Kiev – Part 2

Halfway through my stay, we finally visited the book market. It used to be this fantastic, half-underground place to get a large variety of books as well as (of course pirated) software. In recent years, it’s gotten a bit of a facelift with real bookstores popping up, in addition to the specialized stalls, but it’s still a little bit overwhelming. Alas, there are not nearly as many books that I’m interested in as there used to be.

Later that day, I finally managed to meet up with a friend that was my own, not my parents’. We had a lovely time walking around and then catching up some more over sushi. Great times! But overall, I’ve been surprised at how few people I was able to get in touch with from back in my schoolgirl days. Maybe I’m just weird in loving reunions and wanting to know about how life is going for people, even if they’re not someone I keep in regular touch with.

On Friday, my last day, I took a taxi to the airport at 4 a.m. and arrived just over two hours early – normal time for an international flight, right? I was surprised to find that registration for the flight hadn’t opened yet. Sat around for a while, and then went and lined up for half an hour waiting for registration to open. See, normally I wouldn’t care too much when I register or get on a plane. The problem this time was that I couldn’t register online, and due to the short connection time in Munich, wanted to get a seat as close to the front of the plane so I could sprint out and try to make the connection. The other problem is that, when congregated in crowds, orderliness and politeness are markedly absent in the psyche of this nation, so in order to get all that done I had to get as close as I could to the front of the line and avoid getting pushed back whenever people started jockeying for position. Ah well.

Registration opened, I got a seat in the first row after first class, and then we even boarded the plane.

…

And then we spent an hour just waiting on the tarmac. Apparently airports in Europe are not capable of dealing with this little winter event called snow. I chatted with the stewardess, and she said that all the airports they went to the day before, including Munich and London both of which I was going to, were a mess. Surprisingly, I missed my connection in Munich due to the inbound flight arriving 30 minutes after it was supposed to. The surprising part is not this, but rather that the outbound flight appears to have left on time.

Unfortunately I don’t get an opportunity to explore Munich, which I kept hoping would be the outcome of this delay. Booo. I was rerouted through Toronto instead. Arriving much later in the evening, but this also meant that Dan picked me up. Took them a long time to find a flight that didn’t go through the States (I really, REALLY don’t like american airports nowadays), and they were not 100% sure my luggage would accompany me on this route, but hey, Toronto was about the best place for me to end up, short of getting to Ottawa itself.

Also, I really like the Munich airport way better than the Frankfurt one. It’s much calmer, much less cramped, and just has a much nicer vibe, in general. It will definitely be on my list of top places to transfer through when I have a choice.

All the Lufthansa staff also acted like they actually cared about me, and they even took my quirks into account (like not wanting to deal with US airports and Air Canada in wake of their post-christmas-bomb-plot insanity), even if it created more work for them to find a flight that I was happy with. Two thumbs up for Lufthansa and all the staff I had to deal with today.

Since I had an hour and a bit to waste before boarding, I decided to stop at a little restaurant and grab a bite to eat. Since a cappuccino was about the same price as beer, and I was in Germany, I opted for the beer, but stuck with my original choice of kuchen for the snack. After the guy behind me in line jokingly made fun of me for this combination (and took me for an american, gah – it this combination really so uncouth?!), I got to thinking – and there are quite a few similarities between the two. They’re practically the same food! Ok, obviously I exaggerate, but still. They both have wheat, sugar and yeast… and the kuchen even had apricots, which my favourite beer (McAuslan Apricot Wheat) also has. See?! My seemingly choices actually have logic behind them! Also, once again I was tricked by the exchange rate – my little snack ended up costing me $15USD. Damn you, Europe!

The last few days in Kiev went pretty well. I finally got to see a bunch of my own friends. Visited with 4 old classmates, as well as two of the girls I used to play tennis with. We spent lovely afternoons drinking coffee and talking about… well, just about everything. It’s immensely heartening to meet with people so many years later, and still have such a great time. And to have them change so little from the people you remember. It’s also a great feeling to know that most of these people are doing well in their lives. Now that I have their email addresses I hope I can stay in touch a little bit better, since it turns out none of us are that great at Facebook et al.

One thing I’ve noticed is that of the old friends I’ve seen men have changed a lot more than women have – to the point that I would have had a hard time recognizing some of them if I passed by them on the street. I guess there’s some payoff after all to women putting so much time into looking after themselves?

I also got to spend a lot more time with my grandfather. When caught one-on-one, he actually likes to talk a fair bit, and his stories offer a fascinating glance at someone I’ve never known that well. We also went to visit my grandmother’s grave at the cemetery, on a beautifully snowy and peaceful day. Hearing him talk about my grandmother, though, evokes sadness of the kind that brings almost physical pain. It’s a good example of special relationships that exist in the world, but also a jarring reminder that the loss of such a long-time and close partner is a hard one to get over.

I’m glad I visited when I did, but I also wish I’d come at a different time, since the weather was horrible for pictures, and many people were away or busy with family stuff since the period between New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas (7th) is vacation and family time. I’ve already had a few offers from people willing to show us around to see other cities/areas of the country, and Dan may be able to convince me to take them up on that in a few years’ time. It’s the random little things like the murals on these buildings that I’m sure he’s dying to see.

The trip has been a bit of a soul-searching opportunity, and also a reminder of the differences between the environment I left and the one I live in now. I now know that I retain enough of the habits and skills to be able to live there. But I also know that I have enough expectations and knowledge about how some things could and should be to not really want to live there.

Prices are one thing that continues to surprise. They’re atrociously high for the level of prosperity (or lack thereof) enjoyed by the people living there. In fact, they’re very similar to prices in Canada, and for some things even higher. For example, prices on electronics are close – but here, sales on such “prestige” items are unheard of. If I wait 3-4 months back home, I’m pretty much guaranteed to get an item on sale for cheaper than I could find it here (black or grey market excluded, I assume). The sushi I enjoyed the other day is on par with prices at home. Hotels are probably more. Groceries are similar, with some products costing more than at home (you’d think Perrier, for example, would be cheaper since France is so much closer). Even a friend I spoke with says that in London or Paris you could find better deals on certain items of clothing than in Kiev. Anyone else find this shocking? But trips to Egypt or Turkey are surprisingly cheap – $400-500 for 7 or 10 days. Some differences and dichotomies that I find particularly striking:

• public transit costs about $0.25, which is a lot more in line with the average salary, while decent leather boots still cost $200 and gas $1/litre
• parking (and driving) on the sidewalk, to the point of blocking and playing chicken with pedestrians, is the accepted norm (and, in fact, is pretty much the only way to find parking downtown)
• clearing snow off sidewalks is considered highly optional
• bribery rules – from $3 or so slipped to the parking attendant of a posh store’s “parking lot” to let you park on “their” sidewalk, to Ikea giving up on building a store in Kiev because of their corporate policy prohibiting the payment of bribes
• fur is not optional for someone who wants to be considered even moderately genteel – a strange step for a country that tries to follow the “western world” so much (where wearing fur nets you a free gallon of red paint splattered all over yourself)

Oh, and I have to apologize for the occasional incongruences in verb tenses I’m sure I missed. The problem is that a lot of this stuff was written while I was there with the hope of posting right away, but I never found my way to a reliable internet connection with enough time to spare and the netbook with me. So then I had to spend a lot of time converting everything to the past tense – I’m sure I missed a few. Ah well.

Overall, a very good trip for something planned at the last minute. I’m happy over all the meetings I had, and the wonderful opportunity to reminisce which had presented itself so suddenly. I expect it’s not my last visit, but hopefully I’ll pick a better time to visit next time. I leave you with some adorable matrioshka dolls (the kind that fit inside each other). The 5 on the left are all part of one set, that I took apart for demonstration purposes. The tiniest one (the chicklet) is about as big as the last joint on my pinkie.

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Lima and wrapping up

I figured I should wrap up trip-related posts before I completely got absorbed back into “real life”, and lost all sense of what the trip was like.

On our second last day, a Saturday, for the evening’s entertainment we headed to Parque Reserva, which houses a very nice set of fountains. At night, these are all lit up, and the performance of a few is even choreographed to music. It was spectacular! – I really wish we had something like this in Ottawa. More than a dozen fountains, all quite large (some spectacularly so), all lit up in various colours. A few were even of the type that you could walk through- the large circular one, with concentric circles of fountains which kept turning on and off so you could walk through, and surprise jumping jets, was particularly popular with the teenagers. If you didn’t make it while the fountains were off, you got a little bit wet – but there were also some kids who were running through them the whole time with complete abandon, fully soaked. I did a round of running through to the middle, but Dan was too chicken and stayed outside.

Earlier in the day, we had visited the St. Franciscan Monastery in downtown Lima. What a treat! We got to visit the ground as well as the catacombs – and this is on Halloween day, no less! The catacombs had been used as a cemetery from the time the monastery was built in the 16th century until 1880, with some 25,000 bodies buried. Later, it was reopened, all the bodies exhumed, the bones sorted by type, and displayed in geometric arrangements in the former graves (up to 4 m deep, where coffins had been stacked one on top of the other). Now THAT would have been a gruesome job.

The ceilings in the monastery were made of exquisitely carved wooden tile, and there were many wood carvings present on the chairs, benches, and other various furniture. The library was packed with tens of thousands of volumes, mostly from the 16-18th century. The library room itself was quite stereotypical – long and narrow, with the gallery of the second floor running around the outside of the room, and little spiral staircases leading up to it. The books just looked so old! On display they also had a few very large Gregorian chant books – text and a few simple note sequences. These were placed on a sort of lazy-Suzan holder in the choir room, and rotated slowly so all could see. Genius!

Our last day was Sunday, and what we didn’t realize is that in the evening, most places (including restaurants) are closed even in Lima. However, the rest of the day more than made up for this. In the morning, we headed down to the beach near Miraflores, where we were among the first sun-worshippers and surfers. We walked down to the end of a rock quay, and sat in silence for a while, staring out at the swells, trying to spot the crabs among the rocks and seaweed below, and admiring the paragliders soaring above. Very peaceful (but windy) – why can’t we have an ocean in Ottawa??

The ice cream snack wasn’t enough to sustain us for very long, so we soon left to find lunch. We headed to Barranco, another upscale neighbourhood bordering the beach. We found the mall we were told about, and it was spectacular – set into the top of the cliff, with all the restaurants facing the ocean, spread across 4 or more terraced levels. And all outdoors. Fantastic! We picked a restaurant at random, and while it was windy on the patio, we sat out – when again would we have a chance to sit on a patio, either outside or facing the ocean? The setting was spectacular. The food also held its own – my 3-soup sampler plate was delicious, with a ton of seafood, and the soups were more like stews. Dan’s stuffed sea bass was nothing short of incredible – I was truly jealous of his meal. Shared over a couple of Cristal, this was a memorable lunch, and a great way to wrap up this trip.

Dan is very happy to be home. I’m glad to be home, but do wish we could have travelled for longer. I guess maybe it’s unusual that if I know it’s not forever, I’m just as comfortable hauling a backpack through a crowd of pushy peddlers as I am getting dressed to the nines at home and going to the opera. I enjoy the hot showers and clean toilet at home, but I don’t crave it as badly as one would think when I’m on the road. It’s ok to let go of these comforts for a while. They’ll still be there when I come back.

Overall, I’m happy with this trip. There are things I would do differently, and there are things we didn’t see/do that I wish we had, but as a whole, it was a fantastic and awing trip. I discovered that Spanish is within reach. [Aside: how many countries does THAT open up?!] We reached some great heights (quite literally) and learned to work with each other’s travelling styles. I declare this a successful honeymoon.

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An open thank you note

All the bags are now packed, but I’m still too excited to sleep. I should, given that the alarm is set for 5 hours from now, but… meh.

It will be 5 weeks before I can get to writing thank you notes. But for everyone who should be thanked for their contributions to our wedding, let me assure you that you will be getting a thank you note. Not because etiquette dictates that I write you one, but because I want to – I want to thank you for the gifts you gave us, of the material variety to be sure, but also the gifts of your time, your talents, and your friendship. To thank you properly, my goal is to tell every one of you a story about your gift, and how it’s affected us, or how we will use it in the future.

The wedding was a blast. Would I plan a wedding again? Absolutely. Were there lessons learned? To be sure! – even the hyper-organized Maria blanked on a few things. But we pulled it off. Every bit of  it was fabulous from where we were sitting.

Is this too unclassy for a first picture from the wedding?

Oh well, you got it anyway. Dan in his element! Our incredible photographer also promised to have teasers up in a few weeks. If you guys check out his site you will probably see them before us.

On a trip note, my bag weighed in at just shy of 30 pounds. That means another 14 pounds of souvenir space for the way back.

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Bilingualism

There has been an uproar recently in Ottawa about how bus stops need to be called out by the driver in both English and French. I will not get into that issue, because this would turn into a rant. However, this has had me thinking about the meaning of bilingualism, and it sort of ended up being represented in a neat little package in a recent email thread.

In the many recent discussions held about bilingualism, a lot of emphasis has been placed on being provided with information in YOUR language, whether it is English or French. However, here’s an interesting twist on that concept, which, in my mind, is a much better representation (to me) of the concept of bilingualism.

I would not say I am fully fluent in French (Dan will probably disagree), but I am capable enough. I have little trouble reading or hearing a conversation, because my vocabulary has been built up through learning it over the years. Speaking/writing takes more effort as I can’t as easily call the appropriate words to mind when I am trying to translate from English to French.

It has often happened that I will receive an email in French, reply in English, and the conversation will carry on like this. I understand the person writing to me in French, but I prefer to write in English – I am more comfortable doing it, and feel I will be better able to make my point. The converse is true for the other person. And, in an ah-ha moment, I realized that to me, this is what bilingualism would be in an ideal world – everyone has some the ability to function in both languages, but conversation on either end is carried out in the language that is most convenient for that person. The point is – the conversation does not have to be in one language, it is truly a bilingual conversation.

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