Sore Feets Saturday

Our sleeping habits have gone from pretty much great straight off the bat in terms of jetlag, to seriously screwed up! Perhaps everything has just caught up with us the past couple of days. Friday night we got to bed at 3am Kiev time, woke up at 8am, then went back to sleep until 1:30pm! So we scrambled to get out of the house because we really wanted to go to the micro-miniature museum (some guy over here makes little sculptures that fit on heads of pins; like a full tiny chess set, replicas of boats, etc) and do some other stuff. Instead, we ended up on a marathon walk to another big section of downtown that we discovered the day in the car when we went to the big supermarket. We traced our way back to the Opera House,

the huge red university building,

passed the “fancy” section of town with more upscale stores, through to what we figured was a bit of the more bum part of town, the football stadium they are currently building for the 2012 games, then back to the supermarket. Along the way I was really happy that we came across the main synagogue in the city, we had planned to go there especially on an excursion, but there it was so I went in. I wasn’t sure if it was even going to be open because it was still Shabbos but I tried the door and it opened- lucky for me! There was a security guard sitting behind the desk and I greeted him in Ukrainian, then asked if the sanctuary was open. He couldn’t speak English but saw my disappointed face, and he smiled and said, “Visit?” and I nodded enthusiastically, and he waved me in. That was so nice! So I went in and saw one of the loveliest, most spartan shuls I have ever seen, in private. There were a couple of large, sparkling chandeliers hanging from the arched ceilings. The pews were a deep, dark wood and all of the walls were a really beautiful luminous white, with soft grey undertones glowing in the shadows. The bima was the same dark wood as the pews, and the ark was the only intricate and decorated thing in the room, beautifully etched and carved.

I said the Hebrew prayer of thanks, and then I said another prayer for Mena in the stillness. When I left I felt 1000 pounds lighter in my heart.

The next stop will only be interesting to 3 other people in the world, plus myself, ha! I had seen a Laura Ashley store while in the taxi the other day, and I was so surprised, I knew I had to make a pilgrimage. To make a very long backstory short for the rest of you, while in university I worked for Laura Ashley, and met a lifetime best friend quite by accident. In addition to that, I met a couple of other girls who also became really good friends who, through the magic that is Facebook, I have recently connected with, again. This was an especially happy time in my life in the midst of a lot of other miserable shit that was going on, so to connect with these girls again has been especially sweet. So this one is for my girls! And guess what, everybody? After more than a decade, half way around the world, THE STORE SMELLS EXACTLY THE SAME. Coincidence, or crypt-keeper? You decide! Bwahhhhh!

So the next bit is a bit of personal trivia for anybody who knows me. Most of you know that when I lived in Ireland, I worked as a wine critic and did 2 books, and I also worked for an importer-start up (who I’d like to add has gone on to be the biggest importer now in that country). People ask me all the time, “So, what is the best bottle of wine that you’ve ever tried?” and I kinda sigh inside, because there is almost no humanly possible way to answer this question- it’s like asking someone what their happiest memory is- it changes all the time, based on criteria you consider at the time you are asked. Are they really asking if “best” means most expensive? Most exclusive with a cult-like following? Consumed in the most unforgettable circumstances? Shared with someone famous? Who knows? I never do. In any case, if you put a gun to my head, overall I guess I would answer “I don’t know.” I mean that literally. It was 2003, and we were in Verona, Italy. We had rented a farmhouse/villa with a little vineyard with a couple of friends for one spectacular week, driving down from Munich, Germany. Our first evening, we went to pick up groceries so we could cook a special supper in the outdoor kitchen, overlooking the vineyard and the setting sun. I grabbed a bottle of (obviously) local Valpolicella Ripasso, which we drank with grilled pork. I barely looked at the label- I just wanted something mid-price and local, and once it was poured I nearly died. It was unbelievable. From memory the next morning I wrote a tasting note even before I got out of bed. After dressing for breakfast and heading downstairs, I went into the kitchen to get the maker’s name off the bottle only to find that the housekeeper had cleaned everything up from the previous night, which included throwing out all the wine bottles. I panicked and went through the garbage myself. I looked out back barefoot and wincing over gravel shards in the yard to see if there were more bins or boxes of anything yet to be recycled. Nothing! It was like the night never had happened, and there was no one around to try to ask in extremely broken and mangled Italian about where the empty bottles had gone. It was awful! A trip back to the store was pointless- wine was consumed so frequently, stock changed practically on a daily basis so there wasn’t even a label I could recognise visually. It has been a mystery that has broken my heart for the last 7 years, and every single time I go anywhere I look at the Valpolicella selection in vain, trying to see if anything sparks a memory. It never does.

Until, I should say, our first grocery trip to the Ukrainian supermarket, of all places! They had a regular wine aisle there, and then they had a more premium area with $4800 USD bottles of cognac, etc. I am poking around the Italian section as always, and I spy a bottle of Valpolicella Ripasso that causes me to raise a single eyebrow. So I buy it. When we get home I crack it, and I have to tell you it is good. It is *very* good. It brings back some memories of dark chocolate and raspberries and new leather purses and a bit of incense and the strawberry jam my grampa used to eat that came out of a giant tin can that he would only buy if there was a dent in it, and the cupboard he kept it in smelled faintly of stale rye bread and brown paper bags. Could it be The One?

Each glass was better than the last, and the descriptions were getting more poetic as they usually do, by the time you see the end of the bottle. I was so irritated at myself for only buying one, when I should have bought a few as we’re here for at least another week! Anyways, back at the grocery store yesterday, I made a mall-walking sprint back to the wines to search for a couple more bottles. I looked at the shelf where I had picked it up- nothing. I began to pace up and down the row, eyes scanning everything from top to bottom like a jewel thief alone in Cartier… nothing! The heart was pounding, the lips were a tight line, the desire to scream some colourful f-word phrases were stuck in my throat like buzzing bees. Nada! Bupkis! NOTHING! Not a single bottle left on the shelves! Like a dream, my Valpolicella had thwarted me- yet again!

The only thing sorrier than having the ultimate last bottle of something, is having the maybe-last bottle of something. It’s worse because when you are drinking the very last bottle of something, you can at least see with your eyeballs that The End Is Near. So each sip is lingered over a little longer, you commit every swallow to memory, you get misty eyed over the finality of the experience, and then it is over. Like a funeral. But when you are drinking or enjoying something that you don’t know is about to end for good, though you are happily savouring the experience, you are doing it a little more greedily, a little more laissez-faire, oblivious to the obvious realisation of the eventual finality of time and life, and thinking ahead… kind of like a teenage boy with somebody else’s sports car.

And so, the wine is gone. At least this time I’ve managed to save the label. Though I’ll never really know if it was the same wine I drank in Verona, the fact that the question mark flutters overhead is tantalisingly pleasing to me in a masochistic sort of way. For now, anyways, I’ll consider myself spanked.