I'm alright. It's just a big mess in my head.

Oh well, it's been almost a month since I've written anything here. Some of you might be wondering whether I'm still alive, because I've almost totally disappeared from the internet in the last weeks... Don't worry, I'm fine. It's just one of those periods, when I have such a big mess in my head that I prefer to withdraw myself from any social activities (including online ones) and wait until my mood changes. I've even had a 19 days long period of writing no letters at all, which is a big shame, not just because it's difinitely not the best way to cope with a huge pile of mail, but also because writing is a perfect way of dealing with bad thoughts, a form of self-therapy. But instead of writing I just waited and here I am - finally after 3 weeks I feel better and am able to write letters everyday. Therefore I'm also ready to write a blog entry, even if I'm not sure, what should I start with.

There've been some things going on in my life. I'm currently in the middle of my exam period, which is obviously stressful, but that's fine - at least I have something to keep myself busy with. Things at my job are fine, although sometimes I get paranoid about possibly losing it because of my preference to work remotely. But that's not my biggest fear - in any case, the current job is a good experience and I can always search for something else. I've also spent one week in Poland with Søren, my dear friend, who lives in Iceland. But I'm going to write about the trip to Poland next time... Now I'd like to go back to beginning if April, when I "disappeared" and stopped writing any letters.

In the Kamiani Mohyly reserve

I went on another trip to Eastern Ukraine, this time to a very remote place called "Kamiani Mohyly" (which translates as "Stone Graves", although I don't think there are any graves) ;) Nowadays it's a natural reserve of very old mountains in the middle of a steppe. Getting there was a bit complicated, but I enjoyed the trip nevertheless. Once again I've been able to walk on empty roads, hearing just the wind and it felt so great! I've met the director of the reserve, who called an inspector and asked him to show me around. Therefore I've been able to walk even in those places, which are normally forbidden for tourists and to learn much about the history of the place. That's the advantage of coming totally out of touristic season and telling that you've come from the other end of the country just to see this place! ;)

Old mountains in the steppe

Now you may be wondering, what went wrong. Well, actually everything was just fine. The only problem was that I had to spend the night in Mariupol - and I actually felt good about it, because I still love this city, even after the war experience that I had there last summer. I believe it's more or less safe to come there nowadays, even if sometimes you can hear some disturbing sounds at night. I still felt very comfortable there, especially when I was able to look at the Sea of Azov at night.

My favourite sea ever ;)

The only problem was in my head. I had a ticket back to Kyiv for Sunday (and then I was supposed to take a train from Kyiv to Lviv, of course), but suddenly I didn't feel like coming back... So I'd change the ticket everyday. First Sunday to Monday, then Monday to Tuesday, finally Tuesday to Wednesday. I couldn't stay any longer, because I had to make it to Poland on Friday and the distance is really huge. So I finally left on Wednesday and arrived to Kyiv next morning just to realize that there were no tickets to Lviv! I had forgotten that the Ukrainian Easter was coming (as you can easily tell, I'm not really into celebrating all the traditional holidays)! I spent 2 hours refreshing the website of Ukrainian railways every 15 seconds to catch the moment, when someone would return any ticket to Lviv. Luckily, I managed, and I was in Lviv on Friday at 5:00 am, so I could still easily take a bus to Warsaw at 11:00. So, as you can see, nothing bad happened. But I was just so angry with myself because of my irresponsibilty and all the mess that I've made. I know it'll sound lame, but I was kind of pretending that the trip to Poland wasn't coming and that I didn't have to go anywhere... Perhaps it was some way of escaping the pressure, staying as long as I could in a place that I love, but it left me feeling totally unstable. I suppose I shouldn't be writing all this stuff on a blog, but it's better if my penpals know. I'm alright and nothing bad has happened to me. Just to use my favourite Russian saying "everyone has some cockroaches in their head" ;) And so my "cockroaches" have been having a huge party lately, that's it :)

It might be that I haven't published photos of sent/received mail in the last days of March, but I hope you won't mind if I only share April's mail with you now. All the letters that I've sent in March should have arrived a long time ago :) So, first, incoming mail:

From Taši in Slovenia

This letter comes from my Slovene friend Taši. She has used lovely self-designed stamps as usually! :)

From Hannah in UK

A nice 2nd letter from my new English penpal Hannah.

From Bine in Germany

A lovely intro from Bine! One of those cases when I just couldn't say no to a new friendship... ;)

From Antonina in Ukraine

My Ukrainian friend Antonina has sent me a really great letter, as always!

From Anastasia in Ukraine

And one more Ukrainian letter from Anastasia, who's one of my "oldest" penpals - we've been writing to each other for 5 years!

I've also been lucky to receive postcards from very "rare" countries thanks to my dear penpals, who love traveling as much as I do ;)

Cards from Oman sent by Tündi

My extreme (she knows what I mean) ;) friend Tündi has sent me two great postcards from her trip to Oman! I actually didn't expect to receive written and stamped postcards from there, because I know that this country has quite an unreliable postal service, but I'm really thankful to Tündi for giving it a try!

A card from Laos sent by Essi

And my Finnish friend Essi has sent me this great postcard from Laos during her big Asia trip! :) Do I have to tell you that those are first pieces of mail from both Oman and Laos that I've ever received?! :D

Now my outgoing mail. I've been quite an active writer this week!

For Bahanur in Turkey

A letter for Bahanur in Turkey, which took 3 weeks to be completed, because I started writing it before the break. I hope it won't be too chaotic.

For Kathrin in Germany

A late answer to Kathrin in Germany... I hope she'll like it nevertheless. Yeah, the envelope got a bit wet due to the post office lady putting additional stamps on it in a not exactly neat way. But I hope the letter itself is dry ;)

For Olga in Belarus

A letter for my Belarusian friend, with whom I'm certainly going to travel this year ;)

For Antonina in Ukraine

And finally a letter to Antonina in Ukraine, which should reach her soon.

At the moment I'm working on a letter to Tessa in the Netherlands and generally feel quite motivated to write, so wait for more mail updates from me soon ;) Well, unless I do something stupid again and my "cockroaches" make a big disco :D