Ukraine in the Membrane
While I have a sec to blog-
-The hotel in Kyiv had a great open-air balcony with a tiny guard railing. The balcony, like the hotel, was the finest in 1980s Soviet engineering... so there was NO WAY I was going onto that thing. NO. STINKING. WAY.
-Visited the Perchask Monastery. Beautiful churches, neat history, and Russian Orthodox priests walking around gabbing on their cell phones. The best part of this monastery are the underground caves that the original monks dug a thousand years ago. Those mummified monks are kept in glass coffins in those caves - and if you can handle the long narrow walkway into the depths, it's an amazing candlelit experience.
-Visited the Monument to the Great Patriotic War... basically an old Soviet museum dedicated to World War 2. Nothing was in English, but it's not hard to figure out a museum full of "this is when the Germans attacked," "this is what they did," and "this is what we did to kick them out."
-Meanwhile, outside the museum are rows upon rows of old Soviet military hardware - tanks, cannons, missiles, helicopters. The little kid in me was in heaven looking at all that stuff.
-Boy, that Harry Potter kid is popular everywhere. Except in Cyrillic, it's spelled/pronounced GARY Potter. Good ole comrade Gary Potter.
-It was supposed to rain heavily in Kyiv - but it didn't. It just got HUMID. So by the time we got on our night train to Lviv, we were dying of heat. The train windows were all open, so by the time we got moving, the breeze brought us back to normal. Then around 3 in the morning, the train went through the thunderstorm. Imagine getting woken up by thunder and lightning and driving rain on the roof of your train car... and INSIDE the train car because all the windows were open. Ugh. It was a LOOOONG night.
-Lviv was a cute little town. Beautiful beautiful architecture everywhere you look... and not much else to do. Very glad we got to see it, but very glad we're only there for one day.
-McDonald's is such a funny thing. Back home, I hate hate HATE going to McDonald's. But here in Europe? Sometimes you just want a familiar menu, a clean bathroom, and something the kids will eat. But the suggestion I was given was if you MUST go to a McDonald's while in Europe, don't order something that you recognize. Try to order the local dish - the food that you can only get in Europe. So let this be my official highest recommendation! If you go to a McDonald's in Ukraine, get the Schmochetky. Which I think is the McFriedShrimp. It was really good. If it was shrimp. Which I'm not entirely sure of.
More to come...
-The hotel in Kyiv had a great open-air balcony with a tiny guard railing. The balcony, like the hotel, was the finest in 1980s Soviet engineering... so there was NO WAY I was going onto that thing. NO. STINKING. WAY.
-Visited the Perchask Monastery. Beautiful churches, neat history, and Russian Orthodox priests walking around gabbing on their cell phones. The best part of this monastery are the underground caves that the original monks dug a thousand years ago. Those mummified monks are kept in glass coffins in those caves - and if you can handle the long narrow walkway into the depths, it's an amazing candlelit experience.
-Visited the Monument to the Great Patriotic War... basically an old Soviet museum dedicated to World War 2. Nothing was in English, but it's not hard to figure out a museum full of "this is when the Germans attacked," "this is what they did," and "this is what we did to kick them out."
-Meanwhile, outside the museum are rows upon rows of old Soviet military hardware - tanks, cannons, missiles, helicopters. The little kid in me was in heaven looking at all that stuff.
-Boy, that Harry Potter kid is popular everywhere. Except in Cyrillic, it's spelled/pronounced GARY Potter. Good ole comrade Gary Potter.
-It was supposed to rain heavily in Kyiv - but it didn't. It just got HUMID. So by the time we got on our night train to Lviv, we were dying of heat. The train windows were all open, so by the time we got moving, the breeze brought us back to normal. Then around 3 in the morning, the train went through the thunderstorm. Imagine getting woken up by thunder and lightning and driving rain on the roof of your train car... and INSIDE the train car because all the windows were open. Ugh. It was a LOOOONG night.
-Lviv was a cute little town. Beautiful beautiful architecture everywhere you look... and not much else to do. Very glad we got to see it, but very glad we're only there for one day.
-McDonald's is such a funny thing. Back home, I hate hate HATE going to McDonald's. But here in Europe? Sometimes you just want a familiar menu, a clean bathroom, and something the kids will eat. But the suggestion I was given was if you MUST go to a McDonald's while in Europe, don't order something that you recognize. Try to order the local dish - the food that you can only get in Europe. So let this be my official highest recommendation! If you go to a McDonald's in Ukraine, get the Schmochetky. Which I think is the McFriedShrimp. It was really good. If it was shrimp. Which I'm not entirely sure of.
More to come...
posted by Eugene at 12:20 PM
2 Comments:
Whee! The wife and I just about bust in two that time! You do great travelogue.
I love Russia. Glad to hear you're having (or had) a great time there. Have you had any blini (pancakes)? If you get a chance, try some (with sour cream, naturally, not syrup). They should have them in Ukraine too.
There's a great place that sells them right around the corner from the Saviour on the Blood, but since you've left St. Pete now you're kind of out of luck. :)
Btw, you may be interested to know we announced Cindy Pon's book Silver Phoenix on Fantasy Debut, where I'm one of the reviewers. I saw the note about it on your blog a while ago. Link: http://fantasydebut.blogspot.com/2009/07/debuts-of-june-just-bit-late.html
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