Sevastopol

From Yalta we were able to take a bus to a city called Sevastopol. It was a nice two hour scenic drive around the coast and through a few mountains (up, around, down, around, up, down, up, around). It was much sunnier that morning than it had been so far for the trip so we got a few nice pictures.

But then it got cloudy.

Still nice, yeah?

After arriving, we had to find our hostel. After booking our beds online, we were given instructions on how to find it from the bus station. First, we had to find the right bus and go two stops. Ok, little stressful, but no problem.

We found it, got on, and went two stops.

The next set of directions said "Take nearby steps." Ok, should be no problem, except there's a set of stairs going down, and then there's a set of stairs going up. Great directions guys.

 We took the up ones.

The next part was "Turn left and walk downhill 20-25 meters and look for an old building." Super.
Seriously? Is there a building on this street that isn't old?

Perhaps this one?

Maybe one of these?

Oh, the choices..

"Find brown door." We found a red door… The only reason we found that door was because it had a little sign that said 'hostel phone number'. At least the door code worked. Then we had to find "Door number 2".

Found it.

Knocked.

Waited.

Rang the bell.

Waited.

Rang the bell.

Then the door next to the hostel apartment opened and a little old lady asked Audrey in Russian if we were there for the hostel. Then she said that she would call the owner and that we should sit down on the steps to wait for him. Ok.

We sat there for about two and a half minutes eating stale cookies when the owner showed up and let us in and showed us our beds. We ended up rooming with two German guys and two people from the U.S. that were teaching English in Moscow. They were pretty awesome. We compared travel stories and told them that they should definitely visit L'viv (we can't possibly be the only ones to think it's the best city ever can we..?).

Ok, after dropping our stuff off, we needed to get food. The hostel dude told us we should walk about ten minutes in one direction and we would find cafés and restaurants everywhere. And we did.

I'm going to have dreams about this pasta for the REST OF MY LIFE.

Their version of iced coffee is putting a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cup of coffee. You won't find me complaining..

The next day, we went back and found a Chocolate Café. How do you resist something called that? It also had free internet so we sat there for a few hours, ordering new stuff every once in a while.

Dark chocolate cappuccino.

Cheesecake.

You can't go to a Chocolate Cafe without trying the chocolate cake, can you?

A banana latte. Very interesting. Very banana-y.

And some chicken caesar salads.

We also stopped by a few souvenir stands, but since I'm running a little low on money, and because I'm a responsible adult, I didn't even buy a small seashell keychain.

Ha, who am I kidding, of course I bought the freaking keychain. It was like 50¢.

And we had ice cream. Audrey really liked hers.

While we ate our ice cream, we enjoyed a nice concert-thingy in the park. Videos!

And now, a few randoms.

I hope you guys don't mind video style.

To get home, we left the hostel at 10am, took a bus to the bus station, took a bus two hours to that one town I can't pronounce (Simferopledropleledargblah), took a 15 hour train ride to Kiev, rode the subway a few stops, transferred, rode the subway for about 30 minutes more, and then walked 20 minutes home. The train smelt like fish and I'm not going to comment on the bathroom.