Chapter 10: Day Three – 1st Full Day in Kiev
Before I start with my next day, I want to back-track a bit. I described my relatively trouble-free journey to Kiev. It would probably be helpful to discuss what Victoria’s journey was like.
She took the train from Kherson to Kiev. That much I knew. And she wrote me a couple of days before she left to tell me that she had good news: a student of her Uncle was going to Kiev as well, and he was going to assist her in getting around.
I was encouraged by this. For some reason, though, I had a much different impression of what she meant by “assist.”
What happened was that she arrived in Kiev, and he helped her stow her bags at some kind of bag check counter. Then, he walked with her to the apartment. (I get the impression it was several miles from the train station.) At that point, he wished her luck and left.
She walked back to the train station, retrieved her luggage, and walked to our apartment. As she told me the story, she laughed, describing the wild eyed looks she got as she hauled three pieces of luggage through the streets of Kiev.
One young man offered to help her carry her luggage, and wait with her at the apartment, but she wisely did not accept his “generous” offer.
The incredible thing about this story to me was: First, she did it. Second, she never complained about it once. When she told me about it, it was not to elicit sympathy. It was because she thought it was hunurous to have carried luggage through the streets of Kiev…
OK… now… on to the next day…
Victoria wakes before I do, and goes into the living room to study her English. We had some moments of frustration as we tried to express what we were feeling with our limited shared vocabulary the night before. Victoria speaks what I would call basic conversational English. It was made worse by the fact that she was nervous to speak with me the first night.
The second day goes much better. We know that we cannot express the full measure of what we want to, and we have accepted that. With the pressure off, ironically, we communicate better on the second day. She has an English to Russian dictionary, and a Russian to English Dictionary.
I had brought a small Franklin Translator. It is about the size of a thin cigarette case (and I know the fact that I know what that is dates me…) The advertisement boasted that it had 44,000 words in it. Odd that it never seemed to have the word that I wanted, though. Still it was handy to have with us, because I could easily slip it into my pocket. We used it a lot. Sometimes, it helped just to type out the word in English. Victoria reads English better than she speaks it.
It was strange, though, the words that it didn’t have in it. I amused myself by typing in words just to see if they were there. Some surprised me. For instance, Superstition was in there. Some just didn’t make sense… For instance, how can you have the word condom, and not include the word orgasm? (Never mind how I know that… I just do…) Anyway, I guess it was $50 well spent, but I was always thinking that there is probably better model, and I wish I had found it. (I bought it at Fry’s and it was the only one they had which translated Russian…)
When I was at the DFW airport, I had bought Victoria a Texas souvenir. It was a T-Shirt with bluebonnets on it, that had "Texas" Embroidered across the chest. When I woke up that morning, I found her wearing it and blue jean Capri pants. She looked nice: just like an American housewife as she cleaned off the plates from breakfast.
After we have breakfast, Victoria patiently waits for me to plan our day.
This is a challenge. She wants me to plan everything, of course, since I am the man. But, of course, I am in a foreign land and I don’t speak the language. I can’t read billboards, or newspapers, or even watch local TV to figure out where to go. There are several magazines and newspapers in the apartment. Most are in Ukrainian… but luckily, one is not, and it is my lifesaver. It is called: “Whats-On”… and happily, it is in English. Apparently, there is a significant ex-pat community in Kiev. The magazine claims a circulation of 40,000. Make that 40,001 – because I got every copy of it I could get my hands on.
What made it even better was that it was free. You could pick up a complimentary copy in most restaurants. (You can check out their Web Page at: www.whatson-kiev.com ) This was a tremendous help. It reviewed restaurants, and talked about what was happening around town. Most of the restaurants that advertised in the magazine catered to the ex-pat, so I frequently had English speaking waiters and waitresses… and I always had an English menu. Like I said, it was a life-saver.
If I had one complaint with it, it was that it used some sort of an icon system to code the restaurants. Some were self-evident… the little Mastercard symbol for instance. The little bra symbol meant that they had a strip show at the restaurant. (A surprising number of the fine restaurants do…) But a couple of the symbols I couldn’t figure out, and I poured over the magazine from cover to cover and could never find a legend for their icon keys.
However, my first item of business on this day could not be found in Whats-On, because I wanted to buy a guitar.
During our letter writing, when we were sending photos back and forth, Victoria had gone nuts when she had seen the picture of me with my guitar. She asked if I played, and I told her that I did, and she told me she longed to hear me play...
It was impossible, of course, for me to bring a guitar with me. But I was pretty sure that I could find a cheap or used guitar in Kiev which would serve the purpose.
Now, they may have “second-hand” stores, or “pawn-shops” in Kiev. But if they are there, I don’t know where. And trying to get the concept that I wanted to buy a “used guitar” through our language barrier was just impossible.
So, I asked her where I could get a guitar. She was puzzled by this, but in the end decided to take me to a department store.
She disappears into the bathroom to get ready. I assume this means she has to put on some make-up. I wait for what seems like a rather long time, and she emerges from the bathroom completely changed. And I mean... completely changed.
No longer does she look like a typical American Housewife. Now she looks like a Russian babe, ready for a night on the town. She has put on tight black slacks, and a tight fitting blue velour top that leaves her shoulder bare. Her hair is perfect, and so is her make-up: complete with eye-shadow. And, of course, she is wearing high heels.
She announces she is ready.
Suddenly... I am not. And I go to change out of my jeans.
This is a pattern that emerges. She will wear “American type clothes” around the house, but NEVER when we go out. Even when we would go to the market for bread, or McDonald’s for goodness sakes, she dresses up and puts on make-up. We never leave the house without her looking like she stepped out of the pages of vogue.
She leads me to a Department Store. Naturally, we walked.
Another aside… I have heard men say to be prepared to be walked to death by these ladies. I will say that Victoria walks everywhere, and has very healthy legs. However, she *was* wearing high heels. I am not in the shape that I used to be, but it was just a season ago that I was playing hockey in a league… so, I would have been shocked if she had walked me to the point where I had to beg for mercy.
I have no doubt that she is more fit than I am. (She is also ten years younger…) But I have yet to meet the woman who can out-walk me while wearing two inch heels. If your lady outwalks you while wearing heels like that… it’s time to buy a tread-mill and use it… IMHO.
Nonetheless, it was obvious that she was content to walk everywhere. And, I was not. Especially when I figured out how much taxi cabs cost. But more on that later.
In Kiev, they have underground passages everywhere. You really never need to cross a street through traffic. They have small mall subways where you can walk under the street instead of crossing over it. Again, noting the way taxi drivers drive in Kiev, this is not a bad idea.
As we walked under one of these malls, Victoria asked me if I were hungry. I really wasn’t since we had eaten about an hour before, but it was lunch time, and Victoria wanted to stop. So we did. We ate at the equivalent of Ukrainian fast food. She ordered some kind of dumpling looking thing. It was similar to what we usede to call peroges (I’m not sure of the spelling of that) which I had when I was in Pittsburgh. I always thought it was a Polish dish, although the Russian Orthodox Church sold it during bake and cooking fund-raisers. We also had a small salad that resembled cole slaw, but that had a oil and vinegar type dressing. It was all actually very good.
Now, one problem that I live with is that I have a pretty delicate digestive system. I have to kind of watch what I eat. So, I had a little concern about eating foods that I had never seen before. But, I decided to just go with it, and trust God and Imodium A-D to get me through. Interestingly enough, I never had any problem with any of the food I ate in Kiev except for the one afternoon we decided to eat at McDonald’s… there is probably a lesson to be learned there…
The simple lunch really stuck to my ribs, and I wasn’t even too hungry later that evening when dinner time came around. I think I paid something like six dollars for the meal for both of us. (That included a beer for me…)
After the quick stop for lunch we were off to the department store. It was a very large building that was probably about 8 stories high. It reminded me of the old Gimbel’s department store in Downtown Pittsburgh when I was a kid.
We hit the sixth floor, and I asked Victoria if she knew where the men’s room was. Not only did she not know where it was, she didn’t know what I was talking about. Score one for the little Franklin Translator. Restroom, thankfully, is one of the 44,000 words it knows. She asked, and discovered that it was on the first floor. So… down we went.
It cost .50 hrvs. to use the facilities. That’s a little less than a dime, and it was well worth it.
After my quick pit stop, off we went again, working our way back up the stairs. I will admit that the steps were starting to get to me.
I asked Victoria if she knew where the music department was. She thought it was on the eighth floor, but, because I suggested it, she decided to ask.
Good thing. It was … you guessed it… on the first floor.
Back down we went…
Luckily, they did in fact have some guitars at the music department. They were behind a counter, and you had to ask to see them one by one, which is awkward when you don’t speak the language. I took Victoria aside and asked her if she would be able to take the guitar home with her when the week was finished. She said that it would be difficult, and I could tell it was a question she had been waiting for. She knew I couldn’t take it with me… she couldn’t take it… so what were we doing here?
All that told me was that I couldn’t buy one of the “better” guitars. I settled on one that was $335 hrv. (Or, somewhere between $50 and $60 dollars.) Victoria saw the price tag and asked me if I wanted to go home and think about it. I told her, no, I wanted her to tell the man we would take it. She looked at the price again. “Are you sure you don’t want to think about it some more?”
I said, no, I am not walking all of the way back here again. We are here now, and we will take it. She looked at me like I was insane.
“It’s important that I have it,” I tell her.
So, she translated, and a moment later, we are walking out of the store with a new guitar wrapped up in a plastic bag.
I realize that I had just spent a month’s salary (as far as she was concerned) on a guitar that was, essentially, disposable. But I knew that she really wanted to hear me play for her, and it was less than the price of one meal out in Texas. I wanted to do this.
I tell her that we need to take a taxi home. No, she says, the metro is not far.
No, I say, we need a taxi. I don’t want to carry this all of the way home on the metro…
She looks at me, and I can read her mind: If there were EVER a time to save money it was now, because Her crazy man just blew a month’s pay on a guitar! But, she resigns herself that I’m not backing down and hails us a cab.
It cost $15 Hrv. for the cab ride home. When I go to tip the driver, Victoria takes the money out of my hand, pays the cabbie, and puts the rest back in my wallet, leading me out of the cab like a little child. I let her hustle me back into the apartment building, and do some quick math. That cab ride just cost me $3.00 dollars. I decide to never take the metro again.
That afternoon, I play guitar for Victoria for the first time. I don’t make it through my whole “set” before she has taken the guitar away, laid it carefully on the chair, and then pushes me back on the bed…
Some time later…
I am still overcoming jet-lag, and so I have spent a little time napping. Victoria let me sleep, while she cleaned the kitchen, living room, etc. I have no idea what she actually cleaned, since it was only our first day in the apartment, and I am pretty sure a maid had been in there just two days before. Finally, she comes and wakes me.
It has gotten dark, and she seems distressed. I ask her what is wrong.
“I am a terrible wife!” she exclaims.
This is news to me. “Why?” I ask.
“I made love to you instead of going to the market. And now the market is closed, and I have nothing to make you for dinner. This was foolish of me!”
And I’m thinking… Cute kid… her priorities are a little screwed up, but we’ll work on that.
She is serious, though, is the thing. So I have her lay down beside me and I explain how I preferred the choice she made, and would take it any day of the week. And I also explain how any American man I knew, would be congratulating me on finding such an incredible wife.
She thought I was teasing her, so I explained about the age old: “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache” joke, and how American Women, as a rule, feel about sex. It takes awhile, for there are a LOT of words that aren’t in my Franklin Translator for this discussion, and I have to look them up.
When I am finished, Victoria is silent. We lay for a while, with her head resting against my chest, and I can tell that she is thinking about everything I have said. Finally she lifts her head up, looks me straight in the eye, and asks:
“Why do American women not like sex?”
Wow… she gets to the heart of it, doesn’t she?
I tell her that I don’t know, and that American men have been asking the same question for years.
We’re quiet for awhile, and she asks me: “What will we do for dinner then?”
And I tell her it is time for me to take her out. So, we get ready to go. Fortunately, she has to clean up, apply fresh make-up, and put on the evening’s outfit, so I have plenty of time to get ready, and read “What’s On” to decide where we will go for dinner.
Since I know she has never had Mexican Food before, I decide to take her to the Tequila House, Kiev’s only (as far as I know) Mexican Restaurant.
It’s not a bad dinner, though after reading through the menu, I decide to stick with fajita’s. I’m not sure how authentic the rest of the Mexican food will be in Kiev. She enjoys the fajita, although the meal is outrageously expensive in her mind (for the two of us it comes to about $30). I can tell that she can’t really enjoy the meal because she feels guilty. If she hadn’t been so passionate, we could have had dinner at home.
As you can imagine, I am feeling that all is pretty much right with the world.
We go home, I sing to her some more… it has the same effect on her as before… and I go to sleep a happy man (and thinking that the guitar would have been worth it at ten times the price…)
