Location: Kiev, Ukraine

We woke up really early (i.e. FOUR IN THE MORNING) to take Richard to the airport. We somehow managed to pile all of our gear into the car but it required me to lay over top of the people sitting in the backseat with helmets all over the floor wedged between feet, bags literally piled up to the ceiling and every nook and cranny filled with something. The word ‘full’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

After saying our goodbyes to Richard, we hopped back in the clown car for one final day of touristing in Kiev! None of us really wanted to commit to anything big so we decided to walk Andrew’s Descent- a steep art lined street that ends in a golden domed teal coloured church. Every building on the street was picturesque, with an elaborately designed façade. I heard the street was modelled after Montparnasse in Paris and was immediately excited to see it.

We browsed souvenir stalls, are breakfast at a French café, walked up to a lookout point (which is not a dead end, Land) and reminisced about the trip. We ended up stumbling across this awesome view overlooking the city, although it made the disparity of wealth in the city very obvious. Next to gold plated buildings were apartment blocks made of shipping containers or buildings that looked uninhabitable, but clearly were. Coming from Canada, sometimes it’s easy to forget that those things exist until I’m re-introduced to them in other counties.

We ducked into a twisty little art gallery full of incredible paintings- which I would have bought many of if I had the means to pay for or even carry them. We made it all the way to the main square before turning around to go back to the car, since we had to check into our airb&b.

The Airb&b is this giant apartment with vaulted ceilings, 5 queen beds and 3 bathrooms. We brought up all our stuff as we had to do some redistributing of weight due to all of the new steel we acquired. I ran upstairs to have a shower and turns out… no hot water?? I thought it might be because Mack was having a shower downstairs and he was stealing all of it! Turns out he thought the same thing and we both just had extremely ice cold showers.

Land, Lake and Mack went out to grab supplies (*cough* pizza and beer) while Ian and I stayed behind to catch up on some tasks, as well as wait for a plumber since one of the hot water tanks started leaking upstairs… explaining the aforementioned ice showers.

The others returned, supplies in tow and we all sat around the table eating and drinking for a couple of hours. Igor and Galyna invited us out to dinner with the Mexican team who were also in Kiev until the next day. We ended up at this Ukrainian cantina where I grabbed way too much food because I wanted to try a little of everything but then had no room left on my tray for pierogis. Luckily Mack grabbed some extra. I ate a bit of everything, totally overestimating my hunger level. Not only that but also some of the food reminded me of the Soviet cantina we ate at in Chernobyl and was a bit less exciting than I wanted it to be. The pierogis though? Aces.

Mack, Ian and I said our goodbyes to Igor and Galyna and went back to the b&b to finish packing up, while Land and Lake went out to explore Kiev a bit more. At the apartment I finished up packing and a bit of laundry, quiet in my thoughts about the trip.

Land and Lake returned before long and Land, Mack and I ended up listening to music late into the night, despite the fact that we had to leave at 3 am to get to the airport. I realized that part of why I’ve been staying up so late is that I want to get as many minutes out of this trip as I can and I don’t want to trade any of them for sleep.

However a quick one hour nap will have to do since it is now 1 am and I need to be up around 2…

Who needs sleep anyway?***

S

#yxygirlsgohereandthere

***I need sleep. Like a lot of it generally. This is all an exception. I don’t actually have any idea how I’m a functioning human being,