Kyiv: next days

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In the evening of the 2nd day, I went to the city center but as Anastasiia still had something to do at work, I first met her 2 friends Zhenya and Sacha to walk in the city for a while around the Stadium, which is kind of a business district with higher and modern buildings. This stadium has been completely rebuilt for the Football Euro Cup last year. On that walk, I saw a Catholic Church -the other churches and cathedrals I saw were orthodox ones-. This walk was nice because we were just talking about our life, our plans,... After walking with Zhenya, I went to dinner with Sacha, as Anastasiia was still working. We went to the same restaurant, where we were yesterday after opera -there are a lot of them in the center-. Then, FINALLY 😉, Anastasiia finished working and joined us. We stayed for a while at the restaurant and then we went out to enjoy the night 😊 We went to 2 very different places: first one was a music bar with a band playing Ukrainian music. The music was quite good and the bar was full, so it was a good atmosphere here. The second one was a nightclub, which is famous because of his bar where girls from the staff but also for the customers can dance on the bar. The staff -sexy girls, wearing only a bra and a mini short- is also doing some shows every 15 minutes: either just doing a choregraphy on the bar or doing a single show with a customer who would have paid -25€ for the single show ...-. The single show was really funny: they were putting some alcohol on their body, lemon in their month, then squizzing the lemon in the mouth of the Customer and the same with some shooter of alcohol. Except this quite unusual thing in the bar, music was good there: a mix of international and traditional Russian music, on which people were dancing and jumping like crazy 😉 I wish I could have understood the meaning of the lyrics like them!

After this great night out and a short sleep, we went to another side of the city for a street food festival. The festival was in a former exbition center from the sovietism time, so it was really interested to go there for me to see the architecture of that time: statue with women holding harveted wheat, building with big pillars,... But as it is indicated in the name, it was also very interesting for the FOOD 😉 There were a good amount of different kinds of food and it was difficult to choose! I ate a salty pie with tomatoes and cheese -from a cafe that Anastasiia loves-, some Georgian dish with salmon and something between a cheesecake and a normal cake. Everything was tasting really good but afterwards I was really not hungry anymore -in opposition to Anastasiia and Sacha, who were not hungry yet and who would eat again 5 minutes later 😉-. After this food festival and a nice short walk in the park around, we went back to the city center to visit new parts of the city together.

So, we walked from the Red University to another Orthodox Church -my friend Lidiia's favourite Church in Kyiv!-. This is the only church where I went in, it was really nice and I could see some differences with our Catholic church: people do not sit down, they stand to pray, paitings are wall paintings -so without frame and bigger-, there was no stained glass. Then, we walked around the district seeing some old part of Kyiv, where some old buildings were not restored and a former bike racing stadium. Then, we went to see the golden gate and from there walked to Saint Sophia and Saint Michel, saw the oldest tree of Kyiv and a very old sculptur. And finally, we arrived to the place, I liked the most in Kyiv!!: the sculpture alley. This place is great for his architecture, for the atmosphere and for the view over the city. There, you will find different sculptures, which are from tales: for instance, a girl sitting on a lot of pillows ("The Princess and the Pea"), or a prince ("The little prince"), a children area with a cat, a hat, a cup ("Alice in Wonderland"),... I loved looking at those. I could have stayed there for hours looking at children and talking, just relaxing! At that place, there were also benches with different motives: one with a fake blanket and pillow, one looking like glasses, one with a carpet,... From that magical place, we went downhill -using a very old staircase!- and went to the center to have a quick dinner and then go out with other friends in a bar. I ate another food speciality - Ukrainian Borscht: a broth with potatoes, onions and carrots- and some sweet varenyky. That was very good!! As today was a boxing night-Klitschko(Ukraine) vs Povetkin(Russia)-, we watched that in a bar with friends. As my biggest passion is boxing :p, I was really interested by what was hapenning 😉 However, even though I have no idea about boxing, I have to say that Klitschko was clearly better than the Russian guy! In the bar, I got another word confusion: I ordered a home wine sweet white wine, thinking "let's try something local as wine" and when my glass was brought to me and I smelled it, it was a VERY strong smell of alcohol like Cognac!! So, it was not the "sweet white wine" that I was expected 😉 However, after tasting it, I have to say that it was really not as strong as I would have thought it could be!

After this great day of walking, eating and drinking, we went back home for a good night sleep.

The last day was shorter, as I had to go at 4pm to the airport. So we went for the last time to the city center, I saw a old building where you can still see the bullet impact on the walls! I have to say that I was really shocked by that and I stayed a while there just looking at it! Then, we went back to the park on the hill, where I was on the 1st day with the monument of the unknown soldier but we went there to go to the Patriotic War Museum: an outside and inside museum about the 2nd world war. This was quite interested and taught me new things about that very big and important part of history! After the museum and after looking at war machinery, we went to the airport and I almost missed my flight but destiny decided that it was time to leave...



Places/Things I liked the most there:

- Sculpture Alley

- Park between Lavra Monastery and Arsenal + Mariinsky Park with views over the city

- District around Saint Sophia, Saint Michel and Saint Andre

- Ballet at National Opera House

- Street Food Festival at Exibition Center

I had a great time there, met great friends, saw great places, ate well, I could not have dreamt of a better time there. I will come back for sure to visit other places of this country! Leaving this place, I really felt that I needed to see more of it to fully understand the culture!

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