My Summer Adventure! Ukraine, England, Wales, and Netherlands. *Warning – Many Photos!

For those of you who did not know, I went on a 3.5 month trip to Europe.

I finished my first year of College at George Brown which ended April 19th, a month later I was already packing up my suitcase for my long getaway! I had a lot of experiences on my trip – good and bad, which I have to admit just made me into a stronger person. The idea of my trip? Why did I do it? Well, I go to Ukraine every summer, because that is originally where I was born. Since I had the money, I decided it was very convenient for me to travel around Europe. This year I decided to go to England, Wales, and Holland. For chess and travelling – but mostly travelling!

Ukraine

Crimea (May 25 – June 1)

My grandmother and I decided to go on a trip to a very nice part of Ukraine – Crimea. One of the historic and touristy places in probably all of Ukraine.

Kiev (June 2 – June 11)

My second time ever setting foot in Kiev! The previous time, I didn’t even get to see the City – I was just passing through. During my visit, I got to see a Stronger Super GM tournament: Sberbank Open. Here is the official results of the tournament.

Ranking of International chess tournament SBERBANK OPEN А
—————————————————————————————————————————————-

Rank Name, First Name Title Fed. Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Place
1 Anatoly Karpov GM RUS 2637 ½ ½ 1 2 2½ 2½ 2½ 3 3 9
2 Anton Korobov GM UKR 2719 0 1 1 1½ 2 2 3 4 4½ 7
3 Peter Leko GM HUN 2732 ½ 1 1½ 2 3 4 4½ 4½ 5 3
4 Pavel Elyanov GM UKR 2709 ½ ½ 1½ 1½ 2 2 2½ 3½ 4½ 5
5 Veselin Topalov GM BUL 2775 1 2 3 3 3½ 4½ 5 5 6 2
6 Arkady Naiditsch GM GER 2702 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 2 10
7 Alexander Areschenko GM UKR 2708 ½ ½ 1½ 2 2 2½ 3½ 3½ 4 8
8 Sergei Zhigalko GM BLR 2684 ½ 1½ 1½ 2½ 3½ 4 4 4½ 5 4
9 Sergey Karjakin GM RUS 2808 1 1½ 1½ 2½ 3½ 4 5 5½ 6½ 1
10 Eugene Tomaszewski GM RUS 2718 ½ 1½ 2½ 3 3 3½ 4 4½ 4½ 6

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

England

London (June 21 – 29, July 3 – 11)

It was also my second time visiting London, but I decided it was worth to see again because the last time I visited was when I was 11 years old! Saw some chess friends as well!

Wales

The very first time I visited this Country! Very beautiful – especially the castles!

Cardiff/Barrie (June 30 – July 3)

Netherlands

An amazing first experience. I’d like to live here one day.

Leiden (July 12 – 20)

During my stay in Leiden, I played a tournament. Open Section. I am not exactly proud about how I played – but had certain negatives going on at the time and think not losing rating points was amazing at this point. I was mostly happy after 4 rounds, I only had 0.5 – really bad start but still managed to not lose the rest of the games!