Ukraine's doing it to me again. I have repeatedly watched events here get solved at the last minute, and repeatedly given up just a little too early. This happened with some events and things I participated in as a Peace Corps volunteer, it's happened on construction projects I've seen, it happened when I was looking for an apartment, it's even happened when I've been waiting for a good deal on cab ride home.

And of course, most dramatically, it happened in the Orange Revolution.

So as I am now, finally, convinced that the entire nation is on a schedule that resembles the studying-for-finals schedule of your typical college student, I refuse to get taken again. Even though I seem to hear more bad news about Eurovision each day [in addition to the stuff I've already heard], I will not be taken by surprise again if Ukraine manages to host the event without embarrassing itself.

But the bad news does keep coming in. Check out what one reader of Orange Ukraine has gone through:

I wanted to simply say that things aren't any easier for journalists: I am supposed to write an article about the contest in Kiev for [an American monthly magazine], and it's been surreal. The website where we're supposed to apply for a press pass keeps deleting information from my application; nobody seems to know what's going on; and getting a press accreditation does not guarantee a ticket to the event. Meanwhile like your friends I have booked flights and a hotel room--the price of which has been raised twice since we made our initial reservation in February. I wouldn't be surprised if the price went up again!

then when we exchanged emails later, she had more:

There's even a new wrinkle: We asked a Ukrainian-speaking contact we have in Kiev to double-check our hotel reservations, as we were suspicious. Lo and behold, she was told that our reservation--which we had made back in February--had been cancelled on March 19. And they didn't even bother to notify us! Had we not checked, we would have showed up at Hotel Rus (for that's the one) and found out we didn't have a room. I'm sure they did it to rebook the room at a much higher rate. Originally we booked at $125 a day; they raised us to $165 (via a dodgy-looking email devoid of any official hotel identification), then cancelled our booking without warning.

Meanwhile, Lesya and I have been trying to figure out what's been going on with the tickets, as is Lesya's tour company. Lesya has now heard that officially Olvia is still selling tickets (though their site says they don't have any) as is the First Transnational Tourist Company of Ukraine and a new company called Bytsko. I don't currently have any other information on the new company.