{"id":7538,"date":"2018-08-22T13:03:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T13:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=7538"},"modified":"2018-12-12T07:07:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T07:07:03","slug":"kyiv-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2018\/08\/kyiv-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine 2018
I arrive in Kyiv"},"content":{"rendered":"

E<\/span>arly one Friday morning I took the first tube to Heathrow, hopped on a plane and arrived at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport just after midday.<\/p>\n

I said ‘good day’, ‘hello’, ‘yes’ and ‘thank you’ in Ukrainian to the woman at passport control, she seemed pleased, it was a good start.<\/p>\n

I took the ‘Skybus<\/a>‘ to Kyiv’s main train station.  It was a lovely summer-like day so I decided to walk the 3km from the station to my AirBnB.<\/p>\n

Along the way a woman with a young child stopped and asked me a question. I’m pretty sure she wanted directions to somewhere but all I could say in return was ‘\u041d\u0435 \u0437\u043d\u0430\u044e’ (I don’t know), a handy term that I was to use on many occasions over the next nine days. Despite my inability to help I was rather pleased she mistook me for a local.<\/p>\n

I also saw a poster for an upcoming Slade (without Noddy) gig which amused me.<\/p>\n

\"slade\"<\/p>\n

After an hour or so of trudging through the Kyiv heat, I found my AirBnB in the Shevchenkivsky neighbourhood at 27 Velyka Zhytomyrska<\/strong>, an attractive old Kyiv street1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span> not far from the gorgeous St. Sophia’s cathedral<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I settled in, took a shower and lay down for a restorative nap.<\/p>\n