LR - a C3 ticket from Kyiv - Sumy is only 75 uah and takes about 5 hours. My strategy would be to pop back a couple cold ones and before you know it you're there.
But yes I understand the convenience of being picked up at the airport and taken directly to your hotel or apartment in Sumy.
TomZ,,, years ago I posted on the different cars and fares,,, and have since forgot. If I took a train, I’d go for the private cabin,,,, which I believe you have to share with 3 others?
If I stayed over in Kiev the first night, I might consider it.
LR - you never actually get a "private" cabin unless you go Luxe and buy both places in the room. When the train is not too busy you can sometimes luck in and nobody will join your room.
I only take Luxe if it's an overnight train. No point for short journeys.
The overnight trains are one of the slowest...make sure by leaving late at night and getting to destination in morning, easily 9-10 hours. If you got to take a train the express ones are best $20-$25 in 4.5 hours Kiev-Kharkov or 6.5 hours Kiev-Odessa AND they are newer cars. ( most are morning travel)
TomZ...I just read the last page...you are cheap. If a guy asks a girl on a date, he pays for everything, including getting girl to place of visit. Most come on their own dime but not all. If a girl doesn't pan out you(TomZ) don't pay for her way home .....double cheap. I always pay for a girl's ride home, it helps if you know pricing ( and I do) and I usually give her some money for fare to meeting place.... but that' is just me!!!
TomZ,,,, how is the luggage handled on a train? Do you keep it near you, or in a special spot in the car?
I remember talking with a girl about the accommodations on trains and busses. I asked her about the bathrooms on a train,,, and she told me that there weren’t any?? Maybe on certain short route trains may not have one,,, but I remember reading the protocol when using them,,, like having special boots to take on and off when using one. I also asked her if the busses had bathrooms, and she burst out laughing,,, and said No silly! After returning home, I sent her a link from Grey hound that advertised bathrooms.
You are not only going to another country and culture, you are going back in time from a western perspective. You'll do well not to try and split the bill. What makes me crazy is my lady trying to save me 10 hryvina and costing me hours in doing so.
Of course TomZ does what he does: to show himself as a cheap sex tourist, unless he wants to have us believe that attractive Uktainian girls fall at his feet and even pay HIM for sex. Well, it looks like he is getting somewhere with the taxi fares at least :))
Then he comes here to give advice for people to do what he does. :))
With all due respect it is an 'Americanism' that the guy pays for everything, indeed buys his woman, much the same as it is an 'Americanism' that they tip circa 15% for everything and even when a service charge might have been added on to the bill.
Many a year ago "equal rights for women", "sex discrimination" etc. came in and brought about by women demanding such equality with men.
I laugh with a smile about a Russian lady I dated, we were entering a double doored entrance restaurant (it had a porch entrance), I held the first door open for her but behind me more people were entering so being the gentleman I am I wasn't about to slam the door in their face and held it open for them.
Meanwhile 'madam' was standing at the second entrance door being bad tempered with me because I hadn't opened it for her in time ... I just questioned of her "Are you f*cking paralysed or what?" :)
Sex equality, equal rights for men and women, I open my own doors so why can't they, I pay my own fares so why can't they and the list goes on.
That said I've opened so many frigging doors and paid so many fares I wouldn't care to count, I'm not taking sides between TomZ and WIFESUCKER or whoever, I'm just merely making the point that the whole world isn't 'Americanised' so shouldn't be expected to act 'Americanised'.
P.S. Where I am not, not that we have many doors, meet the right lady and she'll be holding the door open for the man :)
Several times while in Ukraine, I had been asked if it was true, that women pay their share while on a date?? My answer: I've heard that,,, but never seen it happen!
A couple of years ago here, in the national hardware store, I was hanging around the check-outs waiting for my purchases to arrive when one of the young girl shop assistants offered me her stool so I could sit down.
I explained to her that she is the lady so she sits whilst I am the man so I'll stand, in amazement they questioned of my girlfriend "Is he serious?" and my girlfriend, with a smile, replied "Yes he is".
The girls in the shop were thereafter questioning if I have a brother for one of them :)
I held the second underground door for my wife and the first underground door that I let go took out a Russian lesbian bitch who turned aggressive . if I knew I would have grabbed her number for looneyranger .
Martin...Americanized??? I was brought being told it was the 'gentleman' thing to do. Just like holding the door open for others( man or women) and letting a girl/lady/women sit while I stand.
Is it only 'Americanized' to pay for meal and/or pay for taxi for your date?
And my aunt became a "GI Bride", the saying in UK during the war was "Over sexed, overpaid and over here" :)
Of course this was before my time so hardly my words but during WWII the Yanks were in UK sweeping the women off their feet and lavishing money and gifts upon them when times were hard.
I've travelled internationally throughout my career and I've met and/or worked with many a different nationality and, generally speaking, it is the Americans that will give the ladies the more costlier experience.
You say when you were brought up, I guess we might be of a similar age so I was brought up also, as an example, to give up my seat on a bus if there was a lady standing but that was before all these women's libbers made the point that they are equal to men and demanded to be treated the same as men.
Nowadays, in western countries, a man and a woman performing the same job should get paid the same salary and many a woman, from where I come from, would be offended if the man insisted upon paying for everything, Only last week my Filipina girlfriend and I had a falling out and as she was making her way back to her home she made the point "I don't want your money, I have money and I can pay for my own fares", i.e. she would have been offended if I had offered to pay.
We need to move with the times, I recall my grandmother, after visiting my aunt in USA, talking and talking (she wouldn't shut the f*ck up) that blacks were not allowed on the same buses as whites, because this is how that generation were 'brought up' is it right for them to maintain that belief and live that life for the rest of their days?
We now live in a world of equality between men and women whereas opening doors, giving up seats, paying for the lady might be considered as 'optional extras' rather than 'god given rights', that is merely the point I have been making!
Danny/poopy:
“I held the second underground door for my wife and the first underground door that I let go took out a Russian lesbian bitch who turned aggressive”
Underground door?? It’s called a coffin lid danny!!! Are you practicing up again danny??