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Published: October 27th 2008
[youtube=EdB6aU4-O3s]
On the way home from Park Victory we walked past some properties that belonged to the Kievian oligarchs. Alena was waiting for us when we got home and why had we taken so long? We had dinner and she announced me and her would go on a cruise around the Kiev harbour. Her friend Jean would also join us. So we went to the harbour and met up with Jean.
The cruise we went on was the Latashka harbour cruise. It cost about 20 Grivena to go on the cruise and we got a beer with that. As soon as we got on Jean brought us another drink. He sort of forgot about the drinks we were entitled to. We then headed upstairs and sat out on the roof. he view was really amazing - Kiev by night was really spectacular. Saw the victory statue and took dozens of photos which didn't turn out of course. A bit later Alena invited me to dance - and we danced to Kino - Peremen (see the video attached - http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=EdB6aU4-O3s&feature=related). I was sort of nostalgic for home from that. We tried to get Jean to dance but he wasn't so keen so
we danced around him. After the cruise we walked down the harbour past some karaoke singers to another monument. We talked about how awesome Aunty Olga was. Then Jean suggested we check out the cemetery nearby. I said sure why not.
It was a bit.tricky walking up in the dark as we kept stumbling on the tree roots. We finally got to the top and were greeted by an amazing birds eye view of Kiev at night. It was definitely worth to go up. We then made our way down to statue garden - maybe Pushkin was there but I forget now. Went sliding down some grass hills and got home at 3am to where we were greeted by Aunty Olga who made us some late snack/dinner/early breakfast????
Happy Birthday Grandad for the 06th of August 2008. So I rang grandad - who was currently in Moscow and wished him many a happy returns. Afterwards we caught the metro to the cemetery - of Grandma Rita's linage. I got some raspberries at the markets along the way.
I came to pay my respects to great grandma Alexandra and great grandfather Boris. The cemetery was quite nice with
many burials again of famous politicians and sports stars. We finally came to where Great grandad and great grandma were buried. I like it - it was small, cosy and cute. It was a little over grown so we set to weeding it out. We also brought some fresh and fake flowers to arrange nicely on the graves. We remembered them and I said Our Father in Russian. Then on the way out of the cemetery I put up a candle in the church in remembrance for them. On the way home we got the metro to meet one of Aunty Olga's friends. After the brief meeting we hoped back on the metro and caught it over the Nepra river. It was quite a nice view. Then we headed back home.
On the way home we stopped in a church with an icon of the Virgin and Christ the saviour. But a famous one. The reason for its fame in Ukraine and maybe the Orthodox church was that it was a miracle icon. It was a miracle in that it could reproduce itself as a type of hologram in whatever glass case you may have put it in. For
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Back at the house with Aunty Olga and mr Tomexample the outline of the icon would appear on the glass. I saw it for myself - the outline on the glass truly and amazing holy icon!
There were a number of crosses and prayers that people had put under the original icon. You could see the church was in a state of repair as there was scaffolding everywhere but it was still really nice.
We got back home and Alena announced that she had planned for us to go to an event at an Irish pub that night. We caught a Marshrutka there. I asked the ticket lady if I could buy one of those ticket stampy things- she said no and she had to give hers back once she finished working with the transportation system. She was really nice and talkative and Alena said she was her favorite Marshrutka driver in Kiev.
We got to the bar and they were playing ye old rock and roll. We had about 2 or 3 cocktails then we got up to dance. This guy Andrei asked me to come and dance and this other dude asked Alena. Her dude was pretty cute. Then we both danced with this guy
who had like a Scottish trusty bureau on. After this dancing with the men we got up on the bar stools and started dancing and the band cheered us on. We danced up there some more.
After this we got off the bar stools and got another drink - vodka and cranberry oh yea. Yum.. Whilst I was drinking mine a guy next to me started talking to me. I think he must have been drunk as he mistook me for a local. He brought me this rocket fuel cocktail - Sambuca, Absenith and something else. Maxim - the cute bar tender made it for me. It tasted good and looked funky with 3 different layers of colours. Alena sat down next to me - the guy she was dancing with had ended up going. I introduced her to Stan and got him to buy her a drink too. Maxim got into our convo as well - I think mainly cause everyone ha left and we were his only clients. I got his email later but decided that we needed to ditch Stan before we got outside. It was getting close to closing time and Stan had just brought
us all a round of beers - he tried to buy Maxim one too who had declined. Me or Alena suggested that we leave. We said goodbye to Maxim, I don't remember if we did to Stan.
We started walking up the stairs and I started to quicken my pace and I felt Alena do the same. As soon as we got outside we both immediately broke out into a run. It was as if we had planned it this way. We ran up few streets and Alena led the way. We didn't have to say a word it was like we were on the same wave length (it was funny later on we talked about it and had both been in the mind frame to look for a chance to escape before he left the bar). Anyways as we ran along, we took the side streets as we were paranoid he might take a taxi any time soon past us. Every time we saw a car coming we hid behind the bushes. Alena also managed to talk about some sights along the way :D
And so the tour continued!
We ended up walking/running past a late
Lastachka cruise 05/08/08
Me and Alona on the cruise boat. night shops so we picked up some goodies like yogurt then we made our way home and told Aunty Olga about our night.
The 7th of August was a late start so around 12pm me and Aunty Olga went for a walk around the parks near the house. I saved some photos onto Alena's computer and she saved me hers from Moscow and Ukraine that we were there together so if you would like to see hers please feel free to email me. She announced that we were going to Saxon that night. It was a pool party so I wore my dress over m bikini and boardies. Aunty Olga complimented how good I looked and played some piano forte for me as a special treat. She was so amazing and I didn't realise we had someone so musical in the family (besides Ivan of course and his guitaring). We met one of Alena's friends in the centre and caught a taxi to Saxon.
Saxon was a 2 floor club and let me tell you it went off for a Thursday night. Upstairs was trance, house music and down stairs was rnb. We met Ira, Tanya and Igor
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Walking around Kiev at night we found a lion. Raaaa! there too. We ended up actually spending most of our time down stairs. Then the foam broke out around 2am. Me and Alena quickly pulled off our dresses and put our thongs/flip flops on. Very slippery. Good fun. Met Alec. Very good looking boy who studied Chinese at the university of Kiev. Met another guy that was Georgian who laughed a lot and threw foam at me so I tackled him cause he was all dry. He was amazed I had come here from Australia, meanwhile I was amazed he spoke like 5 languages! We all had a really good time and left when it started to shut. I threw my dress on before I went outside and it was pretty cold as I was totally wet. Igor dropped me, Alena, Tanya and Ira home. Alena's other friend had left earlier in the night. We talked about the night and we were the last Igor dropped off (at around 7am). We took after photos of the event and Igor decided to stay over as he needed to go to central station tomorrow anyway to pick his brother up at 10am. I went to bed around 7:30am.
The 8th of
August was when the Beijing Olympics started. The 8th was when the war in Georgia broke out. Or maybe it broke out some time on the 7th when we were still up in Saxon. Oblivious to all this me and Alena were recovering from the night before. Igor had left at 10am like promised and Alena and Aunty Olga went to the beautician to get their hair and nails done for their up and coming trip to Europe - which they were actually leaving for tomorrow. I packed my stuff and Aunty Olga picked up 2 keivskei torte's for me - one for Grandma and one for Nadia. We made our way to the station for my train. Saw a guy rushing before us who ended up dropping his Kievsky torte. I hoped that wasnt going to be me somewhere down the line. I got on the train and asked the providnicha to put the cakes in the fridge - which she did. It was under the carpet in the walkway. Then I said goodbye to Alena and Aunty Olga. I had grown really close to them and told them we would for sure meet each other soon. Then I
hugged them and wished them a happy trip in Europe which they were leaving for tomorrow.
Met my room mates on the trip - a guy who left in the middle of the night and a lady and her daughter (the daughter was studying medicine at university) and the lady was from a town 30 minutes from Moscow by train were they made delicious Pranikies - which the lady gave me a taste of plus her number if ever I wanted to come visit and stay with her.
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