uzhgorod

alesea and i were tiring fast of the big screen entertainment. somehow the uzhgorod city fathers must have thought it was a good idea. we went to the internet place and scoured the hc site again, and we finally had a list of ten names and numbers. we found some quieter benches along the river bank and alesea started dialling. but today was not our lucky day, there was no sure host for us. some maybes and a lot of no ways. we just had to wait. eventually we get a call back from denis, a maybe. and the maybe turns out to be a definite. he will meet us in a hour or so in the centre. we decide to shatter the deathly still ambience with some busking in the centre to pass the time. but it is not a huge success. maybe they think i'm a gypsy, i try to reason to alesea. and maybe they are not very keen on gypsies in these parts. denis turns up on his mountain bike, and leads us back to his family flat he shares with his girlfriend and son and baby daughter. we take hot showers and eat a little before we are back on the mean streets of uzhgorod. already we meet some rainbow brothers and sisters, we try some more busking and then back to the flat. we befriend some local kids whilst waiting for denis with some drumming and jew's-harp playing, and also i got to show off my footballing skills! the next day, and we agreed to wait for the boys to get to uzhgorod. the news from sasha and serioja was that they chose not to come through the mamaliga border but instead went the longer route via atake. they met up with the same host we had in chernivtsi, sasha, and had hitched via ivano-frankovisk to striy and were now busking in mukachevo. finally they got to town in the late afternoon. we had already met some of the other moldovans, big vova and other sasha. we made a good busking group and felt more confidence to play louder and with more fun. we got joined by ilia and marina, a russian rainbow couple in town for a few days. with the list of hosts we had, we managed to get the others a host for the night too. the next day, we met up again by the big orthodox church, and finally managed to locate the big second-hand clothes warehouse that ilia and marina had told us about. the workers there were curious to see us, but very friendly and helpful... they opened us big bags of clothes to find us some ethnic rainbow fashion to try on... when finally we decided upon what to take, she asked us 80hrs and wouldn't go any lower. i tried to charm her with some hard bargaining and in the end, us boys made a deal of 60hrs for five items of clothing and a drumming performance. alesea made her own deal for her clothes. we went back to the bus station after meeting more rainbows and squeezed into the bus to lyuta.