First day in Kiev

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Our train arrived in Kiev at around 7 o'clock in the morning. We didn't have a room booked and didn't really feel like staying in at someone's apartment again, so we took the subway from railway station to the center to find breakfast and wifi to find a hostel. We managed to book a room at DownTown Hostel and walked there with our backpacks. Luckily the room was immediately available so we could get settled and freshen up a bit.

Since we were tired after the night on the train we didn't want to do any heavy sightseeing, but decided to do a walking tour which was descibed in our guidebook. It was supposed to last about two hours but for us it was more like six. We took a few breaks, but we were quite tired afterwards. We saw some parks, monuments and interesting buildings, but after the tour we still felt like we liked Odessa more. Even though also Kiev seemed nicer than we thought with St Petersburg or even Paris like facadés and buildings.

After the six hour walk we went to our room for a rest and to use Tripadvisor to figure out where to eat dinner. We found one place that sounded nice and traditionally Ukrainian and what's most important, close to our hostel. Turns out it wasn't that close after all, or if so, incredibly hard to find. We ended up walking back and forth, up and down at a park area for quite a while before we found it. The food was good, but not great and the prices were a lot more than we were used to paying for a dinner by now.

During weekends the main street of Kiev around the Independence Square becomes a big pedestrian area since the street is closed from traffic. Lots of people wander around and several bands come out on the street to play. After dinner we also went there and found this cozy athmosphere going on. It was so nice sit in the warm night without long sleeves or coat or whatever we would have to wear at home and listen to these local bands. There were maybe three different groups playing 100m from each other. We started to like Kiev more and more. We met also two Ukrainian ladies and talked a bit with them about our trip and something else small.

Back at the hostel we met Giorgio from Georgia. We sat with him and the girl who works at the hostel for a while still and Giorgio was excitedly showing us several music vides from Georgia on youtube 😊 At this time it was quite late and since waking up at 7 and night on the train we were more than ready for bed.

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