Location: Kiev, Ukraine

I’m not sure how much longer my body will take this kind of abuse, but I only slept for 4 hours again. Sorry body, the next few days aren’t exactly going to be a spa experience either!

Ian, Mack and I got up and went for a French breakfast around the corner from our apartment, with a view across the park of the Golden Gate, which we decided to visit later when we could get inside. Bellies full, Mack returned to the apartment and Ian and I strolled leisurely towards the main square Maydan Nezalezhnosti. Huge black and guilted angel statues stood at either end of the square, with many smaller monuments and works of art scattered in between. We talked a lot about how we wish aesthetics were more of a focus in Canadian buildings. Walking around and feeling beauty in a city is something I would love to feel at home.

We made our way up the hill towards St. Michaels Monastery, passing by gorgeously built but run down buildings. It sort of reminded me of Budapest, which gave me a tingly happy sensation in my stomach.

I hadn’t looked at any pictures of St. Michaels beforehand and I am so glad I didn’t! I could see the shiny gold cupolas from many streets away, but was pleasantly surprised at the periwinkle-blue of the buildings as we rounded the corner. Such a happy colour! The inside was no less impressive. I’ve seen dozens of amazing cathedrals, and I have to say this is probably the most gold plating I’ve ever seen in one single room.

We walked down towards St. Sophia’s Cathedral, stopping just short of it to take some pictures with a few very regal looking pigeons that had the COOLEST neck feathers! They reminded me of those crêpe paper looking clown things that royals used to wear around their necks.

Once inside St. Sophia’s we explored the grounds thoroughly, passing through art exhibits and dormitories, bakeries and a bell tower. The bell tower was my favourite part, as we got higher the view became more and more impressive, looking out over the monastery we had just been to and the Main Street leading up to it. I was laughing and huffing the whole way up because early on Ian started running (I know I know) and I was like dude “WHY?! Running is not necessary! I’m not gonna run! That’s a hard no from me!”

And then I ran a few flights of stairs and dear god how am I supposed to fight a bunch of fights in a couple days if I can barely jog up stairs.

At this point it was barely noon and we had walked more than 12km already so we plopped down into really comfy chairs for some salted caramel coffee and lunch. We met up with the rest of the group shortly after and piled into the car to pick up Lake at the airport! I was excited to be adding another member to the fun.

It was smooth sailing grabbing Lake, save a few aggressively sketchy mid highway u-turns and missed bridges. We were all pretty excited since our next stop was…

Drum roll please…

Slava’s workshop, Armorysmith! Slava is a Ukrainian armourer that makes a lot of our gear, but none of us had ever met him formally, and definitely had never been to his workshop. We had a bunch of orders to pick up so we felt like little kids on Christmas morning!

Slava doesn’t speak english, so his sales manager, Oxana, translated our conversations the whole time. We pulled gear off the shelf, tried things on and paid for our orders. I have been waiting for my gauntlets from Slava since September, so I was pretty happy to finally try them on. No pun intended here, but they fit like a glove. I was beyond excited, nobody I know in this sport has very small hands and it was nice to finally have a pair made just for me! He showed us around his shop and a few of us ordered new pieces. I was extremely jealous of all the helmets on the shelves, as that’s the only piece I’m still waiting for. I’ll be borrowing one for the tournament since mine from Master Uley wasn’t ready on time.

Lots of waves and tons of ‘thank you’s’ later, we made our way back into Kiev proper for a tour of an outdoor military exhibit. There were tanks, armoured missile launchers, helicopters and all types of military vehicles parked all over the walkway. Most of the vehicles were Ukrainian and decommissioned, however a few were Russian and had signs explaining that they were captured in 2014 as proof of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine. That felt strange to read the date ‘2014’ on some placards since there’s always been a higher degree of separation between me and war. Usually when I read about violence, my parents weren’t even born yet, let alone me- so it was odd to see something so recent. The whole scene was flanked by a soviet era metal statue, the Motherland Monument (it is much larger than the Statue of Liberty) facing towards Russia. Ukrainians now say it symbolizes protection from Russia.

We made our way to Kupidon, a Ukrainian restaurant popular with locals. We ordered local beer, ate sausages, pirogies and borscht. We talked about the upcoming tournament and laughed and relaxed over our traditional food.

It was a really lovely way to end what felt like an extremely busy day. I am feeling freer and more relaxed today than I have in a long while, despite the go-go-go pace and the non-existent sleep schedule.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

S

#yxygirlsgohereandthere