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