Caravan and Daffy

Maryna (one of the team at work), and Dima have both mentioned Caravan & Daffy for shopping. Now for those who know me, I am not a shopper (right N). But for some reason, probably because it is cheap, I am really enjoying shopping for clothes, and I will admit it..... to a lesser extent, shoes. So last week, we tee up with Marina and Christina to go via the metro to Caravan & Daffy. I am told they are two vey big shopping centres very close together, where you can shop for clothes, bags, shoes and groceries, eat, ice skate..... yep skating rinks in both centres and I think they even have cinemas. On Friday, Maryna informs us that her friend, Natalie who loves shopping and who has a car, will be joining us. This is even better as there is nothing worse than having to carry all your shopping back on the metro.


Saturday 10am is kick off Maryna calls to say she is here at my apartment. I run down stairs and Christina and Maryna greet me and say Natalie cant make it today ...... Oh, there goes the easy ride, then I turn around and I am met by a man standing by a car (a Ford... not a Volga thank god), and get introduced to Andrey. Maryna’s man!!!! And what a lovely guy he was. As we were driving down to Caravan and Daffy, he gave us the lowdown on Kharkiv and its history, showed us the huge river that runs through the Eastern part of town and was basically a great tour guide. Now given three girls were about to embark on a big shopping day, Andrey drops us at the front door of this big “centre” and we tell him we will look after his girl. We walk into Caravan......smaller than Forest Hill Chase and only one level, but it has all the European name shops as Christina seems to know them.

Now a little about Maryna. She is a lovely girl, a little bit quiet around us STA’s as her English is not great, but the more time we spend with her, the better the English. So Christina and I wanted to spend some time with her to hopefully bring her out of her shell and get to know her better.
Maryna

So we hit the shops and I am the first to make a purchase. In fact the first three or four shops we went into I made purchases. Just love propping up the Ukrainian economy !! Eventually the other two bought something and then we decided we deserved a coffee and some refreshments. We sat, ate, watched people ice skate and talked and then Michal test me and asked how we were going. I told him I had made four purchases already. He replied “Nice tempo of purchasing, Its interesting how this whole shopping thing can make girls happy” and added they would be there at 1pm. After an hour off our feets and feeding our bellies, we decide to have a look at “Daffy”.

These shopping centres don’t have the big Myer, David Jones type signs out side, well none that I knew, but they certainly attract people. By this stage it was 12.00 and it was getting busy. We walked in and found PROMOD, the shop I bought my shoes and pants at in the city last weekend. My eyes light up and we all make yet another purchase. Just as we are going upstairs, the boys spot us and we catch up for yet more food, as they haven’t yet had breakfast.

The priority now was grocery shopping. We can get cereal, milk, bread etc at the local shops in the city, but for cleaning products, toilet rolls, can openers etc, we can only get these at the big supermarkets. So we stow the clothes shopping in the lockers they provide and go into the supermarket. These things are a mixture of a Kmart and Safeway. You can buy almost anything! Christina & I get a trolley & the boys get one of those little carry baskets that you get when you only want 10 items! They laugh at us for getting a trolley....... We split up, but as we do, we tend to keep an eye on each other in case the military come to arrest us and we need help!!!! (More to the military story later). Butter is a problem for me. I think I know butter when I see it, but Maryna saved me and asked me what I wanted this (pointing to “my “butter”) for. “To spread on bread”, I say, “no” she says and takes me round the corner, where she selects me the butter she uses. I have no idea what I had picked up as butter, maybe it was margarine? I don’t know. Anyway, as we go through the isles, my trolley is getting filled with lots of things that don’t belong to me, the boys are using me as their trolley pusher......

The final purchase is booze! Dima said he had found something for me so I follow him to the wine section.... there are isles’ and isles of alcohol and as always, staff on hand to help you make a selection! In prime position on the end of the isle is Australian wine “Quay Landing” with a roo on the label. So we all purchase a bottle of Aussie wine and a bottle of Vodka. Last time, my vodka choice was “RELAX”. There are a variety of names in the series including PICNIC, TRAVEL, PARTNER and one other that I cant remember. My choice this time was PARTNER! Apparently, they all have a different taste, so the staff member tells us !

With trolley and baskets full, Maryna, calls Andrey and arranges to meet us at the entrance of Daffy to take us girls and all the purchases (which only just fir in the car), home. The boys stay to complete their shopping of Xbox games and other electrical stuff. Big day out but Maryna, Christina and I had a great time and we learnt a little more about Maryna. One more great friend to spend some time with here in Kharkiv!

Now, last week, we discovered, by chance, that when Michal entered Ukraine, he listed in his customs documentation that he was here as a tourist!!!! “I didn’t know what to tick” says Michal ! Try ticking “business’, we all say in unison. So know we know why the military stoped us on the way home from work that day! Michal, who is working, is meant to be a tourist. Maybe he really is a criminal !?!? LOL

No pics this week, you cant shop and take pictures!!!!!

xm

Jazz, Pizza, clothes shopping and Paris

We had heard about a great live Jazz place that apparently “went off” on Friday nights. So last Friday, we met at Sasha’s for drinks prior to hitting the jazz fest. Sasha had another visitor from Russia, Yuri, staying the weekend, so we figured it was probably going to be another big weekend !! Meet Yuri.....

Yuri doesn’t speak much English, but we all understood each other by the end of the night / weekend.

Now before I go further, Michal, Sasha and I have had big weekends every weekend for the last month and a half, so we are stuffed, exhausted, dead beat, knackered, bushed and just dog tired. Christina has only just arrived, and Yuri was only here for the weekend, so we have to show them Kharkiv. So we put on our best faces and prepared to party !!

Lets get the party started at Sasha’s !!

Now we are now suitably warmed up (9pm) and walk about a km to the Jazz club. We arrive, and the place only has about 10 people in it. I think to myself, “Oh maybe we are too early”, as Sasha and Yuri converse with the door staff in Russian. “The show has finished”, explained Sasha! Finished,,,,, its only 9.30!!! (strange place this is!) So we do what we always do, find something to eat !!




You guessed it PIZZA...... and it was great. Almost as good as the pizza I had in the Italian countryside!













So with Pizza, you have to have red wine, and then a B52 (don’t ask, it a flaming thing again) to finish off the night, except the night hadn’t finished.

OK, Now I am really stuffed and I just want my bed. We walk back towards Christina’s hotel and surprise surprise the bar is still open and the boys suggest a nightcap. The bartender starts taking photo’s and we have a vodka!

Christina goes to bed, the boys decide to party on, and the gentlemen that they are, take me home before their night continues...... more pics of their night and next day later.

Saturday was a bit of a nothing day, Christina and I went to Mc Donald’s for late lunch and yes it is as bad here as it is in Aust !! But it filled a much needed gap and we walked the streets for a while looking for clothes shops, finding book shops. In between Sasha calls us and tells us to come to his place for food. I gather from the sound of it that the boys hadn’t slept since we left them and the party was still in progress. When I saw them, my thoughts proved correct!!

Michal, Christina and I went to our respective homes, Yuiri, we assume, stayed asleep, as we didn’t see him and Sasha went out yet again !!!

Sunday

For some reason, I have lost a few inches around my waist. Cant understand why with all the Pizza, potato (staple food of Ukraine) and Alcohol I have been consuming? But anyway, I need some new trousers for work, so Christina and I pull our weary heads out of bed on Sunday morning and walk to the main drag in search of La Qua, sweetie, La Qua. First stop is “Mango”. A bit like Esprit in Australia. After searching high and low, we found nothing apart from a white T. Next stop PROMOD and this shop has my name written all over it!! Two pair of semi casual pants, pair of work pants and.......... wait for it .... new boots!!

Let me take you on yet another detour here. Try and understand that it is between 2-5 degrees outside and you are dressed to for the cold weather with jackets, scarves, gloves etc. When you walk into these shops, it is warm, so you immediately have to shed clothes (totally opposite to Malaysia where you freeze inside). So at this point, I must thank Christina for carrying my jacket, bag, etc while I spent lots of money helping the Ukraine economy.

By the way, found this little number in the main stree of Kharkiv. Very innovative! Obviously no windows in the back or the side, so we just seal it up with...... something.....lol

 




Eee, you need to start
a business here!




In between shopping, Michal text me to confirm our late lunch at Paris. So after propping up the Ukrainian economy, we drop all the shopping at respective hotels and apartments and pick up Michal for 2.30pm lunch. Michal looks like crap and starts to explain the last 24 hours he has had with Sasha and Yuri. So we treat him with care and settle him into a cosy seat upstairs in Paris.


We are not quite sure what sort of food they have as we haven’t been there before. Our waitress seats us then comes back speaking in Russian & we ask if they have menus in English? (We don’t have Sasha or Dima with us to translate). Big shake of the head (no), and she vanishes........... next thing we have a new waitress trying to converse with us in broken English. She starts very slowly trying to explain that she can help us, but the conversation is very mixed. I leave the talking up to my European friends that are used to trying to converse in different languages. In the end, the waitress decides that she should order for us so she chooses “mixed steak” with two plates of salad and special bread, three beers and three juices to start with. We just nod our heads and hope we will get something to drink soon as we are thirsty. The waitress keeps coming back to talk, (practice her English), with us for no apparent reason on may occasions and we still have no juice, beer etc. This goes on for a while... her English is getting better by now. Finally we get beer (wrong type), no juice and three slabs of meat (we think pork) as well as two big plates of potatoes and veg and “special” bread, which I didn’t even try.


We noticed during our feast that “Paris” is more of a coffee shop, afternoon tea, ice cream type place and not really suited to our needs on the day. We will however, go back for coffee and afternoon tea at the waitress’s choice of course !

Christina at Paris








My IS guy now has his hard drive fixed, (purchased a new one), and has some time to spend with his customers. So after Paris, I purchase a bottle of Aussie Shiraz, grab my laptop and head to his apartment for development of special effects for my blog. With good music, some downloaded software and red wine, we go through a heap of photos and compile a slide show of some of my pics for the banner of my blog. Hope you like it!! There are a few faces from work missing, so my IS guy and I will convene every couple of months with red wine to update the banner to make it more interesting.

Some more pics of the boys and Ukraine sights

Really miss the wonderful summer fruits..... crisp apples, nectarines, peaches, grapes etc. I will be feasting when I get home!! Blue sky would be nice too!

Xm

Soccer and Sambuca

Well you cant say that we arent having fun. Saturday 14th , there were two very imporant soccer, ( sorry Gordon, football matches), World Cup qualifiers, for a few of my collegues. Russia verses Slovenia and Ukraine verses Greece. Not being much of a fan of soccer, I wasnt really supporting anyone, but I figured there would be very few Greece supporters in the room full of Ukrainians, so I quietly (very quietly) was hoping Greece would pull one out of the bag on the night. Kafritsas I hope you like my loyalty to your homeland? We booked a table at a local pub and a we also had a new friend join us. One of the girls at work (Anya), has a sister (Marcia) who spent some time in the USA and is always keen to practice her English, so we invited her along. Apart from that, my blog and Michals blog are filled with the same faces drinking and eating so its nice to have a new face to publish, so meet Marcia

Marcia & Sasha pulling a face as always

Anyway, we rock up to the venue and this pub brews its own beer, so of course, we had to sample the local drop. Quite nice actually, light and dark beer. We soon forgot about the beer as all the big screens came alive with the sound of the national anthem of Russia, as Sasha proudly stood and sang.

Little bit of History for mum...

The State Anthem of the Russian Federation (Russian: Государственный гимн Российской Федерации, Gosudarstvenny Gimn Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the national anthem of Russia.

It is an adaptation of the anthem of the Soviet Union of 1944, with music originally composed by Alexander Alexandrov. The lyrics were revised for the anthem of the Russian Federation by Sergey Mikhalkov, who had supplied lyrics for versions of the Soviet anthem in 1943 and 1977. The revision removes any mention of Vladimir Lenin's ideas and the "unbreakable union" of the Soviet state, instead focusing on a country that is vast in area and rich in resources that will be entrusted to future generations.

The hymn was adopted in late 2000 by President Vladimir Putin and replaced The Patriotic Song, which had been the official anthem from 1990. See Mum, I can be cultural (wait for the Ballet and Opera stories that are ahead :-) Maybe! )

Soccor Result. See below.........and Sasha is happy...... as he always is :-)

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Ukraine verses Greece. la de da de da..... Now the crowd starts to get excited

Mine says "Go Greece" and Sasha's says "Greece got to hell"

Half time and the venue provides entertainment (drinking games) for the patrons. I notice Sahsa and Dima talking, next thing, Dima vanashes and we find him on the stage ready to partake in these games. Michal becomes the official photographer for the night and can be seen snapping shots of guys drinking and partially removing their shirts..... Nothing spectacular to report girls..... but Dima did have great moves!!!

Michal being official photographer

Anyway, the prizes are ...”Fosters” caps.....

Soccer Results

Nill all draw !! So I walk out of the pub alive and everyone is happy because apratently both teams have to replay the matches this Wednesday night 18th November. Why? No idea, ask a soccer (sorry Gordon), Footbal expert, although I do beleive Australia & England have made it through, NZ has to beat Bahrain to get through, Poland are out of it (sorry Michal), South Africa (for Parker) and Switzerland (Pierre Andre') have also made it through to play in South Africa in 2010. And that folks is my knowledge of the World cup ! I'm sure somone will correct me if I have got and of these stats incorrect.

Anyway, back to us having fun. Its still reasonably early ..... 10.30 or so, so after a shot of Vodka (it was cold outside), we agree that the night is young and we need to play some more. Back to Michal’s we go and we decide that we require some beverages to polish off the night. Sahsa and Marcia vanish to find suitable refreshments and come back with a bottle of Sambuca. Now those of you who know me, know me as a Chardy girl, so this spirit stuff is new to me and I had no idea what a “flaming sambuca” was, ( I have led a sheltered life). I now know what they are and vow not to have them after beer and vodka again..... Sweety Darling Sweety...... This is, I'm sure something Pats and Eddie would do!!!!!!

Marcia was the expert at making these warm cocktails, but we all helped!

Sasha did the usual Sasha thing

And that my firiends is the end of the Sambuca !!!!

I think Dima and I left Michal’s at 2am, Sasha stayed the night and again on Monday, we were all very tired.

Monday 16th.

A new play mate arrived today. Christina from Germany is our new team member on the project. Welcome Christina and we hope you join us in our adventures in Ukraine. Team dinner at "Pushka's" tomorrow night where I hand over my Aussie flag to the staff to display in the restaurant.

Now one last thing. As we sit down at this pub to watch the soccer, Sasha announces that he has something special for me. He has been out wandering the streets (as you do sometimes here) and has found "POSTCARDS"................... Yes postcards! So, N and GOM, all I have to do now is find a post office ( havent seen one since I have been here), buy a stamp and post these things! Dont hold your breath, this could take another two months !!!!!

Thank you Alexander...... from SAM.
xx


xm

Russian Billiards

Bit of a wild Sunday last week (after Metro and shopping). Sasha’s girlfriend (Lada) was in town from Russia  he wanted us to meet her and do something. As I may have mentioned, Kharkiv, is not a tourist destination an there is no a lot to do, especially in the colder months when it gets dark at 4.30pm. So options for entertainment are a little bit limited especially if you don’t have transport. Mum even commented to me that all she seems to see us doing in my blog is sitting at tables, eating and drinking......... well yes, that is what we do,,,, and do it well!!!!! On my home visit, I will be purchasing board games, card games, DVD’s etc.

So we all met at 1pm and walked up to “Paris”, a rather nice looking eatery, which was closed.......... opens at 2pm!! Luck of the Irish!! Given the cool weather, we opted for an Italian feast of Pizza & beer and “shark attack”. It would take a while to explain the shark bit, so just let me say that I had a very nice cocktail which was red and had gin in it. This mixed with beer was making me feel ..... very happy, sweetie darling sweetie!

Sasha.......... what can I say!!... One of a kind and beautiful

By this stage, it was getting dark & Dima (our lovely local) explained that 5 minutes walk up the road would find us a pool hall. I’m thinking, this is going to be easy for me. I play pool with dad every Sunday!! We walk in and there are small tables for playing pool and full size tables......... for playing Russian Billiards! What the @#&* are Russian Billiards we ask?

After we ordered a round of drinks, we decided that pool was the easy way to go first up, so it was Russian speaking verses English speaking.... i.e. Michal and myself verses Sasha, Dima and Lada. Michal and I whipped their arses.... Thanks dad for all the practice! Next port of call...... I needed to wee. So Lada had investigated the toilets and I asked her opinion of them. Lada doesn’t speak English at all, so she picked up my camera and grabbed my hand and into the loo we went!

Yep I used it twice !! And survived. I must admit, I loved the look of pleasure on the guys faces as they came out relieved, compared to the girls faces which were expressing “ I cant believe I just used that... but try and act normal as you walk out”.

Back to Russian Billiards. This game is slow. You play on a full size table, but the pockets are smaller than normal and the balls are bigger than normal as we know in Aus. All the balls are white except one Maroon one. The aim is to get as many balls in for your side as you can. I can tell you, even if you have a ball right in the corner of the pocket, it takes extra skill to sink it. You have to be so precise! So I am thinking that If I get good at this game, that when I get home, I will be able to beat dad every Sunday at pool because it will be so much easier !!! Look out dad.

Hopefully you get an idea of the size of the pocket to the ball

Thanks for the pics Michal x

Now after a few more beers, we decided to call it quits. This is about 8.30 at night so it is still early, but because it is dark, it feels late.So waking back. my apartment is the first stop. “Come up and have a Vodka” I proudly say thinking my lovely bottle of “Relax” that I bought just yesterday, would last me until I went home in June next year. We decided that you cant just have vodka alone, you had to have beer as well, so I asked Dima if he would go down and buy some beer. We now have beer and vodka, cheese and bread and I can say that after the second vodka shot, I don’t remember much :-) Needless to say, we all had very sore heads and were extremely tired for the following two days. Berocca didn’t even help...... did it Michal?

me and a couple of mates

Nice warm hat

New taxi's... Eee will appreciate this
Bit of a long story, so I will try and navigate so you keep up with me. PMU provides transport by bus for PM employees living in the city to and from the city each day to PMU 45 minutes out of town. I think the reason for this is that the factory used to be in the city and then they re built it just outside the city ring road which is sort of an industrial estate but there is not much industry actually there. Sort of like moving the factory in Moorabbin to somewhere like Campberfield or there about.

The trouble for us (STA’s) is that the buses stop in the city centre which is about a 15 minute walk in the dark for some of us in the morning and at night (snow, ice and lots of people that don’t speak English). I wasn’t particularly happy with catching the bus, so we have had regular taxis (equivalent of Hyundai excel or similar) each morning and night that pick us up and drop us at our doors for $UAH 80.00 or 10 bucks each way Aussie dollars which we have been paying for. Anyway, we figured $10 each day for a taxi for nine months was going to eat into our Per Diem allowance, so we negotiated, with PM and we now have taxi vouchers. The trouble is, we can only use these vouchers with a particular company and this company only uses Volga cars. Now I dont know much about cars except for Holdens and Fords so I googled Volga...........

Volga (Russian: Волга) is an automobile brand that originated in the Soviet Union to replace the venerated GAZ-M20 Pobeda in 1956. Modern in design, it became a symbol of higher status in the Soviet nomenklatura. Volga cars were also traditionally used as taxi cabs, road police interceptors (not bloody likely), and ambulances.

Not sure about High status.....These things are a solid as a brick $#^% house and must weigh a ton, so you feel sort of safe (depending on the driver, last nights one was almost suicidal). I’m not sure what sort of engine they in them, but the first cab we had hardly got out of third gear the whole way home. Even the semi’s fully loaded, were pulling way from us on the ring road! Going up a steep hill near home, I swear I could have walked faster than this thing. Last night it rained quite heavily and going through the “dams” that form on the road, was not an issue for these Volga’s, straight through them like the water is not even there and sprays everyone standing on the footpath waiting for the bus !

Anyway folks. Mum has been complaining that there are no pics of me on the blog, just other people, so tonight I have flooded the blog with me....... Hope I havent bored you to tears !!!!!!

Inna an I at art exhibt

On Metro

You may have noticed that I have managed to put a pic of me on the header of the blog ! I thought this was quite cleaver of me until I saw Michal's blog and he has rotating pics on his. So I have asked my IS guy to help me reach the same milestones so I can brag about my technology advances, but my IS guy is a bit busy tending to his own hard drive. Postcards, maps of Kharkiv and rotating photos have been promised. Stay tuned.... N..& GOM. Postcards hopefully on their way ... very personalised with me and Lenin. New home address please N so I can send them.

At this point, one month in, I want to thank two very special people for helping me with the language barrieres and just being there in times of need....... at the checkout of a supermarket when the girl starts talking and you have no idea what she is asking., or simlpy telling the taxi driver where we want to go. Easy for you, but impossible for me.  Dima and Sahsa. You have been so helpfull from the moment I walked through the office door. True gentlemen and a credit to your yourselves. Thank you from SAM...

To my IS guy, its fun......  and I hope you fix your hard drive soon so you can provide some service to your customers..

That is all  for tonight folks

xm

Love to M&D.... Miss you & Sooty xxx