Crete

Original post
The only thing we did was swimming, sunbathing and eating (btw, food was mmmmmmm), but I'll always find what to write here.

Firstly, once we went to closest town - Rethymno. By bus with tickets like that

Strolled on couple of streets, bought little presents for everybody and ourselves, ate ice-cream,

drank juice

also I took a pic with a guy, I felt so sorry for him, he was standing dressed like that in the heat and nobody took photos  and gave money

Then we went to look at "Labyrinth of Minotaur", which is actually Knossos Palace. It was just kinda big and confusing, so they called it Labyrinth.
It was fail. Heat, many people, "actually, it's not ancient, but restored according to archeologist's intuition".

This crowd is standing to see an extant throne room.

Yeah, this one. It's a throne in the right, if somebody doesn't understand.

About this painting it was told that archeologists, who digged Knossos out, at first thought it's a girl. But then they found out girls were drawn with white skin, so they understood it's a boy. Really, there is no other way they could find it out.

All in all, conclusion is: don't go to look at something older than 1000 years in the summer. Last winter in Rome it was great: no heat and no crowds. I bet, now there are many sweaty tourists.

The second part of excursion was a tour to a capital of Crete - Heraklion, but it couldn't fix what was done to us.
Greek Lenin

For the second excursion we rode big boat (with 2000 people, 90% of them were Russians, and everybody around us was eating all the time, despite the fact the food was total shit).

At first, we were climbing a mountain, where fortress was situated.

View really was amazing

Photo is ok, smell realy isn't. Guys, who built this thing in the 16th century, hardly could think that some idiots in the 21st century would use it as toilet

After it there were some wild beach where Aegean, Ionian and Libyan seas are merged (actually, they all are one Mediterrian sea).
We get an umbrella on the boat, while we were walking on the beach I opened it but couldn't close, so had to go like that (it's not that easy).

But don't worry, my mom is much more communicative than me, so she asked some Czechs (presumably) and they successfully closed this umbrella.

Beach really is beautiful and these are probably the most sexy pics in my life

And with this view I was laying

And no! I can't be silent about horrible psychological injury I got. I'm standing, looking at a side and in this side little girl is unexpectadly sitting backward to me and starting to poo! Amazing. I wish somebody poos at her parents'  doorstep. Btw, after it all their family left this place (not surprisingly).

Actually, our hotel was awesome. That's the view (but most of the time it was without a pie).

The pie actually is a hero of all pies. My granny baked it in Omsk, all its brothers were eaten by me in Saint-Petersburg and it happened to be on Crete. But I wasn't brave enough to eat it, so it's not known where its adventure finished, maybe in stomach of Greek homeless person.

And that't the view in the evening

Also, under our room there lived a man, he came with board and paddle but there was a storm in the sea all the time so he had to swim in the pool. And we laughed at him, bad people. Also, we thought he's German so weren't very silent with our jokes. And then we heard him speking Russian. Oops. But in the end he finally went to sea and was swimming really far away.

Also, under our room there lived a woman, she was always tanning topless, but I didn't take a pic of her, otherwise, I will had to put "18+" mark on my blog.

Also, while we were here, hotel for the 19th time got blue flag as hotel with awesome sea and beach.

For the end some random stuff.
German is just awesome. Brandsicherheitsvorkehrungen, guys.

Me is not me without photos of phones

And without road signs too

Cute Greek guys (but I took photo not because of them, just to have sample of Greek art of posters).

Some transport

P.S. Specially for the ones who read it till the end, as a bonus there is a piece of ancient Greek myth about how Minotaur appeared. Minos promised Poseidon to honor him the most in his kingdom if he would help Minos to become a king, but didn't make it. So Poseidon imbued to Minos' wife passion to a bull and voila! - we have Minotaur. How do you feel abot Greek folklore, ah?

3.07.2013

Taiwan: Weeks #17, #18 and what happens after

Русская версия
December, 31 - January, 1
It's obvious what we celebrated.
Firstly, we had little diner at ihouse

(in this photo: Taiwan, Germany, Holand, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, USA, Argentina, France and Russia).
Everybody was taking picture with each other

This is my look, btw, or what for I was thinking for 2 weeks what to wear and was making myself pretty for 3 hours

Then half of us went to a concert and the other half to a party. Of course, I was with second one.

In the begining all stuff was held on the roof, there was an open bar, but they had only beer, whiskey and many people trying to get this whiskey. Also, almost everybody was European.

There were many of my friends but not really close. And at 11 I lost everyone so was very depressed about meeting new year. And then I stood somewhere, some Taiwanese talked to me,  I took a photo of a group of Europeans, they also talked to me, so the moment X was really good.

Firework was great

I also wanted to make my first selfie in this year and dude, who was standing next to me, wanted to be in this photo too. And I couldn't just say "Sorry, dude, I want to be alone"

Then, how it happens usually, there was full of occassions new year night: I was standing in queue to cloackroom for almost an hour, when it finally was done, bartender forgot about my drink (and I was supposed to have 2), I found out everyone around was totally drunk and I was ridiculously sober. Then I had fun with people from ihouse so became much happier. And in the end, some Taiwanese dude was running and on his way... hmmm... throwing up, so I became accident victim of that. It happened to be most remembered moment from new year night. Fortunatelly, it wasn't that serious so New Year was more good than bad.

January, 9
Cat cafe happens to be totally different from the one in Saint-Petersburg. It's just usual cafe with many (something about 15) cats living there.

Walking on the tables

Checking what you're eating here

Sitting with some lucky people

Mimimi

January, 10
Went for the weekend to the city Taichung (3 hours by bus) to celebrate my friend's birthday.
Met many people from many countries, about some I haven't even heard before (like Kurdistan or Belize). Also, there were guys from Nicaragua, Iran and Peru. And my friends are from Sao Tome, it's a little country in Africa. Btw, I counted that in Taiwan I met people from about 50 countries.
As it was my last Taiwanese party, I took many photos

 I saw a girl in the same dress as me and took photo with her also, not like it's usually "You, bitch, wear the same!"

After club was closed we went to one guy's place and continued party there. So, at 7 a.m. I still was dancing and didn't want to sleep at all.

All in all, my last party in Taiwan was pretty good.

January, 12
We had nothing to do at Sunday night and girl, at whose place we stayed, texted some friends and in hour there were 3 more people and we were awake until morning and had one of the craziest nights in my life.

And I always have story like this: if I invite people I should start 2 weeks before and when date comes everybody starting to have some stuff to do, loads of studies and other shit. Of course, in Taiwan there are all conditions for going to visit someone in the middle of a night: you don't have to wear thousands of pants and sweaters, streets are supersafe and people live not far from each other. But anyway. I like people who are up to anything and understood long time ago that it's better to move your lazy ass extra time than to regret about things you missed and years you lived in a boring way.

January, 13-14
Before that great weekend I was almost calm about perspective of soon leaving, but on Monday and Tuesday I was about to cry in buses, metro and night markets. Why this is happening to me? Why I have to leave this amazing country where it's so easy to make friends, everybody treats foreigners almost like kings, entertainment and clothes are ridiculously cheap, absolutely safe to walk at nights and you live so happily. Sad sad sad.

January, 15
127 days in the country on the edge of the World. I'm so unbelievably happy that my destiny brought me here, to the best place in the world with the best people, where I was happy like wherever else.

P.S. 3 months later.
I can speak for hours about how I felt when I came back and what this experience gave me, so it is difficult to mention just most importnat things. But I'll try.
I was so afraid to leave. I felt like there is no life after exchange. Expected that everything would be the same I had before I went to Taiwan. And it would be crazily boring after all impressions I got.
But I was wrong. My life didn't become the same. Because I wasn't the same anymore.
I expected myself to fall into deep depression and stay in this condition for half of a year at least. And I really felt this way... for about 10 days. When I came to my hometown it was -32 (I'm not kidding), I couldn't go anywhere and all my friends were busy, so I decided to run away from it to Saint-Petersburg. And there I found out life back in Russia doesn't suck as much as I thought.
I also missed Taiwan like crazy. Wanted to study Mandarin, go there for master degree (now I know it would be a great mistake, sorry), work and live there for the rest of my life. Now I'm over it. Taiwan will be in my heart forever and I definetely want to come back someday. But just not for a long time.
So, what is the main thing this exchange semester gave me? I became more like a person I always wanted to be (recently, I realised me-a-year-ago would be sooooo jealous of me-now). Found out, it has drawbacks, but it always happens. Started to speak English almost like Russian (I even have thoughts in it quite often). Now I know the world is so big and life is so amazing (even if it acts like a bitch sometimes), there are so many people to meet, so many things to do and now one of the most scary thing for me is to fuck it up.

P.P.S. 
And if you wasn't very bored reading that, probably you will be interested in stories about my other travels? Italy, Greece, Estonia, Moscow? Some of my projects, like "what girls have in their bags"?
And I remember, I promised you to write about cultural differences in reationship issues but now I came up with idea of creating a new blog for that. Just need little more courage :)
Anyway, you always welcome to write what you want to see and other stuff.

Hope to see you soon. 

Taiwan: Weeks #15 and #16

December, 19
Final presentation (yes, often it's instead of exam here at courses, oriented on exchangers) at last finishing this year course. Celebrated it with diner, only 10 people took course.

Now I have only 2 courses and 6 hours per week taken. Which means loads of free time that I can devote to things I wanted to do for a long time but always postponed.

December, 21
For example, to buying presents for friends and family at night market

December, 22
And to preparing for Christmas and New Year: making postcards and wrapping presents

December, 23
Many guys I know have very interesting backgrounds. For example:

• A girl's dad (German) went to China, met her mother (Chinese), they moved to Germany and girl is bilingual
• A girl lives in Holand and at home mother speaks to her in Chinese, but girl answers in Dutch
• All guy's grandparents were born in China (also, grandmother from one side and grandfather from other side are from same town and went to same elementary school). Father was born in France, mother - in Africa, but lived in Britain. When they got married, she agreed to move to France but under condition that they speak English at home. All in all, guy has double (English and French) nationality, 2 mother tongues and Asian appearance.

By the way, we have some kind of racial discrimination in ihouse - at my floor almost everybody is European, at the previous floor - almost all are Asian. And the second are actually Germans, Dutch, French,Americans and even from Luxembourg. And most of people I talked to have backgrounds like I described.
And nothing like that at our floor. But on 3rd there is a guy, who initially is Ukrainian, grew up in Mexico, studies in Austria and speaks 6 languages. And another, Russian, who lived in Israel and then in Austria, studies in Germany.
And what about me? I'm from Siberia and many people are impressed, because they think it's something far and wild. Breaking stereotypes: Siberia isn't located on north or east of Russia, it's in the middle (and have a  shape of a dick, btw :D). And it's not cold (okay, in winter there are -30 sometimes, but in summer it often more than 30), not wild (there are more than 1 million inhabitants in my home town - more than in many European capitals). But to get from Saint-Petersburg to Omsk it takes 4 hours flight and cost about 300 USD.

December, 24
For many people it was surprising that Russians don't celebrate Christmas. We have it, but as we are Orthodox, not Catholics, it take place on January, 7th and it is just religious holiday, which is not even celebrated by many people. But at New Year Eve we gather with family (traditionally), have a diner, give each other presents and meet first moments of coming year together with people we love most.
All in all, I ate my Christmas diner sitting on the toilet. Seriously.

Yes, this is the weirdest cafe I've ever heard about

It's called Modern toilet restaurant

Toilets are real, I checked. I mean, looked inside them.

And also there are showers, for example

Menu is in the shape of you know what

For the extra pay you can took away your food in the Urinal container

You can write something for memory and leave in the table (which is actually a sink)

And buy souvenirs

For example, I bought pens

Food is served in sinks, baths and toiletes. Drinks in urinals and some white things, don't know what it is.

Or in the shape of you understand what

They even have a lamp in this shape

All in all, place is good, food is not bad and cheap. Despite the fact it's from toilet :D

December, 25
We had Secret Santa in ihouse, gathered together in the evening and give each other presents. Amazing presents!

The most popular theme was yellow duck (they love them here): t-shirt, 2 pairs of slippers, wallet, toy, pen...

Also there were beer, wine, funny socks, underwear, Taiwan cap, t-shirts, belts, slippers...

Actually, it's great to do it in a big group of people, so much joy for yourself and others. I would do it again at any suitable occasion.
The limit was 250 NTD (8 USD), and you can buy so many great presents for these money.
Forgot to say about mine: my Spanish neighboor gave me scarf (amaaazing scarf and I love them so much), a duck and self-made postcard. And I gave a girl nail polisher and self-made postcard as well.

December, 29
Nothing interesting happens because I sleep all days, and do some useless stuff at night. And also got sick just before New Year :/