Kiev

I love russian trains, even thought our trip was during the day we still had a bed because our train was on its way to moscow from like Venice or something so every carriage was a sleeper, and thats wht i did - sleep we got to Kiev in the evening and found our hostel pretty easily wrote down the directions well, they were easy to follow as well. we also had a map this time. When we got to the hostel the hostel guy, who we couldnt tell where the fuck he came from, checked us in. 'Where have u come from buddy?' 'Lviv' 'Shithole' 'well actually it was quite nice' 'holes in the roads, lights going off, makes it shithole in my books' ok whatever.... later on we're in the common room, i go on the computer to find that FACEBOOK IS BLOCKED so i get on a proxy server and load it up... 'dont u be downloading anything or going on facebook, buddy, its blocked for a reason' cunt. of course after this whenever he wasnt in the room or he was out we would go on facebook as much as possible. He then went on to try and persuade us away from going to Odessa which is the summer party capital of Ukraine to got to Sevastapol by pointing at Sevastopol on his map overzealouslywhilst naming out randon events and leaders from history who had probably been there once. After treking around teh very hilly Kiev to find an Indian restaurant recommended in LP we found it relised cheapest meals cost more than they do in London, so we wnet to a place called Potato House which was shit, though while we were there we saw the most ridiculous weather report ever - behind the weather map was a woman slightly out of focus in a flesh coloured bikini, rubbing herself. When we got back we made the mistake of asking the hostel guy where to go that night, he told us to go to Shooters before calling us 'so fucking cheap' that we had to buy beers and drink them at the hostel, we thought the other guys at the hostel were at a bar but when we left we found they wer sitting outside cos they were trying to get away from HIM. we got a taxi to shooters, got to the door and got face controlled, i then asked some girls if they knew some good clubs locally, Arena, so we walked into town and found arena eventually to find it was very expensive, thus ending our 10 nights outs in a row streak. I got a noteably good sandwich at Mr Snack and then we went home.

Next day we had a walk around town down to independence square where teh shots from the Orange Revolution came from and then up to a park overlooking the river where we saw the beach in Kiev on the otherside of the bank which looked niiice. after posing on some communist landmarks we went back to the hostel where we met up with the other guys before going to dinner. we went to the local Ukrainian restaurant which served relitavely cheap food (for Kiev). we then and went and got a few beers and drank with the other guys on curbside before me pierre and a boy called james (who had actually just finished his first year at manchester) went clubbing. we read about a club in lonely planet that was supposedly good, we payed our 100 grivn (a tenner) to get in, it was shit so we thought we should try and leave and get our money back, and guess what, it worked. we the checked out arena which was virtually next door, but the club night hadnt started yet so we snuck into teh next door casino and used their very posh toilet and messed around with the b-day, 3 giggling boys walking out of the toilet must have seemd weird, on the way out i stole a russian playboy. we then tried our luck on shooters again. this time i got told i was allowed in but james and pierre would not be. at this point james started asking why, we were quite drunk, and asked me to explain that if they wanted tourism in there country they should stop with the 'face control' and let foreigners in. at this point the bouncers asked us to leave. i went for slash to come back and see from a far james, with pierre as amused audience, piss of the bouncers more by stating that the club wasnt allowed to have the black cab with nodding dog it had inside, if we were not allowed in. at this point a bouncer and a policemen led james down a side alley much to pierres anger which was the point i decided it wise to step in. one of teh bouncers clouted james in the neck before i got there whikst pierre was shouting at the other one 'thats fucking out of order' i explained to teh bouncer that u cant do that and he replied 'he thinks we need foreigners but i have plenty of ukrainians and russians who come here that fill my club up - fair play. we then got a cab to another club, i cant remember what it was called but we didnt get let into that either, the bouncer at least gave us a reason - dresscode - even though we saw i guy go in wearing flip-flops. we later walked hoem dejected, via McDonalds, where the woman refused to give me a large chips cos it would take her '10 minutes to fry the potatoes'.

i feel i should finish this post as i started it about 3 months, the only problem being that i cant remember very well what we did that day or the next, i know one of the days was spent on the beach, yes there was a beach in kiev, 10km of it supposedly and it was was white sand, with lots of topless ukrainian women as well as a couple having sex (trying to disguise it but not doing it very well), on another day we watched the euro final, a relitive anti-climax, partially cos we were in some shitty restaurant with no atmosphere, fortunately for us it went against the general trend of high kiev pricing so we enjoyed the cheap beer.

we decided against going to sevastopol like the dickhead hostel owner advised us to, so we went to the summe party capital of odessa instead with plans to get the boat to varna in bulgaria and then up through belgrade to Exit that way, this envolved another trip in plaskart overnight, james had his train and about the same time so we said our goodbyes in the station, with pierre organising with him to meet up in the balkans, me and him in bestival, neither would happen...