{"id":100,"date":"2023-02-07T11:56:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T09:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/?p=100"},"modified":"2023-02-07T11:56:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T09:56:54","slug":"diary-february-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/?p=100","title":{"rendered":"Diary: February 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This will hopefully be the final diary entry I publish retroactively. This is being written on the first of February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife and I took a trip, first to Alicante, Spain, before visiting the UK. There was certainly a strange sense in being back in the UK, in winter, when 11 months prior we were stuck in the same place with the war going on back in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a constant strange experience if you have been affected by the war directly to be anywhere but Ukraine. When seeing people live their lives and go on, you feel good in some way being away. You see life continue, you can relax more, you have streetlights, you can turn off your air raid app. But, you can\u2019t personally disconnect fully. You also feel an element of resent, that people can just view the war. When people do ask you about the war, you feel annoyed you can\u2019t switch off. When people don\u2019t <\/em>ask you, you feel annoyed that they just worry about mundane things. It isn\u2019t fair, its just an emotional response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alicante does have a real charm. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, Alicante is a truly surprisingly beautiful city. I expected a British occupied tourist city, yet it was a cultural and historical city. Course, this was winter, though it got to 20 degrees two days. Nonetheless, a pleasant city I\u2019d like to return to. I forgot how great Spain is, and I do want to see more of it, as it\u2019s a country I\u2019ve not visited sufficiently in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gotta love the idea some brits can’t go without their John Smiths. Couldn’t imagine a worse beer to have in the sun. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The journey back and forth at this point between Ukraine and anywhere else has gotten routine, but still frustrating. Having to wait at airports because your bus from Ukraine only leaves at certain times. Border checks that can be annoyingly long, yet never give you enough pause to sleep. It\u2019s a minor complaint, I know, and I am privileged to be able to come and go to Ukraine. The guilt of being a foreigner is palpable, I think this is why I\u2019m so eager to constantly donate to Ukraine and do what I can to share the realities of life here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Being back in Uzhhorod, the weather has dropped once more. Also, I swear the generators have multiplied, as the streets have even more. It does seem there are fewer power cuts, thankfully, but the sirens continue, the war continues. While life continues. Walking around the city, you hear the siren sometimes and no one stops here, but you worry about what is happening elsewhere. The streets are dark at night, so everyone has a torch. Yet the conversations you hear mix people discussing the war, how they\u2019re making money and trying to find ways to exchange money (as any Ukrainian is always on top of the dollar and euro to UAH exchange rate, but bank transfers in these currencies are currently blocked unless you\u2019re making a savings deposit), or just daily inane things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope to start promoting this week. From now, I will continue to keep writing my updates on the situation here, I will also start writing about pre-war travel adventures around Ukraine, to motivate people to come visit after victory, and my more in-depth political and (dare I say) philosophical thoughts, as that is, after all my main field of expertise.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This will hopefully be the final diary entry I publish retroactively. This is being written on the first of February. My wife and I took a trip, first to Alicante, Spain, before visiting the UK. There was certainly a strange sense in being back in the UK, in winter, when 11 months prior we were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","category-travel","category-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105,"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jjplace.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}