Home Again in Ukraine

I finally made it to Ukraine, and I think it's illegal to have as much fun as I'm having. Oleg, Andrey Babich and Lyuda met me at the airport (with flowers) when I finally made it out of Paris. We went out that night to eat and to have a few drinks with Tanya, Andrei Bobrov and Igor. After dinner, we did some walking. Kiev is a great walking city, and that night was the finals of a huge Eurovision contest that a Ukrainian singer had won the year before so Kiev was hosting it this year. There was a huge crowd in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Indepedence Square). That was also where the Orange Revolution happened, and my friends said the crowd reminded them of that, except without so much orange. On Sunday we had a shashlik (picnic) at a restaurant outside the city, so we didn't have to cook ourselves. Alla and Slava, who I hadn't seen yet, joined us. The only unwelcome guests were the mosquitos. Slava invited us to his apartment after that and was an excellent host. He had brought a water pipe from Egypt, and we smoked that and talked and laughed and drank and danced and one of us (I won't say who) even took a little nap. It was the perfect house party.