Unlucky in Kyiv

Kyiv, otherwise known as Kiev in Russian, has not been kind to Cheng. Her luck on this trip was downright bad.

We were just stepping out of the apartment when the phone rang. It was the apartment rent manager, Oxana. The airport had contacted her at 1am on our first night there. Cheng's luggage has arrived in Kyiv. They couldn't get through to our number at the apartment. Why? The phone's battery was not connected to the phone. We only discovered it in the morning when we tried making calls out. The luggage will arrive between 6-8pm (great, our dinnertime). We rushed back and waited. The driver appeared. With the wrong luggage. We couldn't understand what he was saying. Oxana translated through the phone that he would be back in 30min. I fell asleep. It was 9pm. Where is it? Called them. What? 11pm? Aargh... Decided needed to get new clothes. What if the luggage didn't turn up tonight? Rushed to stores. Luckily some close at 10pm. By the time we got to a restaurant for dinner, it was 10.10pm. Ordered, gobbled and walked very quickly back. Not the most pleasant thing to do when it is raining and feeling like I've been force-fed. Double aargh. Finally the luggage arrived. But the entire handle has been ripped off. No way for Cheng to drag it around in Paris...

I realised on the entire trip that I've been rushing and rushing. Disgusting. And it's official, Charles De Gaulle airport is my least favourite airport. It's big, unclear and the queues... I understand now why Changi's tops.

In between all the bad luck, we went to browse at the local market. Ooo, fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. But the book said to avoid them as most are produced near the radioactive region. But it was fun running around, shopping and making the stallkeepers laugh at our feeble attempts in saying "thank you" in Ukrainian (dya-ku-yu).

One thing I notice about Kyiv, is the colour of the buildings. They're in vivid colours (baby blue, yellow, red, mint green). And passing through the artisan's area (Podil), where some embassies are oddly located, Andry, the translator told us that they are rebuilding some blocks to look like they're old buildings. I think that's great. It would look odd to have modern buildings sprouting between all these lovely blocks.

Tired, back from long flight home. Write again. Soon...