Our route

Here's our planned route - contacts/advice for all destinations welcome! Or why not come & meet us somewhere ;-)

Feb/March - Ukraine to Istanbul, via Moldova (& Transnitria)/Romania/Serbia/Bulgaria (Lisa); south France to Istanbul, via Slovenia/Italy/Greece (Chris)
April - Istanbul, Jordan & Israel
late April/May - north India to Nepal, overland
June/July - Hong Kong, Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam (Hanoi)/South Korea/Japan
August - Hawaii & California
September/October - central America - Panama to Guatemala, overland
late October - arrive in Canada (Uxbridge, ON)

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Rockin' in Podil

I write this post while enjoying a jar of beer in the Gastrorock pub.  Chris Streets, eat your heart out - it's just like an episode of Supernatural (well, not much but the soundtrack is perfect!).  Note that my beer came with a can opener (useful) and two fossilized fish (??).

After teaching some more lovely students about globalization this morning, I decided to explore the historic area of Podil (in central Kiev).  It's where the merchants used to live and luckily survived the devestation suffered by most other central areas.

I found a fabulous cafe (Sednay Cafe), open for just 2 months.  The owner is a world traveller and has lived in 6 different countries including England and America.  It was nice to chat to someone in English about trivial things - eg. the waitress had braces and we had a good laugh about orthodontists and Ugly Betty!

Then I went to the Chernobyl Museum.  Very sobering, with plenty of artifacts and photos from the disaster area.  It is sad to see how the effects are still ongoing as many people have returned to their homes which still have a high level of radiation, and are expected to remain this way for the foreseeable future.  Also, there is a strong tie with Japan because of Hiroshima, and in 2009 the Japanese government donated a lot of items to the museum (interactive exhibits & video equipment) - only to sadly suffer another nuclear disaster last year at Fukushima.

I was in museum mode by now, so I carried on to the "Museum of One Street", at the foot of Andrew's Descent (Andriivsky uzviz), which would be the most picturesque street in Kiev if it wasn't entirely dug up (new drains I think?).  Hope they get that sorted before the summer and Euro 2012!  The museum is very cute & friendly, with an English leaflet available for just 10 UAH (less than 1 GBP) - well worth the investment as it explains all the exhibits quite thoroughly!  The street has a long history and lots of famous occupants so the museum lays out all of this in chronological order.  They have an impressive collection of memorabilia and it's very nicely displayed.

Then I headed uphill (I think I was the ONLY person going up - it's steep but not that difficult!!), passing many stalls selling various crafts and souvenirs. Luckily there is no space in the backpack for anything (except of course my Ukraine magnet, which I've already purchased!).  At every turn there was a new perspective on St Andrew's Church which is right at the top of the hill.

Finally I reached the top, where there is a park surrounding the History Museum (didn't go in, 2 museums was enough for today!).  Lovely view over the city and down to the grand houses in the valley below - see my album for photos!

Finally I headed for the Gastrorock Pub, which I'd read about on TripAdvisor.  A bit expensive for my non-existant budget but a nice treat at the end of a long day.  Though I do wonder why they are showing a football match from 2009??

Tomorrow I am at an "exhibition" (your guess is as good as mine) and on Friday I have more lessons - my own presentation this time, about culture & language differences in English-speaking countries! - followed by an afternoon at the same exhibition.  Saturday is a full day of presentations about studying English in Canada, and then I will hop on the overnight train to Lviv.  Probably won't bring the laptop so don't worry if you don't hear from me during the next week - hopefully Chris will have time to fill in the gap!

Friday, February 24, 2012

A multilingual day

How many languages can I encounter in one day?

Yesterday began with my first-ever stint as an English teacher - I was scheduled to teach two lessons about "Globalization" at a school on the north side of the city.  It turned out that the school taught French as well as English - a perfect fit for this Canadian gal!

The lessons went quite well, except for my lack of interactive whiteboard skills (one lovely student scored me a 5+ on the scale of 1-5)...here I am with some students from the first session, and the real English teachers + that pesky whiteboard.

In the evening I attended La Traviata (in Italian, of course, with some oh-so-helpful Ukrainian subtitles!) at the Opera House in Kiev.  I loved the Opera House, which is very grand & elaborately decorated, and thanks to Oleh we had fantastic seats at the front of the first floor balcony.  Plenty of leg room, and 3 intermissions (with Georgian wine and open-faced sandwiches!) so altogether very well designed for someone who's not so good at sitting still!


We ended our evening at "Club 44", a basement venue with some hopping live music.  I loved that people were dancing even though there was no dance floor!  Hard to go back to the days of indoor smoking though...  The club did serve a decent pint of stout (O'Haras) and also some great beer snacks which were like a garlic crouton made with dark rye.  Mmmmmm

A little editing work and lots of floor-washing today (a forgotten downside of snowy winters - muddy bootprints everywhere)...now I can enjoy the rest of my weekend with friends who are visiting from London!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Oradour-sur-Glane

My host, Maryse, was kind enough to take me to see Oradour-sur-Glane on Monday. She knew I'm interested in history and this village is a permanent exhibition/memorial to events that occurred during World War II.

It was a haunting place. The entire village was burned and all the villagers executed by the Nazis in May 1944. The buildings have been left as found, with cars, sewing machines and other more hardy personal affects left in situ, as if the owners had not long departed. It is a particularly painful memory for locals due to the ferocity of the attack and as none were spared.

Above the entrance is the legend 'Souviens-toi' ... Remember.

Life in Kiev



Settling in in Kiev (Kyiv, Київ) quite nicely now.  Check out my new business card (Lisa Street, sic) and my rather large apartment.  Taking me back to my student days on Erb Street, Waterloo, the apartment building has centralised heating which is pumped up to the max - even when it was -25C outside, I still had a window open to combat the heating!!

I have managed - with the help of Oleh, a lovely local who seems to enjoy helping foreigners even more than I do! - to fill up the refrigerator, connect the DVD player (first film was Валл-і - that's Wall-E to you!), and master the marshrutka (taxi-bus).  Well, the latter is Ok as long as I have the correct change and someone else requests the bus stop where I want to get off  ;-)

On Sunday, Oleh took me to the small but beautiful church where his brother was christened (and we inadvertently crashed someone else's christening oops).  Then we went to the Lavra (Caves Monastery), a massive and stunning site full of churches (both underground & above ground) and the main religious site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - at least, the branch of this which is overseen by the Moscow Patriarch.  If I understand correctly, there is a relatively new Kiev Patriarch who heads a "fully Ukrainian" branch of the Orthodox church. It was so interesting to see these sights with a local person - I'm not sure I have such a high level of respect for any of my local sights! - but also he exposed lots of issues I wouldn't have thought of, such as whether it is fair to charge an admission fee to people who have simply come to the Lavra to pray...
Dormition Cathedral at the Lavra
Our final tourist stop of the day was a brisk walk around the park which surrounds the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII).  It's all a bit buried in snow right now but even so, I could spot several tanks, a plane and even a train on display.  There is also a strange above-ground concrete "tunnel" with many larger than life reliefs of war scenes.  On the other side of this tunnel you come to the GIANT statue of Rodina Mat (spot me, in the white coat, looking microscopic).  This is, not surprisingly, a Soviet legacy intended to represent the "nation's mother".  Oleh was less than impressed  ;-)




We ended our day with a traditional Ukrainian meal of borshch (my kind of soup, made seemingly randomly with meat, beans, vegetables & some beets for colour!) accompanied by pampushkamy (garlic buns) and some deruny (potato pancakes with sour cream - not as good as mine, I'm afraid  ;-) ).  Add some strolling traditional musicians - and no, this wasn't really a tourist restaurant - and we were all set.  Plus I finally restored my normal body temperature!  Which meant that I was unwilling to get out of the warm car to see the "floating church" next to the Dnipro river on the way home - frankly, it was very pleasant to do some sightseeing from the car at that point  ;-)  My favourite was the brightly lit rainbow monument "The Friendship of the People".

Well, now back to work - I have already done 3 presentations on Saturday about studying in the UK, and the next will either be school presentations about life overseas, or about studying in Canada.  Better study up on the latter myself - my school days were long ago!

I'll leave you with some funny "international errors" - my version of bloopers!

  • Spent ages studying the shampoo & conditioner options on my first shopping foray.  Proudly chose a Timotei product, only to find when I went to wash my hair that it seemed very unlike shampoo. Some laborious translation has revealed the word "intensive" - methinks I have bought some fabulous conditioner?  TOP TIP - shampoo = жампунь
  • Very frustrating evening with my borrowed Russian-language laptop, trying to convince it to connect to the modem at my apartment.  Created a random new connection (when it doubt, just choose the first option in each dialogue box!) and even attempted to get some remote help from Chris, but all to no avail.  Just as I was preparing to haunt the local WiFi hotspot for the next month, Oleh dropped by and took a look.  Hmm, would it help if the modem was plugged in...?  And how many times have I told people to check this first, when they report IT problems?!

More news soon as I have visitors this weekend, tour guide hat is ready to go!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

A Georgian Au Pair feast

A belated thank you to Jen (social organiser extraordinaire) and the Au Pair crew for a fabulous feast and proper Eastern European party at Mimino to celebrate my last days in London.  It certainly set the tone for my first stop in Kiev!
And extra thanks to the fantastic Russian party crowd for the Eurovision entertainment, poetry and dancing - although a certain KK had to show them how it should be done....
More photos can be found here!
with the birthday man





Friday, February 17, 2012

Encore du vin

A very civilised first port of call with a great friend of the Streets clan. It's Friday, so it must be the Dordogne. Yes, I've touched down in a gastronomic delight and will be squirrelling away some of this fine cheese and wine in my auxiliary stomach for leaner parts of our tour.

So far I've put my taste buds on the line and been rewarded with the sweetness of Pineau de Charentes and a lovely little tart named Clafoutis! - Chris

Cherry clafoutis

Mrs Lisa Streets, you are ready to fly

The text at the top of the boarding pass says it all.  We are on our way!

Shared the last breakfast for a while, at Heathrow Terminal 5.  Wagamama does breakfast!? - Lisa


Friday, February 3, 2012

Saturday night's alright for fighting

... or so it looks from some of these pictures. My punk inspired hair-do seemed to occasion a lot of menacing head-to-head photos!

Thanks to everyone who turned up to our farewell 'Come as you aren't' themed fancy dress party. It was touching that so many came to wish us well and weird to see so many people from different periods of our lives all together in the same room! Well done to all those who came in fancy dress.

I'm putting up pictures from the night as a receive them. If you have any good ones let me know.







The attached ones are courtesy of Gary, our official world tour photographer! ;-)