15th Wedding Anniversary!

Gee, why don’t we go to Kiev, Ukraine on our 15th wedding anniversary?! Pretty darn cool, the funny thing is we planned it and talked about it as if we were just going to Spokane for the weekend. Of course it was a bit more complicated and very new and interesting to us. For starters, I was unaware of the fact that I needed to wear my sports bra just to ride in the van to Kiev! Between driving fairly fast and all the pot holes in the road, it’s quite a crazy ride. Since there were children in the car the driver was not as crazy apparently; could have fooled me! On our first day we planned to spend the day at an Aquapark/mall. This place has, bowling, laser tag, go-karts, ice skating, shopping and of course swimming. We snooped around a bit, bowled for an hour and had lunch. We are learning that we are better off trying English first because some locals get frustrated with our poor Russian and English accent (more on that later). Last we hit the water park.

We started out planning on playing for 3 hours and that easily turned into a 6 hour day! The wave pool knocked the girls down over and over and they kept getting back up and laughing, no matter how much water they swallowed. Ellie went down the first slide with Dad (so brave) and she loved it! It was a steep drop on an inner tube over and over again to the end. Ry leaned forward into the sheer drop and squealed with delight, each time shouting on the drop, “this is so great, we HAVE to do this again!” She is so totally her dad (thanks a lot Grandma James). Although both girls did not meet the age requirement for the slides the Lifeguards got used to seeing them and they rode the slides like pros! Ellie did not care for the “Toilet Bowl”, because it sends you fast and then you drop out on your head the first time. We played until complete exhaustion.

As we left the pool a Ukranian gentlemen walked up to Tony to chat. We grinned and said we do not understand him (in Russian of course) and the guy was shocked! He did a double take and expressed to Tony that he looks so Russian or Ukranian, that he was stunned. The joke is always on them once we open our mouth! That’s O.K. Tony is still Super Guy/Super Tony!

We got to our flat around 8:30/9:00pm. It was fascinating driving through Kiev and hearing about just a tiny bit of the history. The girls were wiped out, so they slept for the 20 minute drive. As we were waiting to go up to our flat we saw gold and silver “people statues”. You know, the people who paint their skin and wear an outfit so they look like gold or silver statues; it was neat to watch them. Nearby there was a group of guys who were taking turns break dancing for the crowd, also very neat. The city comes to life in the evening and we were right in the middle of it. After entering the very, very questionable elevator (lights dim, elevator groans, and eventually it begins to rise, but hey there is a mirror to make the 3 person elevator feel bigger or is that it feels more crowded) we dropped our stuff off in the very beautiful flat and turned the one little air-conditioner on. We figured we had better get the girls some food, so McDonald’s it was (it happened to be right outside our flat).

Gold Live Statue in Kiev

Tony ordered the girls food, which always seems to take a while; you wait at the counter as they fill your tray (and they always set things on your tray just so, presentation with food is important here). We sat down with our Cola light and as we smell the food, realize how late it is and how hungry we are with no idea where else we might be able to get food, and quickly for that matter (sitting down for a meal in Ukraine is always a 2 hour event, give or take 30 minutes) we decide we should also eat at McDonalds! To our disdain we agreed to get a Quarter Pounder, and of course Tony had to mention the possibility of ketchup and cheese only on his burger; being the loving wife that I am I go up to the counter with the intention of pleasing my husband’s request. Turns out they call that burger the Royale, and with my little Russian and their little bit of English I was ordering just fine; I asked for chocolate muffins (I needed a chocolate dessert for my anniversary at least, which Tony refused to order earlier, stinker). Then my mistake came…I requested our burgers to be special. The employee did not understand my request and I said that it was O.K., but there was a lady behind me who knew English and Russian well and she so kindly offered to help me. After going back and forth it sounded like she was getting me the two burgers with ketchup and cheese only on the burger (that was after clarifing that “yes” we still want the meat). I mentioned to the lady who helped me that McDonald’s in America allows you to order it “any way you want it”, soon I learned that it is not the case in Ukraine! I waited and waited and waited, finally with food in hand and 15 minutes later (so much for fast food) I sit down to eat with Tony. Tony took a bite into a tasty cheese and ketchup sandwich! Tony was going to eat it but we were famished so I took it back up, explained the problem and for some reason the McD’s employee thought I wanted the sandwich that way (crazy)! A manager tossed the bad ones and ordered the correct thing, even a cook came and doubled checked. Eight to ten minutes later I have the correct hamburgers in hand. The second lesson learned here (which Tony informed me at the end of this fiasco) is that the Ukranian people will do anything to try and accommodate your requests; so don’t ask for the unusual, no matter what they will try and make it happen for you! Keep in mind, this is our first burger at McDonald’s in over 15 years…and…it was yucky, didn’t even taste like ground beef! Sadly I only ate half my burger and of course there was no chocolate muffin to make up for all this. I will only be ordering Cola light or ice cream from now on at McDonald’s; for Tony and I it’s not a piece of home. That’s a slam bang finish to our 15th wedding anniversary.

Our Flat on the 6th floor & McD's on the right

We went back to our flat, put the exhausted children to bed and sat on the ledge of the window looking six floors down at the hustle and bustle of Kiev. We looked at the old buildings and listened to the city sounds, it all still seems so surreal to me. After determining it was way too hot to even sleep in the bedroom we dragged the very firm mattress in to the living room where the air conditioner was and crashed. It really was an awesome and unique anniversary for us, unforgettable!