Kiev!

Day 22
The alarm we had set for 15:00 turned out to be unnecessary as we woke up around 13:00 by ourselves. It did take us another good two hours before we managed to get up and get ready. We drank some water and had a shower.
At 16:00 the taxi which was taking us back to the trainstation of Simferopol stood waiting in front of the hotel. We grabbed our bags and said bye to the two other Dutch guys. The ride back to civilization took nearly two hours. The driver dropped us off at the start of where the trainstation starts. As we hopped out of the other side of the trainstation a few days before, I had a hard time to recognize whether we were at the actual right trainstation. Especially as at first the cabdriver wanted to take us to the airport.
We had another two hours before our train was going to leave, so we decided to eat something at the most genuine Ukraine restaurant we could find: McDonalds. This McDonalds must have been the most crowded McDonalds I had ever been to. People were litterally everywhere. We had a hard time to even find a chair to sit on. At the counter there were at least 25 people all running around with fries and burgers. I decided to sit down with the bags while Luc went downstairs to get our chicken nuggets.
After the food we were feeling slightly better. Still, getting the food down was quite a mission. I could tell my body wasn’t used to having food this early in the day just yet.
After the food we went back to the station. The train we had to catch was departing from platform 1. Thankfully platform 1 was nearby. I showed the guy at the train my tickets. He started talking to me in either Russian or Ukrainian. It turned out for once we found the right wagon straight away. Once we entered the wagon we found ourselves in one of the shabbiest trains we had been in so far. Because the second class was sold out we ended up getting tickets for the third class. By now, we felt kind of sorry we didn’t go for the first class tickets.
The benches, which were soon to be our beds were nothing more than a wooden plank. On top of that, we were going to share our nice sleep with at least 60 other people sleeping in the same wagon. No door, no curtain, nothing. On top of that, the benches were covered with some fabric that made me sweat my balls off. Just brilliant.
A Ukrainian couple came to sit in front of us and tried to talk to us. The conversation was limited by the few words English they knew and the two words Ukrainian that we knew. The guy turned out to be a lot of fun anyway and started laughing about nearly anything. Sign language at times can be just as funny as telling a good joke.
The train ride, which was meant to take about 15 hours ended up taking about 19. The train just stopped in the middle of nowhere for half an hour at multiple occasions. We were frustrated by the lack of information, and so were the other people on the train I noticed. All we could do was wait and hope the train would end up in Kiev at some point. For a while we even doubted whether the train was going to terminate in Kiev. Who knows where we could end up if the train was taking another 4 hours more. Thankfully after 19 hours of heat, sweat and sore back we ended up in Ukraine’s capital again.

Day 23
We got off the train, had a few more chicken nuggets at the McDonalds at the train station and then prepared for our next mission: getting a ticket back to Europe. Not only did we want to get a ticket to Prague, we also wanted to get a discount as we had our interrail passes. I knew this was going to be a massive hassle, as A) people hardly speak any English and B) Interrail is not recognized in Ukraine.
After a lot of hasseling we got the woman at the ticket office to understand we already had a pass for the rest of Europe. All we wanted to pay was from Kiev to the border. From there we could travel for free. Obviously this wasn’t possible. The woman ended up selling us a trainticket to the bordertown, still in Ukraine, but close to Poland. We were alright with that and decided to pay the 11 euro’s each.
Unfortunately when we later checked our tickets, this also meant we only had seats until this town. There was no way we were going to be able and sit on this train all the way to Kiev. We decided we would get that fixed later and went to our hostel.
We kind of knew where our hostel was at thanks to the two Dutch guys in our room. They had drawn out some sort of map where to find the hostel. We grabbed the subway and went to the station they had told us to go to. From there we walked quite quickly into the right direction. Without any searching we found the hostel. There the hostel owner was already expecting us, as Cliff had told him of our arrival.
We checked in and had a shower. Afterwards we went to check out town. It turned out Kiev was quite a nice city with lots of nice cathedrals and buildings. For a good few hours we walked around town checking out most of the highlights in the city. Afterwards we went to look for an internetcafe to write my blog and check our emails.
Whilst searching for some internet, we bumped into a big demonstration. Hundreds of police forces were patrolling the streets. We instantly had to think of the military’s in Kazantip and decided to get the hell out of there before things would turn ugly. Of course I did have to take a few photos of it, as did most other people on the streets.
After using the internet we headed back to our hostel. There Cliff was waiting for us to catch up and have some dinner. I asked the hostel owner whether he knew a good spot to have dinner at. He told me about this “hidden” restaurant in a side alley not too far from the hostel. Through Google Maps streetview he showed me how to get there.
It turned out not too easy to find the spot later, as even finding out which street you’re on is quite the challenge in Kiev. After a good half an hour walk we found the alley the owner had shown me. The restaurant the owner had recommended turned out to be really nice. It was more of a bar which did food too. The waiters and waitresses were dressed up as doctors and nurses which gave it a cool touch. Dinner was good too.
After dinner we headed back to the hostel. We weren’t up for another crazy partynight and decided to take it easy as we were planning another long day tomorrow.
In our room we met three German girls with whom we had a little chat before going to sleep.

Day 24
We had set our alarms to around 9am as we were planning on doing a great deal of things: getting our train tickets changed, checking out mummies in a cathedral and checking out the Chernobyl museum. Unfortunately the hostel only had one bathroom which meant we had to wait for about two hours before all the girls in the hostel were finished polishing their nails and hairdrying their hair (and whatever else they do in there).
After a quick shower we headed over to the train station to get our tickets changed. We explained the situation to the girl who was really helpful and understanding. The best option she could give us was a 80 euro trainticket to Krakow. Luc didn’t agree and told me that was a massive rip off, as we had already paid for trains in Poland. She went to check again and had another option for 50 euro’s, but we would have to leave a few hours later and get there at 5 in the morning. That option didn’t seem all that great too so we decided to stick with what we had. The girl was angry and told us to get out of her face. We walked off and just decided to wing it and see what would happen.
Afterwards we headed over to the mummies in the basement of a cathedral. We grabbed a subway near to where the cathedral was supposed to be. It took us another 20 minutes to get to the actual stop. Meanwhile we saw how a new part of the road was being opened. Proud Ukrainians were telling us all about it. The opening of this small piece of road was part of the preparations for the European Cup next year.
The mummies in the basement were quite an experience. In pitch black we walked through a tunnel towards the basement. Only the light of a few candles helped us not to trip over each other. Once inside we found a lot of religious women kissing the glass coffins with the mummies in it. After 10 minutes I was boiling in the stuffy basement.
We walked out of the cathedral and checked out a bit more of the surroundings. Up the hill we found an old WW2 museum with big tanks and other old war vehicles. Behind was a massive statue that probably symbolised the end of the war.
After seeing all that we headed over to the Chernobyl museum. In between we had some food at a foodcourt. The Chernobyl museum was at the other side of town. Once we got off at the right stop of the subway (which is quite a hassle as the subway only has the cryptic alphabet for stop names and no clear diffrentation between the various subway lines), we got off and searched for the museum. With a bit of asking we finally found the museum and went in.
The museum turned out really good. I decided to rent an audioguide as I was very interested in how this disaster actually had taken place and what happened afterwards. The audioguide took about an hour to explain all the things that were being shown in the museum. Luc and Cliff didn’t get one of the guides so they were done significantly quicker than I was. After being in the museum for about 90 minutes we walked back out. Meanwhile we spoke about we just had seen. My vision on nuclear reactors had been changed quite a bit: after seeing what kind of disaster could happen with nuclear powerplants I really think we should find alternative ways of generating energy.
After the museum I went to look for a present for my mum’s birthday that was coming up. We walked along a road full of souvenir stalls. I found a pair of oven gloves with typical Ukraine people on it.
Afterwards we headed back to the hostel. From there we decided to have some food as we had to get on the train around 21:00. We walked to a Italian-Japanese restaurant. Surely we had never been to one of those either, but we decided to go for it as it didn’t seem too expensive. For starters we had some Japenese food like spicy chicken wings and then as main course we had some spaghetti. The starters were fine, but the main course turned out to be extremely small. Certainly not enough to feed big guys like us. On top of that we found out we had to pay for the spaghetti and the sauce seperately. All in all the restaurant didn’t turn out as cheap as we thought due to the small meals.
We decided to get the bill asap and head to a pizza place on the way back to fill our stomaches a bit more. This turned out a good idea, even though the pizza was not the best I had ever had. While waiting we drank one of our last beers together with Cliff. Once the pizza’s were ready we ate those in record time too.
Afterwards we hurried back to the hostel. Luc had a quick shower while I packed my bag. With about 30 minutes on the clock we ran out of the hostel to the subway to get our asses to the train station. Thankfully all of that went quite quickly. We got back to the train station within 15 minutes. Once there we bought a few bottles of water and a bag of chips in case we got hungry (especially as we didn’t have a clue where we would end up). At the train station we ran to the platform of our train and hopped on board.
We had to share our sleeping cabin with a Russian man who nowadays lived in the Ukraine. He didn’t speak a lot of English, but he did speak a bit of German. We had a little chit-chat with him in German about politics and how he wasn’t fond of the current ruling power in the country. Not long after he told us he was tired and wanted to sleep. We decided to do the same.

Aug 21st 2011 – Aug 23rd 2011