A Second Shitter

At 11 I went with an American staying at the hostel to a Фото store to get some passport photos taken. There's a contract for my study abroad program in Istanbul that I apparently never signed, and they need photos for that as well. A set of 8 passport photos where I look like I just rolled out of bed cost 30грн.

At 1:30 or 2 Jonas and I left the hostel to do a bit of exploring. 

First stop was a chocolate shop and cafe just down the hill from the cafeteria we ate in the other day. Here I found a hot chocolate equivalent to that of my favorite cafe in Barcelona, when the chocolate outnumbers the milk and comes out in a gooey mess of delicious. I also had a salmon wrap.

We took the metro from Площа Льва Толстого to Майдан Незалежностi, then transferred to the red line and went to Шулявська. At Peter's, this was where we would find cheap and quality hats and gloves.

We found neither item. And we didn't have any frame of reference for how much one of these should cost when haggling in the warehoused second-hand clothing market we were in. So we resolved to attempt tomorrow to come back with one of the girls to help us figure stuff out.

Since we were on the outskirts(ish) of Kiev, we decided to look for a cheaper lunch. We didn't find one. But we stopped at Бiт Кафе ДН, a Beatles themed restaurant with a giant Yellow Submarine entrance.

It wasn't any cheaper than the city center; that is to say a dish and a drink comes out to about 65грн, or $8.12.

We took the metro back to Майдан Незалежностi and exited. Commenced wandering.

We walked in a large circle (well, square) for an hour. West along Khreschatyk, north on Shevchenka, east on Volodymyrs'ka, and then south on Tr'okhsviatytel'ska. We passed beautiful architecture, gorgeous churches, and incredibly modern shopping areas. Everywhere was something amazing. Kiev is as modern a city as any I've been, it's incredible how prejudicially we think of places like this (and Minsk) based on their location and history. I could live here.

We rushed back to the hostel because Peter had told me they were all leaving for bowling at 6. We got back just after 6, but didn't leave until just shy of 7.

Chadwic, Nina, Amelia, Jonas, Peter, Maria (a Ukrainian girl with dreadlocks who works at a sister hostel in Kiev... Actually, basically across the street), several more and I (10 in all) went to a nearby bowling alley, where we took two lanes for 2 hours. We played 2.5 games, and I won both full ones and was winning the third when we got cut out (bowling finally paid off!). Only person to break 100 though, so not that impressive.

The bowling alley solidified my theory. Every restaurant in Belarus and Ukraine serves sushi. Does not matter what they specialize in. They have sushi. The bowling alley had sushi. The yellow submarine, Beatles - themes lunch place had sushi. The 24-hr coffee shop in Minsk had sushi. I kind of want to go to McDonald's to see what's there...

We got back to the hostel around 10:30. The plan was to go to a vodka bar, but shit happens.

Literally. About 11pm, someone (Chadwic) discovered that the water to the hostel had cut out when he tried to flush his shit and it didn't flush. We spent a while trying to figure out how to fill the toilet back so it would flush, but to no avail. 

Until Chadwic, in his Australian brilliance, exclaimed, "it's not like we can just shove snow down ther--- guys! Get a shovel!"

So Chadwic was outside, shoveling snow into a shovel, passing it to us over the wall behind the kitchen, and we were in the kitchen melting it all down. And, of course, fighting with the snow indoors.

Then we discovered the other toilet. THERE WAS A SECOND SHITTER!

When all the hullabaloo died down, it was after midnight, and getting a bit late to go out to the vodka bar. So we broke out the Żubrowka and another bottle of vodka, and Chadwic, Jonas, Amelia, Nina and I polished them both off. Spills, snow fights, real fights, and about 50 replays of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang", and 4 hours later, we all went to bed.

The toilet issue had never been fixed cuz the water never came back on.