terrible noise out of our window: everybody's passing neering and cursing on our balcony. I shout: -"How can you do this, people's sleepingggg!!!"-... Deep silence, just a low bustle. Some days later Leopoldo has told me that Giuseppe was gone away with the girl and the room's keys. So the other two, to enter, had to pass from the balcony, on the parapet (fourth floor), because the receptionist had just the keys of the room near ours.
This is the balcony which the unlucky boys had to cross in the night to enter their room....
We leave at 7 am, but just from the hotel, because we go to the Fregat and nobody's ready. Waiting for everybody to have breakfast, we greet Cesare and Giorgio, who are leaving for Zaporozhe: they go there to meet two girls and they'll reach us again in Donetsk. Finally we leave, after 9 am.
We are going towards Krym, at a good speed, even if Valerio (he's changed his seat with the one of Brave-heart who's becoming friend with Leopoldo, he says) groans about it (normally he drives really very fast). I wanna say that I drive really well, I've never had an accident. I go quite fast, but I'm prudent. Although this everybody has groaned about my speed for the entire journey -I've never been over 120 km for hour (not considering Brave-heart.. he went on predicting terrible things to happen. At a certain point I began calling him "bad-luck-boy" -I've written on the dust of the car's door from which he entered: "bad-luck-bringer": he was offended). ....
In the rear-view-mirror I can see Leandro's car, who's gonna remain behind us at every time... Valerio pretends to be asleep.
The lunar landscape is amazing. Michal tells us that he's read somewhere that it'is a sea sounding re-emerged. So the ground is salted and for this reason there are no trees.
The trip goes on and we are submerged in an incredible landscape till Sudak. We climb a hill which overhangs the valley, completely naked. We climb an other hill on which, on the other side, vegetation's terribly luxuriant. We continue our trip at a very low speed to enjoy the surprise, to breathe the pungent mountain air mixed with the sweet one from the sea...
The tenor never stops ...
Then we scramble up to the castle. When Alena and I arrive Michal is no more there, he's already going up, towards the top. The others begin going there, but they come back at once: -it's too steep, we would need the suitable shoes, why should we go.. On the contrary.. we go back to the town, we wanna taking a shower to be ready to go out tonight .. (the town is on the sea, we can look at the entire gulf from there- it has a promenade full of night-clubs, it will be a fantastic night)
They leave us there waiting for Michal, who doesn't arrive yet. We wait for half an hour. Alena is really worried, me too. It's getting too dark, he's maybe fallen into the sea. There is nobody now, we can't see anything. We try to climb the stairs, but it's really dangerous. We try to call, but just the echo answers. We get down, we can't even see where to put our feet. We reach the box-office but there's nobody there. We don't know what to do, if going back and call someone ... A little bit far from us we recognize the woman, with the daughter who was joking with Leandro before. we run to her:
- police, call the police, he's fallen, the italian (he's Czech, but try to explain it)-we should speak Russian, but Alena's stuck dumb, I cry and they laugh:
- no, nobody has ever fallen, but we come with you... -we go back and after some steps we can see him, he's coming back, with three other people, two guys and a girl. They're cheerful and they're chatting.
What a fear! Tension releases, now I'm angry and he's all amused by our worry:
the way up was long and then this guys have told me a lot of things, I've also taken some pictures, I've told them that my little wife was waiting for me in the hotel. Instead I find you here full of anger. What a poor figure...
The hotel is on the top of the hill, near the castle.. and it's name's Horizont. From there the horizon is uncredible. Michal wants to come back on foot, but we're too tired and we take a taxi: a dollar to bring us to the hotel, then we have to go up 4 floors, because the elevator is out of order. Michal sleeps in the car.
We leave, we take the wrong way, then again. We go along the sea, then we reach a little town, always on the seaside, vertically on it.. and the road has ended. We go back to Sudak, but we cannot manage in going out of there. At a certain point we take a way, and it seems to be the right one. We find a shop, we can have breakfast there, icecream and Coca-cola... better than nothing. Now everybody feels better. We continue our trip. There's a fork. We ask for indications and we end in a stope. We go back, on the right the way goes up, will be this one? Suddenly a huge hole. Nothing breaks, but my anxiety increases. 600/700 m and the road becomes narrow, then it goes up, then.. excavated. On the right there's the mountain, on the left there's a difference in depth of 70 or 80 meters, just woods. - It won't go on like this for much, there are cars in the opposite direction- are they mad?- They go at an incredible speed! We raise a lot of dust. It's better for the guys to be first, we've got air-conditioned and we can shut the windows. We continue in a very low speed for about 15 km. Valerio and Leandro do the acrobatics in front of us, going up the wall, speeding up, jumping in the holes. They stop, wait for us and when they see us arriving they laugh and go on. Brave-heart would like to stay in front to guide, he's experienced in going off the road, he'd like to drive. I'm not experienced, I'm scared to break something.
A part from this passage the rest of the trip is quite boring. At almost midday we can see from one side the Black Sea and from the other the Azov one. In the sky there will be the eclipse in about an hour. We stop to eat something.
The restaurant it's in a place which seems a castle. I think I've got hallucinations: some shadows pass in front of me... -but..what?!?.. swallows! They've got nests in the restaurant and they go backwards and forwards from the open windows - with stained glasses, as the ones in churches.
Outside there's a group of people who observe the eclipse, they look at the sky protecting their eyes with negatives, Michal tries to take a picture. From the inside we observe Brave-heart, who's talking to the waitress:
I've never seen such beautiful eyes!She gifts him an icecream, and he says to me:
- the ones with the chignon drive me crazy ...
We arrive in Donetsk at 10 pm. Luckily we find the hotel, which seems everything but a hotel. In the hall everyone is stuck dumb, Valerio begins to talk:
- Michal ask if they show us the rooms!-
-We don't need to-Francesco arrives in tracksuit:
-they're awful, it's full of beetles-
-in my room there were 5- (Giuseppe) - but it's ok, we've slept all day long-Valerio takes a taxi and goes to the luxury hotel. We begin to argue (Michal and I). An hour passes calling the girls for Francesco, Giuseppe ... I begin to sleep in the car, after a bit Michal does the same. Alena gets angry, she slams the door twice or three times, then she lays herself down on the floor and begins to grumble. I'm not really sleeping, so I get up:
-Michal go taking the rooms-
-There are no more rooms in that terrible hotel, then we should change the money, we've got no more grivni, I'm tired-
I- I go!I can't stand Alena sleeping on the floor, she needs a bed!! I try to solace her. I begin to drive, but I don't know where to go!! I stop near a taxi and I say (half in Russian)
-Do you know where there's a change, lira, money, change-
-there, 10 m!-I go but it's closed. It's midnight. There are two blacks, a tall one and a little one:
-We change money-
-How much? but it's a robbery!-
-no, it's better than the official change-
-well.. let's see, 100 dollars?-
-ok-suddenly he takes the note, I'm scared! Then he gives me the Ukrajnian money, I sigh of relief...
Michal is still angry, he doesn't help us. For the change he's an expert: he finds always the best one walking around for hours. In just few minutes I've ruined all his work. He "strinkes" and he sleeps.
Audaces fortuna iuvat... and infact I'm lucky. After 20 meters I raise my eyes and I read: Luxury hotel, Valerio's one. We meet him in the hall, which is huge: -see you tomorrow morning-
We go in our rooms and we get depressed. It's a bleakness, nothing's clean. The balcony is a mixture of flakes of plaster and bricks and it's full of fag-ends. I'm disgusted of putting my dress on the chair. It's late but I'm too sad to see Alena this way, she's too depressed. So I say: -let's go to dinner- -This time?- We'll find a place, don't worry ... and we find it! It's far but nice, outdoor, full of elegant people. We can't understand if it's a restaurant or an ice-cream shop, but everybody's got their table full of bottles... how do they drink? We order, eat and pay. They don't bring us the change, we go taking it. Then we go to sleep laughing and exhausted. Michal sleeps in the parking. 2 meters away from him there's also the "BMC" parked: everybody's here again, finally.
We leave the hotel and while Michal goes looking for a change, I go to the bar in front of it. The balcony of last night is not the only unsafe one: there are two workers who are repairing an other... I should shoot them! There are two men appeared at the balcony, each of them with a rope. To it there are two axisses tied like a little chair. They leave it till the below balcony, then they turn the rope once or twice around the railing. From the below balcony a man comes out. He sits on that "thing" and he begins throwing cement on the wall (or something else, I don't know). Under him people pass without paying attention to what he's doing, passing over a red and white thread stretched between two little trees which should prevent the passage. I look at the situation astonished. I'd like Michal to arrive to take a picture of the whole thing, but when Michal arrives (he takes more than an hour) they've already finished. Alena arrives, too. She can't manage in taking the coffee. We're in a hurry, we have to find a bank which changes liras in the other side of the city. However we manage in having lunch before the meeting. In reality we take two pizzas with us.
The meeting room should be in the hotel, the ugly one of the previous night: at the phone they were really kind. When we arrive we find hundreds of women out of there, in the hall, but at the reception desk they don't even know who we are. They send us to an office, then to an other. Finally an employee remembers something. She desappears, then comes back in a hurry with a little note-book: -you have to pay first!... Ok!- The meeting room is not bad, at least there are the windows. We can even park the car outside the window and unburden everything through it. We're really lucky because when we finish at 8 pm it's raining hard and we don't get too much wet.
the fourth meeting: Donetsk ...
In the middle of the afternoon Valerio takes a taxi and goes to the airport where he'll take a flight for Bologna by Kijev: he's got a new house, so he's to order everything there, his holiday is over.
We are really tired and a little bit wet, we buy something to eat and then we go to sleep in the car, the three of us: better than the Luxury Hotel!!!!