Well, I sent her a serious, but loving, letter asking her to contrmplate what she is looking for, and if she truly desires the same thing as I do. The letter will either make her feel good because it reaffirms my level of commitment to her and us, or it will cause her to back off because she is not ready at this point. I'm a bit nervous, but I agree it's better to get these questions out of the way before I commit my heart and 2k on a visit to see her. Yikes!!
VNVNATION = I have tenative plans to be in Ukraine on Sept. 24-29. Yes, I would appreciate if you could post or send me the contact info for youe English speaking driver buddies. She says she has the transportation taken care of, but it never hurts to have emergency contacts avaible if need be ;) Thank you!
LAND OF OZ = Thank you for doing that research! I have bookmarked the web sites you gave me, and I will most likely purchase the Ukranian sim card unless my cell phone carrier can provide me with a reasonable alternative. I am al looking to see if the Pimsuleur program is available through the library system. It sounds like a great addition/alternative to the Rosetta Stone system.
Odd...I can't seem to PM BILL54. Whenever I try, I get an error message and ALL my browser pages shut down. Hmmm, must be this borrowed laptop(?)
VNV, I think I will have some free time while in odessa. I'll send you my ukrainian number in PM.
Do you know of a small restaurant on Alexandroskaya, near corner to Bunina where many buses stop? It is partly a take out food place. I do hang out there.
Beemer, I can't say that I know the restaurant you're talking about, but I think I've been shopping near there.
I usually hang out at Fanconi, Grand Cafe on Ekaterinskaya, or Sport Cafe on Rishelyevskaya, but I'm up for checking out a new place.
Beijo: I have another driver who works for a taxi company and also speaks English. Let me know if the arrangements with your lady fall through and I can PM you that # tooo.
About flying from Kiev to Odessa. Use WizzAir. Dirt cheap and can book online :)
Also, why does everyone talk about taxis? A few years ago, I didn't know a single word of Russian, but I still found my way to the Odessa Bus Station and onto a Nikolaev bound bus, for a few dollars!
Be very careful about booking way in advance with a less than rich low cost carrier airline at the moment, some of these LCC's are expected to be dropping like flies in the imminent future.
What do you mean? Wizz Air only entered the Ukrainian market a few months ago and are just beginning budget flights from London to Kiev. What is the problem?
I always use budget airlines whenever possible. And I have used quite a few of them. Ryan Air, Wizz Air, Easy Jet, Sky Europe, Snowflake, etc.
maccamic,
The problem is, may be, that these LCC's survive on the 'cheapskates' (nothing personal) to travel however there is a 'credit crunch', both to the airlines and the travelling public, on right now and, to the airlines, this is compounded by aviation fuel prices approximately doubling during this year.
We are now at the end of a European summer, more people travel during each summer than each winter, and most, if not all, of these airlines are indebted to financial institutions and these institutions may have just continued to prop these airlines up for the high summer season and now that not so much revenue is coming in they may pull the plug on them forcing them in to administration as has, just for starters, happened to 3 UK airlines alone this year never mind the others in Europe.
I wasn't talking about Wizz Air's Ukrainian operation, I was talking about Wizz Air, the Hungarian airline with bases in Poland also, who started somewhere around 2003 and have continued to struggle against the 'big boys' such as Ryanair who themselves are conceding that there is something of a crisis and are parking aircraft up and reducing their staffing levels.
If one books and pays with an LCC and that LCC goes bust before they travel then their money is gone! There are rumours floating around in the industry as to which airlines may be in serious difficulty however having been through airline bankrupcies myself I'm not about to start naming names.
UPDATE - Well, I was hoping to have something great to report here, but sadly that is not the case. Things were going well and 'as planned', when all of a sudden she asked me to postpone the trip because of something which she did not divulge. And then she did it again after that because of work. After that, she seemed to develop a severe melancholy. Her e-mails became short and very un-romantic, kind of like she was just writing back for the sake of writing back. I asked her what was going on, and she blamed it on everything from the weather to being overworked. I can't honestly say whether she was pulling my leg or not, because she seemed so sincere at first. The letters really fizzled out after that. I was bummed for a week or so, but I am over it now. Can't win them all, I guess ;)
I did learn a lot of good tips from you guys, so thanks for that anyway!
Although I feel that the vast majority of the women on this site are complete BS, I do think there are many sincere ones out there. I am currently still corresponding with 2 of them; one from the dreaded scam capitol city of Simferopol, Ukraine, and the other from Yoshkar-Ola in Russia.
While I am on the subject, has anybody had any experience dealing with a Juliya Tregubova / 69134? She is one of the women I am corresponding with. I noticed that she has letters written to her up in the 700+ range, but she was one of the very few who answered what I actually wrote in my letters, and also gave me her phone number. She has asked me to call many times. I'm wondering whether she is sincere in what she writes to me, or whether she is a scammer who is really good at what she does!
beijoguy, sorry to hear this. BUT, first: why are you saying somebody is BS here? we don't know anything about you, may be you are BS too.. second: it is not very appropriate to ask other people on public forum on somebody. girls do read this forum. first girls has been communicating with you, something probably came up, like anew boyfriend, she lost interest in you, or who knows what. second girl will read this post and will decide to stop communication too most probably. call her. we will remove her ID from forum.
Beijoguy: as a guy who has wrote a lot of FSU women I know exactly what you speak of. Things seem to be going really well with a girl you write to and she even seems interested in you and in meeting you when they will suddenly do a 180 on you and their attitude will sour towards you or they may even stop talking to you with no warning. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, it just seems to happen. Especially with the agency girls. I have become so disillusioned with letter writing and agency girls myself.
I think most girls in the agencies are just there for curiosity sake or to make money writing letters unfortunetly, especially the young university girls. What Bill says about the agencies in Nikolaev sounds about right to me.
I'd say give Juliya a call...what have you got to loose?
A girl won't just give her phone number out to anyone unless she's in the business of doing so.
That's for you to find out.
It's a sad fact that you have to go into these "relationships" with your radar up. But if you learn the signs you should be able to spot any red flags. Just go into it gradually...feel your way. Get her IP address, home address...whatever you feel you need.
Tell the girl what happened to you in the past and you don't want to make the same mistake again. But don't come across as all pissed off about it...just say it casually..once bitten, twice shy.
If she's genuine she'll inderstand. These girls aren't stupid...the stupid ones are the scammers.
Push the boat out again...you only live once.
I've had postponments a couple of times, which I dropped right away.
Had one no-show but went anyway (Since I'd booked flights). Turned out to be the best trip I've had met a girl just by going out and hanging around. There's always that option.
Beijoguy Sorry to hear things did not go as you hoped. Olga is right though. The ladies on here represent a large cross section of women. Of course because of the ease of fleecing Westerners there are women and men who have learned of the potential of pulling a few heart strings and a per cent of them penetrate the agencies and fiance both. They are weeded out when they are found out. But to say there are very few sincere ladies there I do not believe.
I think many times the wrong concept is taken by men. Many times the men think that if they meet the qualifications set out on a ladies profile they just need to pull their little red wagon over there, she gets in and they go home. When they are rejected they think the woman is no good. Women are emotional and you must show yourself worthy and win them. If you do not have good luck with the ladies in your area you probably will do no better in the FSU and would probably spend your time wiser fixing this problem before going half way around the world to have the same luck you have at home.
I would also agree not single out a lady on a public forum. A few women may like this but most will not.