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Tick, tick, tick.
There are wall clocks everywhere in this hotel, some of them click, some of them provide smooth motion and some take a trade-off somewhere in between. Some of them have numbers, but those that do opt for the pseudo-sophistication of roman numerals instead, which seem to pop up everywhere anyway, used exclusively by Russians when referring to ( Read more... ) -
albino hedgehog says grr
I would like to humbly request the people in this hotel to stop filling the browser history in the hotel business center with URLs for porn, escorts, and mail-order brides. Yeek. -
Driving Culture - The Sort That Grows In Petri Dishes
One of the things I should have expected but didn't think of was how different driving culture is, country to country. It's always a bit of a puzzle, getting somewhere new and figuring out how people treat the road ( Read more... ) -
Four 100% Universal Languages Spoken By Absolutely Everyone Everywhere
- Waving sticks, glowsticks, or butter knives around and making lightsaber noises at small children, or overgrown children
- The 'can I mooch a cigarette?' gesture
- The hand gestures for "I didn't dent your car! It's just paint transfer, see? *rub rub*" 1
- Salespeople making tragic, tragic faces at how few fig pastries you're buying2 Have you no heart?
- Waving sticks, glowsticks, or butter knives around and making lightsaber noises at small children, or overgrown children
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The price of fame.
It's not as easy to be a millionaire on paper in Kyiv as it was in Praha (UAH are a factor of ten off from CZK in valuation, plus the stock market hates us), but the barely-post-Soviet culture garners one treatment and attention unheard of outside of the most posh of circles in the US -- in shops and restaurants, at least. Restaurants are much the ( Read more... ) -
The best Indian food I've ever eaten.
In a couple of hours we will descend for our third day in a row upon New Bombay Palace in Kyiv, this time to celebrate Indian independence. I've been trying to think of a good way to post about this place for a day or two and consistently failing. The food is exquisitely excuted and full of rich, harmonious flavors. There is heavy use of saffron ( Read more... ) -
Miracle on Hospitalna street.
Thanks to a surprising networks of dead ends, forced turns and scary drivers, I got us lost going the 4km or so from our old hotel to our new hotel (which has wonderful air conditioning and a marvelous bed and an outstanding view.) In the process we crossed the Dnipro river, along the way catching our first glimpse of Kyiv's own giant barechested ( Read more... ) -
I crane, Viktor Yushchenko cranes, we all crane for Ukraine!
Still in Kyiv, waiting on Russian visas. Starting to worry we won't make it to the official Rally endparty. Bah, visas. I find myself really like Ukraine, though. And not just because they've recently made it illegal for police officers to issue on-the-spot fines ( Read more... )
