So if you're thinking of learning a foreign language and you're really motivated
you should go ahead and check out the link below in the description to
this YouTube video or if you're listening on the podcast in the show
notes because they're gonna find my link to italki which is a website with which
I've found so many language tutors over the years they have over 110 different
languages there and you can take the classes via Skype that's what I did
one-on-one to learn languages like Russian I've also learned Ukrainian
using teachers that I found on italki and there they also have a function
called italki classroom where you can actually take them outside of Skype
there's actually a classroom feature that they've added to the service that's
a great platform you also get $10 credit if you go through my special link below
there in the description gets you started on taking your first class is gonna be
one-to-one tuition that's what I use and that's what I found to be really
effective of the years in all the languages I've been learning like French,
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and lots more so best
of luck go check it out!
Welcome back to part two of this episode the travel
journey episode on the Tsar Experience podcast with me Conor Clyne if you
haven't listened or watched part 1 go back and do that now before you start
this part 2 so you don't miss out and you actually follow what I'm what I'm
talking about how my journey is let me took here this city which is Odessa,
Ukraine on the shores of the Black Sea go back as I said to the previous video
on YouTube and or the previous episode or the previous upload on SoundCloud or
iTunes wherever you happen to be listening to this if you're listening to
it as opposed to watching it on YouTube and you'll get part 1 this is part 2
let's get into it let's get into part 2 of my travel story.
For example I got accused of being on a fake passport who actually crossed into
Ukraine yeah and I was taken to an interrogator accused of being Russian
even though I hardly spoke a word in the language but anyways in the end that was
all fine I didn't I was allowed into the country at least
then throughout that trip a girl here in Odessa tried to steal my my new cell
phone and your smartphone I was like a rival to the iPhone at the time. It was
actually a Nokia I know they don't exist anymore
and I managed to miraculously get it back she actually left the club, Ibiza
club, which is a famous nightclub here with my phone but I did get it back
by complete a complete miracle I managed to find her and retrieve it before she
returns to disappear. I got drugged yeah that actually
happened to me I was unconscious for 36 hours in Crimea in Sevastopol or
Sevastopol and unfortunately nothing bad happened to me
I wasn't robbed or anything I just woke up a day and a half later in my
apartment you know my wallet was there my passport was there my phone was there
again I was extremely lucky so why was all this happening to me? Well
it was in part because I was actually very naive and I was really suffering as I
said from this culture shock because I didn't really know much about how the
country operated the people how they interact with each other and my Russian
was so poor that you know the people who want to take advantage of a visitor they
were all seeing me and targeting moi here yours truly and that was something
that became more and more important ... I had a problem with a taxi driver like he
basically ripped me off I mean it wasn't a huge amount of money it was like 50
euros for a trip between two cities but again because I didn't really understand
and you know I felt very vulnerable I actually felt intimidated a lot
because I couldn't understand things. I was disorientated you know I couldn't
read things that were written everywhere very easily. I had all these unfortunate
experiences with girls trying to rob me as you can tell so it was really like I
left the trip extremely philosophical and I headed back to Brussels and I was
determined I was determined to come back and conquer this region metaphorically
speaking of course not violently and you're probably asking yourself Conor if
you had this kind of like awful experience and traumatic experience
coming here why would you ever want to do that again to yourself are you like a
sucker for punishment why bother just stick to
Western Europe everything is great there everything is set up as you said for
tourists why bother coming back here? Now I've described some of the things that
went wrong because I wasn't prepared for the trip correctly but I also had a lot
of really cool shit happen to me as well like I'm still friends with a guy I still talk to occasionally,
Rudd met him at an airport in Simferopol which is the capital of
Crimea they actually took me to a music festival and he was managing Armin
Van Buuren, the famous Dutch DJ, there at the time so I got hang out with him ... just just
lots of people we had a crazy time at this amazing music festival Kazantip
which unfortunately no longer exists since Russia's annexation of the Crimean
peninsula a few years ago but that was really something amazing and it really
got me hooked because it was really like I loved and enjoyed the interaction with
the people who are not doing the nefarious things to me the bad things to
me and I really felt it was an adventure because Central Europe a lot people
refer to Central Europe as Eastern Europe listen Prague is further west than
Vienna that's not Eastern Europe it's probably
Western Europe let's be honest about it you can call it Central Europe or Mitteleuropa
in German places like Budapest are not Eastern Europe culturally not at all so
you know I understand I understand the history they were under communist
regimes pro-soviet regimes for a certain amount of time in the post-
second world war period but those countries like so anchored in Western
Europe today through the European Union and obviously NATO that and culturally
they look westwards and it's very different here when you come to Ukraine
I know things have changed in the last five years this country does look more
westward than it did before and it's in the process of transition but definitely
there's a big cultural difference been in coming to Ukraine and going say to to
Prague or to Budapest they're fantastic cities don't get me wrong you should
definitely visit them but it's not the same experience so when I got back to
Brussels and I think this was really the key for for you guys like I had had this
experience I was kind of in one way exhilarated by the whole thing in other
a its kind of thinking terrifying to be honest because all these like pretty bad things
were happening to me but I got away with it right I had nothing
really that awful came as a consequence but when I went up back to
Brussels I had a plan and a mission and I was first of all I made big changes in
preparation for this second trip solo trip to Ukraine the following year and
that was primarily to focus on learning Russian now that does three things for
you of course makes easier on a functional
basis if you can talk to people to order stuff read the menu for example
definitely you need to invest some time and learning the alphabet it's not that
difficult a lot of people think learning the alphabet is really hard honestly a
week of focusing on it you'll be able to read either in you'll be able to read
Cyrillic if you're not used to it so that's for Russian or for Ukrainian or
Belarusian if you have to read stuff when you're traveling in this in this
region and the second thing it does is in order to learn the language you have
to kind of go back to being a five year old make lots of mistakes it's very
humbling and you also have to put yourself in the position of a local
person and their culture there's a lot of language in ... you know not first
of all not everything is verbal there are a lot of mannerisms of you know Italians use
their hands for example and French kind of I guess that is very strong nasal
sounds is kind of aloof attitude and they communicate through that and also
just so much culture just caught up in the expressions of the language how
people formulate stuff that really helps you understand the people a lot more and
then thirdly and I think almost most importantly for the traveler like you
who comes here is when you can you know get the grasp on the language at least
up into like a high beginner low intermediate level it allows you to
distinguish yourself or maybe other tourists who come here in to and rely on
English which is very difficult to do anyways but you can survive of course in
the touristic areas of the big city like Odessa here you can do that but local
people will react to you completely different if you can kind of make that initial
conversation starter in Russian pretty convincing or if it's Ukrainian or
Belarusian or Polish or whatever you happen to be trying to speak in now I
know Poland is also in Central Europe it's in the eastern part of Central Europe
before I get trolled again I do know where it is like will take Moldova so speaking
Romanian so speaking in those language definitely distinguishes you from the
average traveler or tourist here in particular
because that's what we're looking for at least I'm looking for when I travel
around and trust a lot of you I was looking for that kind of more traveler
adventure than just a touristic experience and so that's really key to
it so I focussed on that and I appreciate a lot of you have very busy lives and not
everybody can come here for one or two months a year and hang out and really
get to know the city I encourage you to take advantage of course if you have
that possibility but I was actually working as a lawyer and a lot of pressure I
worked a lot of hours per week like eighty to a hundred there was massive
stress but I decided that for two hours a week I was going to take Skype classes
one-on-one with a native Russian speaker and really start to learn the language
and I recommend you go look for your teachers and italki or italki and
there's some starter credit I'll link them below in the show notes and in the
YouTube video description and there you get $10 starter credit if you sign up
through my link so this little gift for you guys if you decide to go go there
and look for a tutor and I really encourage that because you know it's
pretty cost effective online to do it on skype and if you were like living in
your home country wherever it is before you travel you'll have lots of
opportunity build up that routine and really get to learn the language and get
the basics down before you arrive here because arriving in a country not just
involves having to deal with the language also you know it's like me with
a culture shock it's a lot to do if you're struggling the language as well
so you want to kind of front-load that as much as possible before you come so I
have learned the language I also started another thing that you can implement at
depending on you live of course but I started to go to a lot of
Russian-speaking events now cultural events to do with the various countries of
the former Soviet Union like say Ukrainian events Russian events Moldovan
events whatever happened to be Kazakh events and that allowed me to meet local
people who were living in Brussels from those countries and that was great
because then I really got to know their culture even better because I met more
people from those countries and I was now I had the experience of traveling to
the region at least so I could discuss a few things you know it's more in-depth
our conversations and deeper and I got to know a lot more people from this broader
region and shared history and you know the differences in
their history and perspectives so that was really great that's something you
can do as well where you're living I mean I appreciate that if you don't live in a big
city that might be harder but you can do it online as well you can go into
Facebook groups or forums and start to really learn more and meet
people from the region while you have the time before so the second time I
came here it was completely different I did not experience the culture shock
this preparation period had really helped me and of course the experience
from the first trip I mean I've never been drugged again in Ukraine I've never
been robbed I don't really been ripped off I think
once maybe someone tried to shortchange me in Kiev I referred to that in another video
I think after the European football championships and I recognized it and I just
got my you know my change-back I don't have any problems now with taxi apps for
example it makes a lot easier you know to order your text by the time I had to
call taxis and if you don't speak Russian you couldn't do that and
anything you basically get ripped up by the taxi drivers in any of the touristic
cities so it was also a really big help and a big bonus and you know I just even
and my interactions woke up there were a lot more deep made it a lot easier to be
friends here to meet girls here of course also part of the motivation for me to
come back was the renowned beauty of the women here and it's definitely true in
this broader region Ukraine Russia Belarus for example Moldova these
countries lots of beautiful women here and I was really of course motivated to
meet and to get to know them better and that's harder if you're just relying on
English for sure definitely the investment in learning Russian has paid
huge dividends in that and I will go on that into more detail in my dating story
in the next episode so that's basically what transformed it I have this first
experience that led to this kind of like I guess epiphany about what I had to do
you know I was lucky enough on first trip and I want to make sure that you guys
come here prepared so that you don't have those kind of experiences that
sometimes I read about like people getting mugged here or just ripped off
or they get in some like unsavory situation especially with dating apps I
have things in other videos on the YouTube channel about scammers and scams in
Eastern Europe and actually I gonna make a new video about them just specifically
here in Odessa that I can help you guys out when
come here and you can avoid all those problems so that's what I did and that's
what I recommend now if you want to go deeper into travelling in this region I
have a free training course that you just have to set up by email gonna link
that below in the show notes and in the YouTube video description so you can go
there and check that out as completely free just have to type in your email
address I do have a premium course afterwards and I do provide consulting
services if you want to you know advice some personal coaching about how to
travel here and that also includes a course meeting women how to
interact with locals in general and that kind of like intercultural differences
that you're going to need going to need to be prepared for but I know a lot of
you write to me about meeting women who subscribe to the channel and are on my
mailing list and you write lots of questions like that so definitely that's
something you might be interested in for sure you go down and sign up for the free
stuff if you never pay for anything you still have the value of that and that's
part of the reason that I make these videos especially for YouTube and now
the podcast I think it's been happening on average once a day that one of you
viewers comes up to me here on the street in Odessa in Ukraine and actually
you tell me how much you enjoy my videos and how they've helped you and actually
I'm part of the reason you came here to Odessa in Ukraine and that's really
really great for me too for me to hear so you've been coming up to me and
that's really and it keeps me so motivated and I see the impact I'm
having that I've been able to help you encourage you to come here to Odessa in
Ukraine so definitely I appreciate that and keep coming up to me if you see me
and you know drop me a message and let me know how how much it meant to you and
don't be shy about writing me on social media or an email my email is
ConorClyne@tsarexperience.com and gonna have all that there below in the description
so go and copy and paste it you don't have to figure how to spell my name like
a lot of people get it wrong and you can follow me of course on Instagram
on the Instagram stories my handle is @tsarexperience and 'tsar' is spelt T-S-A-R and
you can find it there and then you'll be able to see what I'm up to in the
Instagram stories every day here in Odessa in Ukraine so that's what I hope
you got from from watching this video podcast or if you're listening to
it on itunes or on soundcloud that you can overview of what my experience was
like you're probably gonna get to relate to that to certain extent if you're
traveling from abroad here to Eastern Europe and these are the
problems that I faced is how I opened came them ultimately it's actually a little bit of
thunder I wonder if we're gonna get a downpour here in Odessa oh yeah I might have to end
this one in a few minutes yes very very humid you probably can see that I'm perspiring a
little bit as I speak here it's like late July it's very warm it's probably
about 30 degrees and we're on the shores of the Black Sea so there is a little breeze
thankfully so yeah you want to learn from my mistakes basically and come here
prepared and I can help you that with of course the content I have my youtube
channel and if you were more as I've said than just contact me and watch the free
course and all that kind of stuff and then you'll be definitely better
prepared and that's what I see from people who I meet here in Odessa who come up
to me you guys who've come up to me over the last week or so so in the next
episode of this video podcast I'm going to be going into my dating story in
particular I've kind of alluded to it a lot obviously in this video in previous
episodes of the podcast and in my youtube videos so that's going to be
coming up here I'm probably gonna shoot it here in Odessa or in Kiev we'll see
I'm supposed to travel to Kiev tomorrow gonna meet up with a huge youtuber who's
a travel in the travel niche he's a really cool guy but more about that
coming in probably a YouTube video in a few weeks I'm really excited about it so
in the meantime I wish all of you a splendid day evening morning wherever
you are watching this or listening to it from I see I have a new friend behind me
there which is waved that's always cute and we will see each other in the next
episode of the of the podcast as I said for me about my dating story you
really want to probably listen in to that one if you're interested in coming
here for ... to meet women in particular that's gonna be pretty
interesting so you can learn from my experience and my advice about how you
should go about things here so that's it from this episode of the podcast
до свидания до побачення and I will see you and all your enthusiastic smiling faces
pumped to come here to Eastern Europe to the real raw east of Europe I in the
next episode so peace out.