A Problem In Ukraine

[lupestripe]

 Sunday was a pretty lazy day, at least until the evening when we had to catch a train to London ahead of our trip to Armenia. Patter has stayed over after Damnation, so it was a leisurely morning of tea, eggs and bagels before he headed off around lunchtime. This gave us time to do odds and sods around the house, not to mention pack, ahead of catching a bus at around 4:30pm. We were lucky we had got an earlier one as upon reaching the first floor, we noticed one of the windows had been staved in, with the glass all fractured but still largely hanging together. This state of affairs didn’t last long though, as the potholed roads forced the glass to shake free through its vibrations, with strains and cracking sounds highlighting its distress. By the time we got to the Gamecock, half of the window was out and we needed to get a replacement bus, which fortunately was only twenty minutes behind us. This made it tighter to catch our train but we did manage to get it, reaching our assigned seats just before the train departed.

 

These were table seats and sat on the same table near the windows were two guys who we quickly discerned had gone to Damnation too. Cue a two and a half hour conversation with them about a range of things, not least the festival itself, which was their first. Indeed it was their first ever time in Leeds and they were quite impressed, although I don’t think they went to the best places, including The Picture House which is quite a dive. They did enjoy rock bar Bad Apples though, a place we hadn’t visited for a while. It was good to hear they are likely to be coming back to Damnation again and I managed to obtain their contact details, largely to send them a link to this journal with its entries on Malta as one of them is planning a visit there in December. While we were chatting, Wolfie and I shared a few beers from our fridge - the two we had picked up in Northern Monk Manchester on Wednesday alongside a couple we had bought while down in Devon a few weeks back but which we hadn’t had chance to drink. Alas we had gotten through these with an hour of the journey still remaining so we had to resort to the train bar and Stella. I initially only wanted one but there was a two for £6 offer, so I accepted that without inquiring about the individual price. I’m such a sucker for these things.

 

The train journey passed surprisingly quickly, even as it was delayed, and once alighting at Kings Cross we said goodbye to our new metal friends. One of them was heading to Croydon, our ultimate destination, and I felt a bit sad we couldn’t go with him but we had plans to visit the new Brewdog in Canary Wharf and pick up our 42nd stamp. This saw us skid-arse down to Bank on the Northern line then the DLR to the City, getting off at Canary Wharf station and immediately getting lost inside one of the grand office buildings, which was bedecked in marble. Fortunately the kingly security guard led us out and pointed us the way, but the tall skyscrapers, all fantastically lit up in the darkness was playing havoc with our GPS and we spent quite a while wandering aimlessly. Still, this did enable us to see a scarcely used ice rink and a poignant WWI memorial which consisted of various metal pillars with different battles written upon them and a different helmet sat atop each one. This forest of rusted beams was quite moving and was an excellent tribute ahead of the hundredth anniversary of the cessation of hostilities this weekend.

 

We eventually found the Brewdog, around the corner and over a small man-made river. It turned out we had taken a wrong turn one block away from it, hence the subsequent pissing about. It sits in the imposing shadow of the Barclays building and I was surprised it was open on a Sunday in all honesty. The bar staff, the vast majority of whom being Australian for some reason, confirmed this too but did say it’s heaving on a weekday albeit with people who are after lager and little else. Still, they are trying to convert them to craft beer slowly. The beer range was good although there were only two we hadn’t tried, including one from Leeds-based brewers Northern Monk which was somewhat ironic. There was a London Brew we had too though and we obtained the stamp, which is what we wanted. We were delighted to see the beer vending machine in the beer garden, available 24/7 one would assume, along with the reader for Cybernaut which determines its price variation in line with the performance of the FTSE. Alas this only changes daily and not hourly or by the minute, but it’s a nice gimmick. The bar was incredibly quiet, as you would expect, but we did enjoy our hour here before getting lost again as we tried to find Canary Wharf Jubilee Line Station. We did discover it just in time though and boarded a train to London Bridge and then East Croydon, where due to the absence of buses we got a taxi to our hotel in Thornton Heath.

 

We had chosen Croydon as it was a convenient stopping off point for Gatwick Airport, which is where we were due in the morning. It was just a shame that the ibis Styles was so far out of the centre. Still, there was a convenient direct bus, the 64, that we managed to use successfully the next morning meaning we got back to Easy Croydon and Gatwick Airport in plenty of time. I hadn’t realised just how big Croydon is, with trams as well as all the usual transport links. It definitely felt a major part of London and with its pop up restaurants and box parks around the station, it had an affluent bohemian feel to it. We had hoped to go to a bar or two in the evening but time was such that made it impossible on a Sunday. We had hoped to get a sandwich at the hotel, not having had dinner, but they had stopped serving and the bar was closed too. We therefore had to settle for a takeaway that they highly recommended although I personally thought the pizza somewhat doughy. The garlic sauce was exquisite though and it was great chilling and watching Taskmaster after a long day.

 

After a modest complimentary continental breakfast, getting out the next morning proved pretty straightforward and with the regularity of both the trains and buses, we actually made Gatwick earlier than expected. This was to be a bad thing as after we had sat down in Jamie’s Diner and had ordered one of two bottles of beer we had not yet tried, news filtered through that the flight was delayed by 25 minutes. With a two and a half hour layover in Kiev ahead of a flight to Yerevan, this didn’t cause much alarm and we filed into our gate pretty much on time. It was here though that things started going awry, with a technical fault initially delaying us for a further half hour, which then became an additional hour after that. The staff were quite poor in telling us what was going on and I did y fancy spending any more time in the dirtiest filthiest airport I had ever visited. Alas by 2:30pm, over two hours after our scheduled departure time, we were sent back to the terminal building with the potential of some food vouchers and a rough time of 3:30pm for boarding. Both came, with us having to wait in a fifteen minute queue to get our paltry £10 voucher each. Considering there were no main meals below about £12 in price, we did have to stump up the remainder but upon explaining our situation the restaurant were exceptional, delivering our meals inside six minutes and letting us pay in advance so we could just leave whenever the flight was ready to board. With just forty minutes between getting the voucher and when we were told boarding was likely to be, this proved to be most helpful and we gladly gave a significant tip.

 

Boarding did commence around 3:30pm but it wasn’t until 4:45pm that we took off, making this the second worst delay of my life (the first also coming with Ukraine International Airlines in 2011). This meant we were over four hours late into Kiev and this had missed our flight to Yerevan. Upon arrival in the Ukrainian capital after a long but eventless flight, we went to the International Transfer Desk who told us they had booked us in on the 10:15am departure the next day, Tuesday. This meant we had an unscheduled evening in Kiev so after passing border control, with one of the nicest customs officers with whom I’ve ever dealt, we went to the second floor desk of Ukrainian Airlines as instructed and got our hotel information. We were to be staying in the Hotel Liguna in Borispol itself, the town after which the airport is named. It was a shame it was already past 10pm as we do know a couple of furs in Kiev and it would have been good to have met up. Alas with no plan confirmed until so late and by the fact we had another half hour wait just to get the bus to the hotel, meeting up would have been impossible. As we were waiting, we met some of the seven other inconvenienced travelers who would be staying in the same hotel too. There were a couple of Irish guys going on holiday to Dnipro while we also met Tony, who works in Armenia on a number of internet projects. He’s a regular traveler to the country so was full of useful tips and advice, and he was interested to hear why we had chosen the country as a holiday destination. As well as speaking to him in the airport, we also chatted to him over dinner, which the hotel had generously provided to us at 11:30pm. I had forgotten how much I love Ukrainian food and the fact the hotels here just give you whatever’s on their menu and if you don’t like it, tough. We had a nice lukewarm soup and chicken with noodles, with Obolon the beer of choice. Over dinner we also met Tim, who works in the oil and gas industry in the region. He was interested I had a degree in geology and the meal with our new friends turned out to be a pleasant way to end a rather wasted day.

 

With a 10:15am departure, we decided to err on the side of caution and get the 7:30am bus from the hotel, hoping not to be too inconvenienced by the rush hour. So it proved on a bitterly cold and foggy morning, although the five hours of sleep was a bit of a kicker, not least because for a lot of the evening there were a number of strange clanking noises coming from right outside our room. We got the opportunity to take pictures of the rather drab brown soviet interior of our spa hotel, along with the interesting Georgian restaurant located in a wooden hut to one side. I’m not sure why the hotel was built and to whom it caters, it being in a non-descript town a half hour outside of Kiev. We also got to see some of Borispol too, a typical Ukrainian town of Soviet tower blocks and little shops lining the main boulevard. It was all very typical and served to highlight just how much I miss this part of the world. The bus journey was reasonably swift and we spent some more time with Tim and Tony, leaving them to check their bags in as we proceeded through security as we just had hand luggage. We were to see them again in the queue as we boarded out flight after we had spent a rather dull hour and a half just waiting. At least though there were no delays and we would finally get to see Yerevan, albeit fifteen hours later than we had anticipated.