Apartment Prospects In Kyiv Look Good
Well, I've narrowed the apartment choice down to three - but more about that later. First things first.
Ed's meeting on Saturday did in fact take place. Ed insisted on going to the train station with me at 6:30 a.m. and I left not knowing whether or not he would be having the meeting with the General. Ed called me at about 9 a.m. to tell me that the meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. and that Vicky would be going with him to translate. When Ed arrived in Kyiv later that night I learned that this meeting did not go quite as planned. The General was there with his assistant and one of the lawyers from the meeting the previous day, as well as another general. The drafting of the "instructions" was never discussed. (Vicky had not received them until late the night before, and she hadn't been able to get them completely translated, so maybe that was a good thing.) Apparently the General has approved the agreement that was hashed out and redrafted during the meeting Arkadiy, Gennadiy and Ed had with the police lawyers on Thursday, but he is still very concerned about the PD office being overwhelmed with cases if every detainee who cannot afford a lawyer is assigned to the PD office. As the second general put it - "You don't want to give birth to a still born baby." Later he said "We are in a desert and you want to plant plum trees." I like this guy! He's right - they should just limit the program to one police station - I think they are biting off way more than they can chew. So does Ed - now he just has to persuade Gennadiy and Arkadiy on that point. So the meeting really got nowhere, except that the General suggested that Ed and Gennadiy spend a few days at the police stations to see for themselves how many cases come in, and whether they think the referral process is manageable. Of course, no schedule was set for their visits! Why arrange such a thing in advance????
Ed had a really hard time on the train. The woman in charge of his car demanded that Belle have a ticket or she would have to stay in her case (the tiny one) the whole trip (6 hours!!). He offered to pay for a ticket, but she said he couldn't (just when you need a corrupt official, you don't find one!!!). We have never had this problem before, but we have always traveled first class. Of course he had to let her out, and then he had to keep on guard the entire time so that he could stuff her back in when he saw the woman coming down the aisle. It was exhausting for both of them. By the time they arrived in Kyiv it was not only dark and cold, but it was also raining (guess who had no umbrella!!), and Ed's taxi driver got "lost" ringing up 65 Hryvnas on the meter - it should have been about 20 HVA - and Ed agreed to pay him 50. It's an easy metro ride, but not for the first time (as it would have been for Ed), especially in the dark, let alone the rain, so I had told him to take a taxi. Ed turned down one offer from a taxi driver for 40 HVA, but assumed, as I would, that a meter would be best. Now we know better - a meter is fine if you know the way and "help" the taxi driver find the right route.
Ed called from outside the hotel to make sure Belle was allowed in and that he didn't have to stuff her in the case and sneak her in. I assured him that I had checked this all out and that she was definitely allowed. (I had done this both when I made the reservations for us and for Jodi and her dad, and again when I called for this reservation). Well, when Ed arrived with Belle in tow, the receptionist did not agree - she said dogs were not allowed and showed Ed the rules that prohibit them!!! I came out in the hotel's terry cloth bathroom prepared to do battle. The receptionist was on the phone to the manager, I was able to tell her the date I made the reservations, and the exact time I had stopped by in person, as well as the precise time I phoned. They decided to allow it, but only if we agreed to pay for any damage. No problem! Now Belle, who barks at the elevataor at our apartment, and at every passing ant or other creature on the canals, never barks when we take her to a hotel - in fact, she never barks when she's in a new place - it isn't until she knows it is her home that she feels she has to protect it. Naturally, on this night she decided to bark at everything - and our room was practically adjacent to the receptionist! It was a nightmare. I had to hold on to her all night long, and I don't think any of us slept much that night!
My train ride to Kyiv was uneventful - I arrived on time, found the metro easily and quickly without having to go up or down any stairs, and was at the hotel by 1:30, 1/2 hour after my arrival. I was meeting the mother-in-law of the owner of the apartment I was excited about (we refer to it as Michael's apartment - because, naturally, Michael is the name of the owner) at 2 p.m. I got there on time, and Tetyana was waiting for me. She speaks very little English, but more than she thinks she does, as is often the case with Ukrainians. The building is on a really nice street, extremely well-located, and the building itself is quite nice. The entrance is the usual horrible Ukrainian entrance, but I'm very used to that. The elevator is the usual Ukrainian horrible elevator, but I'm used to that as well. The apartment is on the third floor. There is a locked door that leads to three apartments on one side of the elevator - the back side of the building - which is where Michael's apartment is situated. There are three apartments behind this door. Michael's apartment is as nice in real life as it is in the photos. It just has a lovely feel to it - warm and cozy, and elegant. BUT it is very, very small. Now, I'm used to small - the apartment in Kharkiv is probably 40 square meters and we've had no trouble living here. But this one is even smaller, and even though it is a "2 room" apartment, the two rooms are the kitchen/eating area and the living room/bedroom (usually the two rooms are one large living room/kitchen/dining area and one separate bedroom). In fact the bed folds out of the living room wall, with a queen size mattress imported from America!!! Also it has no view at all - the former balcony is now enclosed - it makes a kind of bay window area set off from the living room, and it is where I would put a desk and make my workspace - and those windows basically look out into other apartment windows (no more running around in my undies until midday!!). But I liked it, and there's no commission, and I think the owner will be willing to buy a desk and desk chair, a couple of end tables and a coffee table that will fit in with the other furniture. This was definitely one I wanted to come back to with Ed on Sunday. I arranged for us to see it at 11 a.m.
My next appointment was at the real estate agent's right across the street from the opera house. It took me 15 minutes to get there - so that's good. Michael's apartment is not only near the metro at Maidan (remember the sea of orange scarves and hats during the Orange Revolution? That's Maidan) - about 2 minutes away - but it is also not far from the opera house, a place I intend to visit often.
The time with the real estate agent was not quite so productive. Turns out I could only see two places - I thought I was going to be seeing about 6 places, but most of them were not available for viewing on the weekend, and one won't be available until the tenants leave on the 10th. The ones I couldn't see included the two I really wanted to look at - the one at Olginskaya that I had seen on my last trip, and the one near Planet Fitness that I had also seen on my last trip. I had seen both of these with different agents, but the first agent for Olginskaya had just emailed to tell me that the price was now $3000 - out of the question - and the new agents had it listed at $2500 (also out of the question, but at least a better starting point for negotiations), and the first agent representing the apartment near Planet Fitness just hadn't been able to arrange for me to see it because she was out of Kyiv for the weekend - so much for that agent! In any case, the two apartments I was shown weren't right for me, but the agent was able to arrange for viewings of Olginskaya and the one near Planet Fitness on Sunday - the first at 10 a.m. and the second at 3 p.m.
I was finished at about 5:30, so I called about another ad in Kiev Post and arranged to meet the agent at 6 p.m. This one is just slightly out of the center, near all the embassies - so the location is not quite as desirable. I walked there from the hotel and got there before 6. This apartment was huge - and the asking price is $2800 - a really big living room with huge leather arm chairs and a leather sofa (pale yellow - not too practical), a fantastic kitchen that opens off the living room (which I like) and a nice dining table, 2 big bedrooms, tons of closet space, and one of the bedrooms is empty and can be furnished any way the tenant wants (e.g., as a study for me), and it has a nice open balcony. The bathroom is great and has radiant heated floors. I told her I might want to see it the next day (Sunday) and that I have a small dog (the other agents know about Belle). She said she would call the owner (who is British) and ask about the dog and then call me to arrange a time to see it again on Sunday if the owner doesn't object to the dog. The only real drawbacks are the price, the location, and the fact that the hallway wasn't lit (it was pitch dark in front of the apartment door - God only knows how she got the key in the lock, especially since all these apartments have complicated locking systems where you have to put one key in facing backwards, another key facing upwards, press three fingers on three buttons simultaneously, and do a backflip, all at the same time, in order to get the door open!!!). We don't really need all that space, and I hate paying for it when I don't need or even want it.
By now it was getting on 7 p.m. and I wanted to shoot off an email to Michael to tell him that I really liked his place and ask him some questions. I went back to the hotel to use the business center and learned that use of the computer and the internet costs $20 an hour!!!!! I asked where the nearest internet place was and I was directed to the post office, which is only 5 minutes away. But by the time I got there, 8 p.m., it was just closing. So instead I went to Double Coffee on Kreshchatik because when we were in Riga we had the greatest potato pancakes with red caviar at Double Coffee. But, alas, no red caviar in Kyiv - but great potato pancakes with sour cream. By the time I finished and got back to the hotel it was 9 o'clock and time to watch the incredibly superficial and really useless documentary "In The Footsteps of Bin Laden" with Christianne Amanpour on CNN. Ed arrived at about 11, and after getting Belle squared away with reception we just crashed.
Breakfast comes with the room at Gintama, and it was good - lots of blini and toast for me and cold cereal for Ed. Then it was off to Olginskaya - I disliked the furnishings (and those horrible verticle blinds on the windows, spoiling the pretty ogee windows in this beautiful Tsarist building), especially the kitchen, every bit as much as I had the first time. It's just that the apartment itself is so pretty - if I were buying it I would jump at it. But I just don't love it when I walk in the door. Next, we went to Michael's apartment, and I had the same good feeling when I walked in as I had the first time I saw it. It's just cozy and warm. Ed agreed that we would need end tables, a coffee table, and a desk and desk chair, and he also agreed that it was charming and that the lack of space would not be a problem. I told Ed that I had several more apartments to see with yet another agent that afternoon, starting at noon, and that he should install himself somewhere with Belle and I would call if I wanted him to see any of them. I didn't, and we hooked up at about 1 p.m. at the internet place in the post office (Ed had checked out, left the suitcase at the hotel, and brought Belle with him). I was emailing Michael to find out if he would get the furniture we needed and to ask a number of other questions about the apartment. When I was finished the three of us went to a cafe on Kreshchatik to pass the time until my appointment to see the apartment near Planet Fitness at 3 p.m. When I went back to see that one at the appointed time I found that I didn't like it quite as much as I had the first time, but I still like it well enough, and Belle is a known and pre-approved factor here. So I thought I should have it as a backup in case Michael would not allow dogs (he had already told me that smoking was prohibited in the apartment, so I knew he was particular). We talked about it with the owner's agent, who was there (the owner is an American real estate investor who lives in Malibu!), and we discussed the purchase of another wardrobe, a wooden coffee table, end tables for the bedroom and a desk and desk chair, as well as a reduction of the rental price from the asking $2200 to $2000 (Michael's is asking $1900), which, with the commission amortized over 9 months (which is probably how long we will stay there), comes to about $2150 a month.
I also got a call from the woman who showed me the huge apartment the night before, telling me that the owner said the dog was okay, but I decided it was too big, too expensive, and too far on the outer edge of the inner circle - and besides, she couldn't show it to me until 5 p.m. (she was cooking!), and our train left at 5:30. So I told her I was no longer interested.
We went to the train station by metro and it was a nightmare. The metro was unbelievably crowded. I had the rollie suitcase, and Ed had Belle and her carrying case. We were honestly worried that Belle (who was in Ed's arms) would be squashed to death. I have never seen anything like it. Not in NY, not in Japan, not anywhere. And this was at 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon!! We only had to go three stops, but at each stop people rammed you as they tried to get out and then other people rammed you as they tried to get on. But we made it, with time to spare. We had decided that we should try and get a ticket for Belle, and I wanted to get her ticket in the same car as ours, so I went to get our tickets and passports out of my little fanny pack. There were the passports, but NO TICKETS!!! I went through everything - my purse, my fanny pack, Belle's case, my suitcase - NO TICKETS!! I must have left them at the hotel or thrown them out there. I was frantic. The ticket booth for eenozemkas (foreigners) was all the way at the other end or the station, in the new south wing (at least I knew where it was - it had taken me about 45 minutes to locate it the last time we were there!). I ran as fast as I could and saw long lines everywhere. I managed to go up to the front of one of the lines, find someone who spoke English, and explained that my train would be leaving in 10 minutes and that I had lost my tickets, could I please go to the front. And they let me do it - but the ticket agent sent me to another window. The person who was helping me went with me, and again I got to the front of the line. SOLD OUT!!!! Well, I said I thought I remembered that we were in car 2 in the last 2 seats in the compartment - go to the train and see if they'll let you on is what everyone said. So that's what we did. Fortunately the track for our train was very close by, so we ran down to the train and I saw the woman who had been in charge of my car on the way to Kyiv - she remembered me because I had two seats - and I tried to explain to her that I had lost our tickets and could I get on the train. Someone again helped with the translation, and she told me to get on, but we would have to pay again. Fine, I said. So I got on, but then I didn't see Ed anywhere - I can usually spot him easily, but he was nowhere to be seen. I called his cellphone, but he didn't answer. Now I was really beginning to panic. But then I saw him (he had been bending down trying to stuff Belle in her case when I had called) and I told the woman that he was my choloveek and she let him on. Then I realized that this was car 6 and I thought our seats were in car 2 - I asked the woman if I should go to car 2, and she basically said that she was in charge of car 6, that she would let me on, but she had no idea whether the person in charge of car 2 would do the same. But, I said, the train is sold out - where will we sit? We will stand she said!!!! As it turns out, this was our car (Ed was in car 2 on his trip to Kyiv, but I was in car 6 on the way there, and both of us were in car 6 on the way back), and we were able to sit in what I thought were our seats (they must have been our seats because no one else tried to sit in them). We took Belle out of her little case once the train pulled out of the station (so they couldn't make us get off!), and she was so exhausted she just slept the whole way back.
As soon as we got back I turned on my computer and sent Michael an email telling him about Belle. If it's okay with him, great. If not, we have a backup with the place next to Planet Fitness. There's also another place I want to see in Besarabska Square - it looks warm and lovely, like Michael's, but it also has a working fireplace, and somehow the notion of reading War and Peace, or some such novel, with a pot of tea and a fire roaring in the fireplace on a cold, snowy winter day in Kyiv seems incredibly romantic. It also has a separate bedroom and a separate study. And the location is very central. I couldn't see it over the weekend, so I'll see it on Thursday as soon as I arrive to meet Jodi and her dad. Meanwhile I got an email from Michael telling me that he's working round the clock till tomorrow, and that he'll get back to me then on everything - he's discussing the dog with his wife and that they will probably allow it if I give a one month security deposit. So I'm feeling like we're getting close!!!!
Ed's meeting on Saturday did in fact take place. Ed insisted on going to the train station with me at 6:30 a.m. and I left not knowing whether or not he would be having the meeting with the General. Ed called me at about 9 a.m. to tell me that the meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. and that Vicky would be going with him to translate. When Ed arrived in Kyiv later that night I learned that this meeting did not go quite as planned. The General was there with his assistant and one of the lawyers from the meeting the previous day, as well as another general. The drafting of the "instructions" was never discussed. (Vicky had not received them until late the night before, and she hadn't been able to get them completely translated, so maybe that was a good thing.) Apparently the General has approved the agreement that was hashed out and redrafted during the meeting Arkadiy, Gennadiy and Ed had with the police lawyers on Thursday, but he is still very concerned about the PD office being overwhelmed with cases if every detainee who cannot afford a lawyer is assigned to the PD office. As the second general put it - "You don't want to give birth to a still born baby." Later he said "We are in a desert and you want to plant plum trees." I like this guy! He's right - they should just limit the program to one police station - I think they are biting off way more than they can chew. So does Ed - now he just has to persuade Gennadiy and Arkadiy on that point. So the meeting really got nowhere, except that the General suggested that Ed and Gennadiy spend a few days at the police stations to see for themselves how many cases come in, and whether they think the referral process is manageable. Of course, no schedule was set for their visits! Why arrange such a thing in advance????
Ed had a really hard time on the train. The woman in charge of his car demanded that Belle have a ticket or she would have to stay in her case (the tiny one) the whole trip (6 hours!!). He offered to pay for a ticket, but she said he couldn't (just when you need a corrupt official, you don't find one!!!). We have never had this problem before, but we have always traveled first class. Of course he had to let her out, and then he had to keep on guard the entire time so that he could stuff her back in when he saw the woman coming down the aisle. It was exhausting for both of them. By the time they arrived in Kyiv it was not only dark and cold, but it was also raining (guess who had no umbrella!!), and Ed's taxi driver got "lost" ringing up 65 Hryvnas on the meter - it should have been about 20 HVA - and Ed agreed to pay him 50. It's an easy metro ride, but not for the first time (as it would have been for Ed), especially in the dark, let alone the rain, so I had told him to take a taxi. Ed turned down one offer from a taxi driver for 40 HVA, but assumed, as I would, that a meter would be best. Now we know better - a meter is fine if you know the way and "help" the taxi driver find the right route.
Ed called from outside the hotel to make sure Belle was allowed in and that he didn't have to stuff her in the case and sneak her in. I assured him that I had checked this all out and that she was definitely allowed. (I had done this both when I made the reservations for us and for Jodi and her dad, and again when I called for this reservation). Well, when Ed arrived with Belle in tow, the receptionist did not agree - she said dogs were not allowed and showed Ed the rules that prohibit them!!! I came out in the hotel's terry cloth bathroom prepared to do battle. The receptionist was on the phone to the manager, I was able to tell her the date I made the reservations, and the exact time I had stopped by in person, as well as the precise time I phoned. They decided to allow it, but only if we agreed to pay for any damage. No problem! Now Belle, who barks at the elevataor at our apartment, and at every passing ant or other creature on the canals, never barks when we take her to a hotel - in fact, she never barks when she's in a new place - it isn't until she knows it is her home that she feels she has to protect it. Naturally, on this night she decided to bark at everything - and our room was practically adjacent to the receptionist! It was a nightmare. I had to hold on to her all night long, and I don't think any of us slept much that night!
My train ride to Kyiv was uneventful - I arrived on time, found the metro easily and quickly without having to go up or down any stairs, and was at the hotel by 1:30, 1/2 hour after my arrival. I was meeting the mother-in-law of the owner of the apartment I was excited about (we refer to it as Michael's apartment - because, naturally, Michael is the name of the owner) at 2 p.m. I got there on time, and Tetyana was waiting for me. She speaks very little English, but more than she thinks she does, as is often the case with Ukrainians. The building is on a really nice street, extremely well-located, and the building itself is quite nice. The entrance is the usual horrible Ukrainian entrance, but I'm very used to that. The elevator is the usual Ukrainian horrible elevator, but I'm used to that as well. The apartment is on the third floor. There is a locked door that leads to three apartments on one side of the elevator - the back side of the building - which is where Michael's apartment is situated. There are three apartments behind this door. Michael's apartment is as nice in real life as it is in the photos. It just has a lovely feel to it - warm and cozy, and elegant. BUT it is very, very small. Now, I'm used to small - the apartment in Kharkiv is probably 40 square meters and we've had no trouble living here. But this one is even smaller, and even though it is a "2 room" apartment, the two rooms are the kitchen/eating area and the living room/bedroom (usually the two rooms are one large living room/kitchen/dining area and one separate bedroom). In fact the bed folds out of the living room wall, with a queen size mattress imported from America!!! Also it has no view at all - the former balcony is now enclosed - it makes a kind of bay window area set off from the living room, and it is where I would put a desk and make my workspace - and those windows basically look out into other apartment windows (no more running around in my undies until midday!!). But I liked it, and there's no commission, and I think the owner will be willing to buy a desk and desk chair, a couple of end tables and a coffee table that will fit in with the other furniture. This was definitely one I wanted to come back to with Ed on Sunday. I arranged for us to see it at 11 a.m.
My next appointment was at the real estate agent's right across the street from the opera house. It took me 15 minutes to get there - so that's good. Michael's apartment is not only near the metro at Maidan (remember the sea of orange scarves and hats during the Orange Revolution? That's Maidan) - about 2 minutes away - but it is also not far from the opera house, a place I intend to visit often.
The time with the real estate agent was not quite so productive. Turns out I could only see two places - I thought I was going to be seeing about 6 places, but most of them were not available for viewing on the weekend, and one won't be available until the tenants leave on the 10th. The ones I couldn't see included the two I really wanted to look at - the one at Olginskaya that I had seen on my last trip, and the one near Planet Fitness that I had also seen on my last trip. I had seen both of these with different agents, but the first agent for Olginskaya had just emailed to tell me that the price was now $3000 - out of the question - and the new agents had it listed at $2500 (also out of the question, but at least a better starting point for negotiations), and the first agent representing the apartment near Planet Fitness just hadn't been able to arrange for me to see it because she was out of Kyiv for the weekend - so much for that agent! In any case, the two apartments I was shown weren't right for me, but the agent was able to arrange for viewings of Olginskaya and the one near Planet Fitness on Sunday - the first at 10 a.m. and the second at 3 p.m.
I was finished at about 5:30, so I called about another ad in Kiev Post and arranged to meet the agent at 6 p.m. This one is just slightly out of the center, near all the embassies - so the location is not quite as desirable. I walked there from the hotel and got there before 6. This apartment was huge - and the asking price is $2800 - a really big living room with huge leather arm chairs and a leather sofa (pale yellow - not too practical), a fantastic kitchen that opens off the living room (which I like) and a nice dining table, 2 big bedrooms, tons of closet space, and one of the bedrooms is empty and can be furnished any way the tenant wants (e.g., as a study for me), and it has a nice open balcony. The bathroom is great and has radiant heated floors. I told her I might want to see it the next day (Sunday) and that I have a small dog (the other agents know about Belle). She said she would call the owner (who is British) and ask about the dog and then call me to arrange a time to see it again on Sunday if the owner doesn't object to the dog. The only real drawbacks are the price, the location, and the fact that the hallway wasn't lit (it was pitch dark in front of the apartment door - God only knows how she got the key in the lock, especially since all these apartments have complicated locking systems where you have to put one key in facing backwards, another key facing upwards, press three fingers on three buttons simultaneously, and do a backflip, all at the same time, in order to get the door open!!!). We don't really need all that space, and I hate paying for it when I don't need or even want it.
By now it was getting on 7 p.m. and I wanted to shoot off an email to Michael to tell him that I really liked his place and ask him some questions. I went back to the hotel to use the business center and learned that use of the computer and the internet costs $20 an hour!!!!! I asked where the nearest internet place was and I was directed to the post office, which is only 5 minutes away. But by the time I got there, 8 p.m., it was just closing. So instead I went to Double Coffee on Kreshchatik because when we were in Riga we had the greatest potato pancakes with red caviar at Double Coffee. But, alas, no red caviar in Kyiv - but great potato pancakes with sour cream. By the time I finished and got back to the hotel it was 9 o'clock and time to watch the incredibly superficial and really useless documentary "In The Footsteps of Bin Laden" with Christianne Amanpour on CNN. Ed arrived at about 11, and after getting Belle squared away with reception we just crashed.
Breakfast comes with the room at Gintama, and it was good - lots of blini and toast for me and cold cereal for Ed. Then it was off to Olginskaya - I disliked the furnishings (and those horrible verticle blinds on the windows, spoiling the pretty ogee windows in this beautiful Tsarist building), especially the kitchen, every bit as much as I had the first time. It's just that the apartment itself is so pretty - if I were buying it I would jump at it. But I just don't love it when I walk in the door. Next, we went to Michael's apartment, and I had the same good feeling when I walked in as I had the first time I saw it. It's just cozy and warm. Ed agreed that we would need end tables, a coffee table, and a desk and desk chair, and he also agreed that it was charming and that the lack of space would not be a problem. I told Ed that I had several more apartments to see with yet another agent that afternoon, starting at noon, and that he should install himself somewhere with Belle and I would call if I wanted him to see any of them. I didn't, and we hooked up at about 1 p.m. at the internet place in the post office (Ed had checked out, left the suitcase at the hotel, and brought Belle with him). I was emailing Michael to find out if he would get the furniture we needed and to ask a number of other questions about the apartment. When I was finished the three of us went to a cafe on Kreshchatik to pass the time until my appointment to see the apartment near Planet Fitness at 3 p.m. When I went back to see that one at the appointed time I found that I didn't like it quite as much as I had the first time, but I still like it well enough, and Belle is a known and pre-approved factor here. So I thought I should have it as a backup in case Michael would not allow dogs (he had already told me that smoking was prohibited in the apartment, so I knew he was particular). We talked about it with the owner's agent, who was there (the owner is an American real estate investor who lives in Malibu!), and we discussed the purchase of another wardrobe, a wooden coffee table, end tables for the bedroom and a desk and desk chair, as well as a reduction of the rental price from the asking $2200 to $2000 (Michael's is asking $1900), which, with the commission amortized over 9 months (which is probably how long we will stay there), comes to about $2150 a month.
I also got a call from the woman who showed me the huge apartment the night before, telling me that the owner said the dog was okay, but I decided it was too big, too expensive, and too far on the outer edge of the inner circle - and besides, she couldn't show it to me until 5 p.m. (she was cooking!), and our train left at 5:30. So I told her I was no longer interested.
We went to the train station by metro and it was a nightmare. The metro was unbelievably crowded. I had the rollie suitcase, and Ed had Belle and her carrying case. We were honestly worried that Belle (who was in Ed's arms) would be squashed to death. I have never seen anything like it. Not in NY, not in Japan, not anywhere. And this was at 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon!! We only had to go three stops, but at each stop people rammed you as they tried to get out and then other people rammed you as they tried to get on. But we made it, with time to spare. We had decided that we should try and get a ticket for Belle, and I wanted to get her ticket in the same car as ours, so I went to get our tickets and passports out of my little fanny pack. There were the passports, but NO TICKETS!!! I went through everything - my purse, my fanny pack, Belle's case, my suitcase - NO TICKETS!! I must have left them at the hotel or thrown them out there. I was frantic. The ticket booth for eenozemkas (foreigners) was all the way at the other end or the station, in the new south wing (at least I knew where it was - it had taken me about 45 minutes to locate it the last time we were there!). I ran as fast as I could and saw long lines everywhere. I managed to go up to the front of one of the lines, find someone who spoke English, and explained that my train would be leaving in 10 minutes and that I had lost my tickets, could I please go to the front. And they let me do it - but the ticket agent sent me to another window. The person who was helping me went with me, and again I got to the front of the line. SOLD OUT!!!! Well, I said I thought I remembered that we were in car 2 in the last 2 seats in the compartment - go to the train and see if they'll let you on is what everyone said. So that's what we did. Fortunately the track for our train was very close by, so we ran down to the train and I saw the woman who had been in charge of my car on the way to Kyiv - she remembered me because I had two seats - and I tried to explain to her that I had lost our tickets and could I get on the train. Someone again helped with the translation, and she told me to get on, but we would have to pay again. Fine, I said. So I got on, but then I didn't see Ed anywhere - I can usually spot him easily, but he was nowhere to be seen. I called his cellphone, but he didn't answer. Now I was really beginning to panic. But then I saw him (he had been bending down trying to stuff Belle in her case when I had called) and I told the woman that he was my choloveek and she let him on. Then I realized that this was car 6 and I thought our seats were in car 2 - I asked the woman if I should go to car 2, and she basically said that she was in charge of car 6, that she would let me on, but she had no idea whether the person in charge of car 2 would do the same. But, I said, the train is sold out - where will we sit? We will stand she said!!!! As it turns out, this was our car (Ed was in car 2 on his trip to Kyiv, but I was in car 6 on the way there, and both of us were in car 6 on the way back), and we were able to sit in what I thought were our seats (they must have been our seats because no one else tried to sit in them). We took Belle out of her little case once the train pulled out of the station (so they couldn't make us get off!), and she was so exhausted she just slept the whole way back.
As soon as we got back I turned on my computer and sent Michael an email telling him about Belle. If it's okay with him, great. If not, we have a backup with the place next to Planet Fitness. There's also another place I want to see in Besarabska Square - it looks warm and lovely, like Michael's, but it also has a working fireplace, and somehow the notion of reading War and Peace, or some such novel, with a pot of tea and a fire roaring in the fireplace on a cold, snowy winter day in Kyiv seems incredibly romantic. It also has a separate bedroom and a separate study. And the location is very central. I couldn't see it over the weekend, so I'll see it on Thursday as soon as I arrive to meet Jodi and her dad. Meanwhile I got an email from Michael telling me that he's working round the clock till tomorrow, and that he'll get back to me then on everything - he's discussing the dog with his wife and that they will probably allow it if I give a one month security deposit. So I'm feeling like we're getting close!!!!
posted by Susan Spivak at 10:43 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home