Hello all,
We are now in Odesa and are starting to settle-in and things have been keeping us busy. We arrived in Kyiv from DC Sunday afternoon and our 2 boxes somehow remained at the airport in Paris. Shades of Kosovo as it was the same 2 boxes that didn’t make it there until several days later. Luckily they were found and delivered to the place we were staying the following evening. But what a way to get off a plane-sleep deprived-and having to go through the dance of communicating in a language you don’t know to a person behind the counter that speaks some of your language but not fluently. It makes for some interesting pantomimes and funny moments.
Once in Kyiv our hosts set us up in an efficiency apartment in the middle of downtown - quite nice. It was about 4 pm so we went out for a walk and dinner. Well the city was throwing a major party just a block away-what timing. There were several bands, food, beer and thousands of people with many blocks closed off to cars and filled with activities. What an energizing event, so much so that we stayed out till 10 pm before we had to turn in and the party was still going strong.
We were very impressed with the city: nice architecture (not real soviet-like), very clean, good talent of street entertainment, restaurants appeared good (but we were not hungry for eating, good subway, banking system with lots of ATMs, and in general people seemed friendly. It certainly was NOT Pristina, Kosovo! However, all the letters/alphabet is Cyrillic and we can't understand much of anything. Oh well?! We can basically figure it out.
We spent Monday and Tuesday in Kyiv meeting with people from NGOs then left on a night train in a sleeping compartment for Odesa.
When we arrived our local sponsors met us and whisked us off to our new flat in the center of downtown. The bummer is it is a 20-minute bus ride to work but the good news that it is in the middle of the downtown cultural area. There are many restaurants with great food, at least the ones we’ve tried so far, and many parks with pedestrian walks and artisans. We look forward to exploring this area in detail.