My boots are pretty sweet. I found a place that does custom boots. They will make nearly anything you want for a decent price—for me a “decent price” is less than $100. This is one price I absolutely compare with American prices, because I’m planning to take these puppies home with me! So this pair is knee high with the Battlestar Galactica logo stitched into the sides—specifically the phoenix/angel from the logo.
The boots in question
So my friend Maryna and I plan to meet at 11:30 near the tank. Every town in Ukraine as “A Tank” as a monument to some war or victory or historical event. History isn’t my strong suit. We were both late, as usual. I had a baba bag with me—a very large, plastic, zippered bag that the locals carry. It had all my clothes to be repaired in it. I was wearing a pair of black slacks and tennis shoes and my winter coat because the weather didn’t look too bad. Man was I wrong.
While waiting for Maryna, I was happy to spot my favorite lady near the tank. She sells Piroshki. These are amazing. They’re (I think) potato dough with cabbage, potatoes, or meat inside, that are then deep fried. OMG DELICIOUS. I like the potato ones. So I ate that while waiting for Maryna.
It was then I realized that a) I hadn’t called the lady to confirm that I was coming b) I didn’t have her number c) I didn’t have her address. Oh well. We’d been there before and decided to wing it. We knew which marshrutka to take (a marshrutka is like a cross between a van and a short bus), so we waited. While waiting we saw a poster for So You Think You Can Dance, the Ukrainian version (something like Танцюють Всi). Turns out they were performing in Zhytomyr the next day!!!! I LOVE SYTYCD, and even though I had never seen the Ukrainian version, I knew it would be just as good.
So we get on the marshrutka and make our way to the boot lady’s house, only to find out she wasn’t there. Maryna had the woman’s daughter’s number, so we called and the lady said they would be ready on Tuesday. *sigh* So we made our way to the tailor.
Maryna thinks I’m lazy, I think, because I don’t repair small holes that happen in the seams of my clothes. J Whatever. I’d rather have a professional do it. I dropped off a bag of mine that had been splitting open, my jeans that needed to be hemmed, two sweaters with holes in the armpits, a coat whose zipper kept popping open and whose pockets needed mending, a pair of pants that had a hole, and my coat whose liner was literally in tatters. Total price 185 griven (around $20). Not too bad. SPENDY for a Peace Corps budget, but that’s what I get for waiting and having them pile up.
We went to the bazaar and I got one of my favorite foods—galuptsi with carrots. It is usually meat that is wrapped in cooked cabbage leaves, but this kind is basically spiced carrots wrapped in cabbage leaves. DELICIOUS. It was around this time that it REALLY started snowing. BIG FATTIE FLAKES. And the ground was solid mud. I’m in the city, but do we have awesome, mud-free sidewalks here? Nope. So it was snowing really hard and completely muddy. The snow felt a bit like rain, as well. I departed from Maryna and walked to the theatre, where SYTYCD would be performing, and met Tanya. By this time my right foot was COMPLETELY soaked. Blarg.
I found out that not only were there seats available, but there were GOOD seats available! So I bought a ticket—just one, because sadly my friends were unavailable. It is nice to have a friend there when you’re negotiating something like that—I did negotiate the ticket sale myself, but I had a backup translator.
Tanya went with me on the marshrutka home, and I had to walk across this nasty mud field to get to my house. By the time I got home, both shoes were covered in mud, my socks were soaked through with mudwater, and my pants were really wet at the bottom. Lovely. And tomorrow night—I’ll be going to see AWESOME DANCING!!!! WOOT!
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