If you are a thief then you will meet thieves

I have borrowed a pen from the teacher. I scribble all this down before we are consumed by the melting pot of Europe.

The thirteen year old woman who had been amongst those who had been sat down by their teacher to learn the previous evening came up to me,

"You are pianist. You like Bach?"

"Ja lublyo Bach", I reply.

I take out my interail map of Europe, worth very little to me, and show her my route from Odessa through Slovakia and Poland to Eisenach, the great man's birth place and back to Leipzig the great man's place of work.

I wake up to admire the swathes of dark rich fertile land that, as Thubron remarked in Eastern Ukraine could not possibly have suffered the grain crisis of the era of collective farms.

The only down side of the previous night was the cigarettes that could have torn an elephants throat to shreds. Beyond that I never laughed more than we did drinking the enormous Victor and his pensioneering comrad beneath the table.

We chew on shaslik by the river which flows from deep gorges untouched and beyond imagination to meet the mouth of the Danube.

Everywhere there is music. 12 year old enact a history with voices more mature than women and that know how to boogy.

The lights are low. The most immaculate jazz band plays by the glistening fountain and figures in the fantasy garden. Behind me a man in dark glasses and full suit before me utterly glamorous women glistening from head to toe. The garnish is a raisin in savoury sauce, juicy cherry tomatoes, grilled pineapple, a roasted wisp of carrot, lemon; the sauce is completely balanced creamy, sweet, sour and savoury; the slab of sturgeon is slowly pulverised taking my senses elsewhere while we receive respect from poised waiters for ordering Ukrainian beer and Ukrainian vodka. We try and look the part with my last sock, affixed trainers, French bum shorts and only a fleece on my upper torso. We order in broken Russian we wish them a good evening, shake our waiters hand and return to help ourselves to the mini bar and listen to Viktor Yanukovych the orator.

We bundel into the bus to another world with a string of thirty sausages. Confussion and two hours eventually lets us through the check point. At the other side we are greated by an enormous angular worker weilding a flag.