Movin’ And Groovin’

Well it’s one day later after our appt, yet it feels like at least a couple of days have passed. Time here is very weird when you are sitting around waiting for something that you have no idea when it’s actually coming- it moves like molasses.

Today we left our hotel and checked into our apartment. It’s $65 USD a day, and we have one large bedroom, and then the European “great room” which has been turned into a kitchen, dining area and a living room. It makes me think of apartments in Paris- those really old glorious buildings with all the iron balconies and scarlet geraniums and shutters. You go inside the giant wood door from the street then up a big stone staircase floor after floor, until you enter your apartment through another giant door. We have a glassed in balcony with another bed in there, and hanger contraptions to air-dry clothes. Below all the trees there are a couple of sitting gazebos where you can hear people chattering in Russian. It’s really lovely and it feels much more settled and “homey” than the hotel that was our beige paradise for the past 4 days.

We’ll be here until at least a day after our second appointment, which will be next Wednesday. There are another 7 families here from our agency- some with children some without, and Xenia is organising a little supper for all of us on Saturday so we can all meet and exchange notes. It’s another good thing about our agency- openness is really encouraged, there are no secrets or anything shady going on, so there is nothing to hide. They gave us a cell phone so we can call for help or to ask questions about anything 24hrs a day- be it what the Ukrainian word is for milk, to oh no, we’re in jail can you bail us out, etc. They have a driver ready to take us wherever we need to go at any time. So when Xenia helped us bring our stuff up the half a dozen flights of stairs this afternoon, she arranged Victor to come back later when we were settled to take us to a Supermarket so we could buy groceries.

What an experience retailing is in Ukraine! The other day I checked out a department store in the city center that made me think I was a character on “Are You Being Served?” It was so crazy and fascinating, I pulled out the old iPhone and tried to take a few sneaky pictures. They have a little glass cabinet for everything in there! There is no such thing as shopping on your own- somebody always needs to present you with whatever you are looking for. It’s kind of funny and kind of annoying all the same when you are used to self-service in North America. For instance, if you are shopping for a light bulb, they have a little glass counter with a lady behind it, and a bunch of light bulbs each with a little tag tied on by a piece of white string with the details of the item and the price. The job of the salesperson is to grandly present you with the thing, and explain all the pertinent details that makes it special. So for instance, I was at a counter and thought maybe I’d pick up a pack of cards because when I was in Prague years ago I bought a neat pack made by a particular company, and here they had some more made by that brand- they are really illustrated beautifully. So the lady presents me with the cards, and goes on to explain in Ukrainian why they are so wonderful- how many cards you get, how many jokers, the lovely pattern on the back of the cards, etc etc.

Merchandising is another fascinating thing. There are no “groups” of things, there are just many individual items on their own- kind of like what I imagine an old general store would be like a hundred years ago. So there are piles of dresses, ties, purses all hung up or on display and only one of each- if it ain’t in your size, then you are SOL. I absolutely HAD to take a photo of the hat department! Two salesladies behind a counter full of hats, hats and more hats! When I was little my sister and I had a Barbie Store playset, and it reminded me of that; a glass counter with hats on display above and under it, every one of them individual and unique. The ladies were pissed when I took the photo, I suddenly became aware of a burly security guard making a bee-line for me so I scooted down the escalator. Maybe they thought I was ex-KGB and taking pictures to spy on the department store for the secret police- I don’t know. I did try to be discreet!

Upstairs, the men’s floor was also unintentionally hilarious. I don’t mean to sound like an asshole tourist who thinks everything is better in North America because that is so obviously untrue- but it was just so strange and weird. Like a Twin Peaks department store! There is this homeless guy that walks down my street everyday, and he has this rotten old black wig that is all matted up like Elvis-meets-Donald-Trump, it’s like a 70’s shag rug that’s been ripped out of a van. Well Jesus, didn’t I stop and do a double take when I saw two mannequins standing there in the corner with the EXACT SAME black wigs and too-big Salvation Army suits! I swear when I get home I’m going to have to take a picture just so you guys can compare for yourselves- it’s like he and his long lost twin followed us all the way here!

I also wanted to talk about the supermarket in this post, because it was really neat. If you live in Montreal, you are probably familiar with Marche Adonis. This is a pretty European supermarket that is always stuffed full of people ramming into you with their overloaded carts as they argue for marinated meats from the butcher counter and then fight over being next at the incredible heaping counters of baklava. Well MaxiMart was pretty much the same thing, except Soviet-style. Look, I know I keep saying soviet when Ukraine is completely independent and democratic, but it really is a city of extremes. All the people under 25 are somewhat influenced by western culture, while the people who are older still have that sort of soviet mindset. So along with the aisles of imported European pasta and olives, you have aquariums of carp and other fish giving you googly eyes, and everywhere there are sales people again, each helping you with an individual thing. In the fruit section you are allowed to choose what you want, but then you must bring it to a lady who weighs it and gives you a ticket. Same with the vegetables and bread, and cheeses and meats. But for cereals, rice, coffees and other boxed or canned products you are on your own- except for the salesperson standing by, about 2 in every aisle, waiting if you need help in choosing anything. Really, if this is the way it is over here, the Americans could make a fortune if they just trained a bunch of sales reps from General Mills or Pepsi Co and paid off the Russian mob to have them work in every store to do some heavy handed “marketing”.

One of the most interesting aisles to me was the frozen food section! I love going into grocery stores no matter where in the world I am, and it’s usually something I do pretty much immediately after I land. I love seeing how other people eat, and also how they shop- I don’t know why, I just do. So the frozen food section is basically a bulk aisle- just frozen. What an idea! It would never fly in North America, home of the lawsuits and the afraid, but here it is incredible. There are all sorts of frozen vegetables, fruits, seafood, perogies and dumplings, and all sorts of other stuff I have yet to recognize all in bins with plastic scoops. You simply scoop out what you need of anything, go to the lady to tag it, and then pay. No more freezer burned anything! If you need 2 cups of broccoli, then you buy exactly 2 cups of broccoli. If you need 9 shrimp, you buy 9 shrimp. What an idea! It’s like a candy counter, except with healthy food. Buy what you need. Honestly, what a concept.

Also, there was an entire aisle devoted to chocolate bars. Literally, an entire aisle, floor to top shelf- every kind, every filling, every size. God, it was heaven! Milk chocolate specifically from Germany with cherry bits and hazelnuts? No problem! Austrian dark chocolate filled with a rum and almond mousse? Over there! Thank god the PMS was gone 2 weeks ago, or there would have been some tears and trouble.

And the last thing that I love so much in Europe: the dairy products! I can still taste that milk I had the first time I went to Cork and had a bowl of cereal at a random B&B! It was out of this world! Ice cold, creamy, silky, full and round in your mouth… it was nothing like I’ve ever tasted before or since. So I spent a good while checking out all the yoghurts and milks and creams- much to my confusion, in the end. It seems that Ukrainians have an entire canon of milk products- from kefir to watery milk to what we might call 2% to all sorts of varieties of creams and sour creams and crème fraiche. Because everything was in Cyrillic, I had to rely on feeling the weight of the container in my hand and then sloshing it around while trying to guess. I wanted to make my Grandma’s creamed chicken recipe tonight, so I needed cooking cream. I made a guess at what they call 4% over here and bought that. It turned out to be pretty liquidy and smelled a bit sour, sort of like melted sour cream. In any event it worked except for the fact that I bought some chicken backs devoid of meat, thinking they were whole chickens just chopped up for you. Hell, they were positioned right beside the whole chickens, so how was I supposed to know? Luckily I had bought a couple of plain chicken breasts too, so I just threw them in when I discovered my little surprise and saved our supper from being Button Soup.

Well, Oisin is watching TV, and I hear my chocolate bar calling me from the kitchen, so I’m going to call it a night. Tomorrow we are doing a bit of sight-seeing. We may go to Babi Yar, which will be heartbreaking, or we may wander around the Opera House and a museum or two. In any case, we’re really enjoying our time here, it feels like a bit of a honeymoon or something. We haven’t been on an extended trip like this since 2002, and it feels so good to discover the world again in a new way. It’s a feast for the senses.