Getting to know Kyiv better: meeting new people, discovering new districts + football game evening!

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When I came back to Kyiv, the 1st morning was a training for my world trip coming soon: my friends were working so I had to figure out by myself how to get to the city (with their indications), where to get off the bus, change money, buy a sim card, walk around to find new interesting places and try to meet local people or fellow travellers.

And I have to say that it gave me such a confidence boost for my world trip because I managed to get to the city, get off at the right stop, change money and buy a sim card for a great deal (5€ for illimited access to internet, illimited sms and illimited calls for a year within MTS network!).

The other point which gave me more confidence is to really notice that if I want I will not be alone a lot during my world trip even though I am travelling by myself. After half a day alone in Kyiv, I indeed managed to get some contacts with some local people and fellow travellers that I then met during my week there. That's how on the next day I went with a guy from New Zealand to a area outside of Kyiv to see how people were formerly living in different parts of Ukraine and that's how I managed to watched the football game France-Ukraine not alone with only Ukrainians but with another French guy and an American guy.

After exchanging money, getting a sim card and having lunch, I walked around in districts I had never been before or where I had already been and I liked. I went back for instance to visit inside the Andrew's Church, went back to Sculpture Alley in daytime just to sit there and enjoy the atmosphere with children playing and with the nice view over the city. I also walked around in the city at night. At that time, buildings are also beautiful with lights 😊

But the place I liked the most during this trip back was Pirogovo (or Pyrohiv). This place is an open air museum of Folk Architecture and Life in Ukraine. This place was so different to the city center, it's a very big park with old buildings, with people playing instruments, with some small restaurants, animals (horses for instance) staying there. The guy from New Zealand who came with me there was amazed by the place as he had never heard about it and was really happy that I offered to go there. So, we were both really enjoying our time visiting and walking in that place, even though the weather was so cold!!

To come back on the football game that I was talking about: it was a very funny evening (ok, also because I am French and not Ukrainian, for them it was not such a great evening :p). So, we met up with my friend Nastya in a bar to watch the game. This friend teased me on Saturday morning when she got the news that France lost against Ukraine on the evening before 😉 (We were in the train so we couldn't follow the game that evening, which was good because she would have teased me even more if we would have 😉).

The owner of the bar we went offered us on Couchsurfing to come there to watch the game with him and his ultra football fan Ukrainian friends ... There, we met a French guy, an Ukrainian guy and later an American guy all from Couchsurfing to watch the game all together. It was nice to be with another French guy to watch that game, so I was not the only one supporting the French team 😊

When it was Ukrainian football anthem, everyone in the bar stood up to sind in chorus. Obviously we also stoop up, so that we don't notice too much our different of opinions for that game 😉 However, for the French anthem, we did not stand up but sing a bit the anthem still 😉. Then, the game started and France scored the 1st goal. We clapped hands with the French guy and in my mind I tought "why are the other ones no clapping hands as well? Is the goal not valid?" but then quickly I remembered that I was watching the game with Ukrainian fans so for sure they will not clap hands when we scored 😉 Then, 2nd goal and 3rd, goal we clapped hands again, beginning to feel very happy and for the 3rd goal, a guy in front of me, turned looking at us and I could understand in his eyes "you better stop showing that you are happy that Ukraine is losing if you don't want to do something!". That was indeed the funniest thing in the evening :p Then, we stopped showing our happiness for the rest of the evening. But believe me, we were so happy that France was going to go to Brazil for the world cup!!

In the next days in Kyiv, I got sick so I did not go out so much and then on the weekend, we went with my friends to South of Ukraine by car; but I will talk about his trip in another blog 😉

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