In the last few days, I have spent entirely too much time on Pinterest.
What?!, you exclaim, You're on vacation! Go out! Explore the city! Get off the internet, you fool!
I agree. But in my defense, Steve and I have pretty much exhausted our list of things to do in Kharkiv. We've tried a lot of the local cuisine and we've seen all the (limited number of) sights to see in Kharkiv. We've hung out at the fan zone, met some cool people, watched some soccer.... But that's about all there is to do here (besides rent a rowboat in a skeezy looking river. I am already covered with mosquito bites from sleeping with our screenless windows open, thank you. I do not need any more.).
Nevertheless, Steve and I vowed to get off the iPad and out into the world to see what we could come up with.
We started by walking to the fan zone from our hostel. We've always taken the metro to get into the city (our hostel is at the end of the Green Line, which has the perk of always getting a seat since we board onto empty cars, and the downside of meaning that the city center is a good 6 or 7 kilometers away), so we hadn't seen much of our hostel's surrounding area.
We passed by what our map called a wilderness area, which I suppose it was as there were trees EVERYWHERE, but there were also lots of dilapidated little houses throughout this giant wannabe-forest-in-the-middle-of-Ukraine's-second-largest-city... Does it still count as wilderness? We also passed by EURO2012 signs pointing in the direction of the stadium, only they were pointing in the wrong direction. Unless they were pointing you to the next sign.
Overall, our walk was long but mostly uneventful. We did walk over to this fancy striped church, which we had seen from a distance on our walking tour a few days ago.
Highlight of the day: the brides.
We took a little detour heading to the nearest known metro stop and walked near a bridge that we had seen on our previous walking tour. Our tour guide had said that this bridge, and the nearby park, were popular places for wedding pictures to be taken. We thought nothing of it, as every town has its more popular photo sites.
We got to that bridge today, and there were brides EVERYWHERE.
I sincerely regret not taking any pictures because this was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. There were, no joke, at least two dozen different wedding parties taking pictures in the park gardens, along the river banks, lined up waiting for their turn on the bridge. When we first got to the edge of the park, we saw one bride (in a GORGEOUS dress!) and her groom setting up for pictures. I lamented not knowing how to say "Congratulations" in Ukrainian and smiled to see a cute, happy set of newlyweds (Steve and I have been married for over a year! We aren't newlyweds anymore!). We then turned the corner to where the bridge was and *BOOM* it was BrideCentral. I was so startled to see so many brides all in one place that I almost walked into a bush. Saturday must be the day that everyone gets married!
So all in all, we were glad we made the trek out to the city center because the entertainment factor of bridemania (and the corresponding conversation about how from now on when we travel we're going to bring our wedding clothes so we can take faux wedding pictures all over the world) and the three hours of exercise we got walking around beat out pretty much anything Tiny Tower has to offer.
We decided to stay in to watch the day's EURO2012 matches and went to the grocery store for some food.
I think there are few things I love more than tomatoes, feta, and olive oil. Especially when I have been so depraved of raw vegetables. LOVELOVELOVE.
These are cocktails in a bottle/can. A Russian company called Shake cocktails manufactures them, and let us just say that they kick the pants off any wine cooler type thing I've ever had in the States. Mike's Hard, Bacardi, all of you, please learn something here. Start making your drinks refreshing and delicious instead of syrupy sweet and hangover-inducing. Oh, and also make them $1 each. Thanks.
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