Worst birthday... EVER!

If anyone is still reading this, you'll be aware I've not written anything for a while. I'm not dead, I'm pleased to say. Things just went "titski-up" as the Ukrainians say, and we had to fly home to Manchester on 21st July. Since that day I've been living in a horrible stupor, unable to comprehend the amazing events which befell Katy and I in such a short space of time. I've been keeping a low profile in the Huddersfield region. Tomorrow I resume my travels in Budapest with the Sziget festival.


I left off when we arrived in Lviv. On the Saturday we took a taxi to the meeting place, Polyuya 7A, which turned out to be a massive soviet... arrrrgh, I'm far too tired to explain every intricacy of our extraordinary few days right now. It's 2am and I have to sleep - I'm catching a plane in 12 hours. Basically, this is what happened:

1. We went to the volunteer camp in Zolochiv.
2. Lots of nice people at Zolochiv. Sunshine. Mosquitos. Searing heat. Very basic accomodation, featuring the world's most gruesome shower, which actually resembles the inside of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. Unbelievably cheap local beer (22p for a bottle of fantastic Lvivske lager, f'instance). I was starting to fall in love with the place.
3. Train crashes nearby, spewing toxic phosphorous over a wide radius and causing a minor environmental disaster.
4. Katy and I did as the locals did and fled the aforementioned cloud of gas, and decided to spend a few days in Kiev while we figured out what to do.
5. We arrive in Kiev on the morning of my birthday, severely hung-over from pre-birthday drinks on the night train, and without a place to stay for the night.
6. After several exhausting journeys around the city looking for accomodation (we're both carrying all our luggage with us), someone secures us a booking over the phone, and we catch the underground train to our hostel.
7. As our train arrives in the underground station, an old lady starts inexplicably waving leaflets in our faces and shouting at us. When I free myself from the gibbering old crone and make for the Metro train, I discover someone has stolen my wallet and camera from my pockets while the woman was distracting us. F*ck. This is one pickle Her Majesty's Constabulary will be unable to resolve. What's more, we now have 1 Hryvnia (10p) between the two of us!
8. We made it to the hostel and somehow Katy persuaded the dude on the desk to let us leave our bags there without paying a deposit. Phone calls to family. Tears. Expletives. Bank cards cancelled. No way we can continue; Katy has no access to funds either. Katy's mum books us plane tickets home the next day.
9. Trip to British Embassy in Kiev. We plan to throw ourselves at their feet and beg for assistance. No such luck - they've closed early as it's Friday afternoon. Leaving us loyal British subjects right in the brown stuff and with nowhere to turn.
10. Visit to police station. A nice man who happens to be there (and we were extremely grateful for this chap's help) lends us money to buy water, and acts as a translator to help us report our crime. The Soviet-style bureaucracy we encounter means it takes 3 hours for us to obtain a police report for my insurance, but at least we get a ride in a Ukrainian cop wagon.
11. Vitaliy (a dodgy American dude with loads of cash we made the acquaintanceship of in Zolochiv) comes to our rescue, chucks $100 at us, and offers to buy me three hookers for my birthday. I decline, politely, but we take the $100.
12. Next day we use the money to catch a taxi to the airport. We fly home to Manchester. Numerous delays. My baggage got lost changing planes at Heathrow but at least we got free crap food from Costa Coffee, and some wine.

Some of our fellow passengers were less impressed with the baggage mix-ups, and took it all out on the hapless airport staff at Manchester with a series of four-letter tirades, which I thought was unfair. Like Bill Hicks said, the human race is just a virus with shoes.

Oh and I lost my camera so all the wonderful photos I took to show you are all gone. Bugger. I'm hoping some of my buddies at Zolochiv will let me show some of their pics. Next I'm off to Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia.

My lack of camera will forcve me to paint pictures with words, as per the greats of classical literature. Strap yourselves in, you're in for one hell of a ride!