quarta-feira, 25 de agosto de 2010

Going home!!

After one week seeing Hamburg, Kiel, Bremen, Cologne and Bonn in Germany, today I am leaving to Frankfurt to take the plane back home!

sexta-feira, 20 de agosto de 2010

About the leaving of Ukraine

Yesterday, sadly, I left Ukraine.

I had booked a flight from Kiev to Hamburg and was just waiting for the decision about the job. If I would get hired, I would stay more 3 or 4 months in Lviv. Otherwise, as it turned out to happen, I would just come to germany and would have 1 week to make a decision until the date of my flight to Brazil in August 25.

As I had a new passport, when I went through customs control, they obviously didn´t like the fact thay I didn´t have the stamp stating that I had gone IN Ukraine.

So the Ukrainian police was making phone calls for around 20 minutes to try to find out whether I had bad intentions in that plane or not. Apparently their communication was not that good and they were not able to find anything out. So they just decided to let me go! GOOD!

And I had a very strong sorrow because I had not bought any Ukrainian vodka. Luckily, there was enough time (1 minute 17 seconds ) for me to go to Duty Free and buy it! YEEEES, I am bringing some bottles of Khortytsia to Brasil!!

About Kiev in general

I have a small classification of cities:

1D city: cities in which you usually know where you are just by finding the main street or cities which are made only of one main street. Floripa (except for city center), Joinville, Goianésia, Bom Jesus da Lapa (BA), Ibotirama (BA).

2D city: cities in which you will find interesting spots if you walk in every cardinal direction. Brasília, City center in Floripa, Lisbon, Krakow, Hamburg.

3D city: cities in which you will find interesting spots if you walk in any directions, but also if you go up or down in metro stations, in underground galleries, etc. Barcelona, Berlin, SP, Buenos Aires, Kiev (YEEEEEESSSS!!)

Yes, Kiev is a 3D city!! And I have a certain tendency to be positively surprised by this kind of city the most. It is lively all the time, theres VERY cheap food, theres VERY expensive food, there are lots of foreigners, there is mafia cars going extremely fast in city center, theres all kind of people, and, by the way, a lot of each kind. =)

Officially my favorite city in Ukraine.

About the job interview

I had the job interview in Lviv, but both me and the company didn´t match each other expectations.

- I wanted to work for only 3 or 4 months as a software developer or doing marketing with my portuguese language skills. =)

- They wanted someone with a lot more experience in software development than I have and they are not making any sales to portuguese speaking countries.

As a result, I can not extend my visa in Ukraine and as my previous one was already expired, I decided to leave the country. I will probably also not participate in the Ukranian road-trip in september with Tom and his friends, not learn Ukrainian for now and Tom will also not be willing to stay in Lviv for more months.

On the positive side, it is one less option for me to decide from, which is a very welcome result! =)

About the lost passport

After the trip to Ternopl, I noticed my passport was gone right in the same day that the visa would expire. =/

So I called the Brazilian embassy in Kiev and they told me that I should go there (means 10 hours of train) to get a new one. The good thing is that they would give it to me in the same day.

So I came to Kiev, found the embassy and talked to the staff which gave me the new passport in the same day, as promissed! Bad thing is that the old one was becoming full of stamps and visas and this one is completely empty: must travel more!

But still the best part is yet to come: after having a very short contact with the embassy staff I had one of the BEST ideas of the last years regarding my profession!

terça-feira, 10 de agosto de 2010

Trip to Ternopl

Last weekend me, Tom and our romenian friend Cata from the new group of interns were in Ternopl, a city near Lviv in which there is another group of foreign interns.

We were guests in their house, they took us for a walk around the city and the lake, we went out at night and next day we played volleyball with some ucranian people in the park near the lake! Very nice game by the way. =)

Ternopl is officially recommended now!

Back in Lviv

After Polish trip, we have now in Lviv :

- Our intern friends, which are working daily in school with the kids and always very eager to have trips for the weekend.

- Tom the Dutch friend, which is working in Intelias and always open to any kind of suggestion. ANY! Our next one will be to go to Circus. =)

- Me, waiting for an interview in Intelias next Thursday to try a software developer place in that company, playing football and volleyball sometimes and eager to make more trips in Ukraine.

- Tom´s flat, which is very confortable. Tonight we are having dinner there. =)


We don´t have:

- My camera to take pictures, because the battery was rotten and I had to throw it away.
- Interns from previous group which were living toghether, including loads of brazilians.
- School work for me.
- Regular internet access
- The previous dirty and over-populated flat.

Back from Poland

First there were 4 days of lots of rain and nice trips with Riane in Krakow, including Auschwitz, Salt mine and transportation museum. Lots of McDonalds with her as well. =)

Then there was one day in Katowice and Zabrze with Linda and her family. They were all very friendly, mother, father, brother, dog, cat and Linda of course. They offered me a place in their home and tried hard to communicate, although still my polish language skills are very poor.

Then I went to Warsawa to meet Tom and there we stayed in a hostel, then met Lubass from AIESEC Lviv, which is there having his internship. Later we met a nice girl, Gosia, which took us next day to a day trip in her city Poznan. =)

Next day with Gosia I went to meet one of the AIESEC offices in Warsaw, which by the way looked very cool. =)