Kiev

Our train left at 11:30 pm, arriving in Kiev at 8 in the morning. I’d asked not to have food, but the ticket was issued including food, which turned out to be a great thing. We came into this super modern, beautiful compartment, with a table laden with treasures – sparkling lemon water, pate, beer, bread and cheeses, chocolates, etc. It was too late to eat, but when we woke in the morning expecting to have to jump off the train in 5 minutes, we discovered that there was a time change, and we had an hour to enjoy breakfast. The leftovers were lunch and dinner as well, which was a good thing, because Kiev was expensive!

Joplin and I left McKinley and Morfar guarding our bags in the shade downtown Kiev while we walked from hotel to hotel looking for a room. Nothing available, the only things possible were $250 suites. We kept walking. We were really hoping for an elegant, old tucked away place at $40/night. We found a new modern place on the hill for $114 – and that was after four hours of walking. But we used it for every penny – none of us had had a bath or shower since Beijing, so we took two baths each, and did all our laundry!

Then we walked. My poor father – game for anything, and full of energy, had spent days sitting around on the train, and suddenly eight hours of walking (bearing luggage because I was too cheap to leave it!) and another full day of walking in Kiev – he found some muscles that had been, shall we say, latent. Luckily, we had a hot bath, and I knew massage!