Monday, April 22, 2019

2019 Eurasia Adventure - Initiate Ukraine Adventure

Ha you blinked!

If you had been fully alert you would have seen Wife, #2 and I whisking our way from Istanbul to Kyiv (not Kiev the way the nasty Russians spell it but which is the way I will spell it in the Labels) in the Ukraine where Honorable Pulisha currently plies her trade.

Actually 'whisking away' is not entirely accurate. We were on different airlines though they took off close to each other and were to land close to each other. Both had problems. Ours didn't board until over an hour after it was supposed to. We all waited at the gate and in line with virtually no information from the airline as to what was going on. Spoke to another from the US who said the communication from Turkish Airlines in these situations makes the American carriers look good in comparison...how sad is that! For #2's, they took a printed out manifest and checked every single passenger after they had boarded already! Both flights got in about the same time. I had a particularly uncomfortable seat.

Between the two energetic days in Istanbul and the exhausting flight, Wife and I did absolutely nothing...NOTHING today. The sum total of our activity was sitting at the dining room table of #2's apartment doing blog posts, going upstairs for a nap, and returning to the table to do more. That's not exactly true. I spent over an hour on the phone with T-Mobile trying to figure out why I am not picking up the proper network here in the Ukraine and getting my mobile data.

Miscellaneous Pictures from the Last Two Days

Typical happy de-I Eurasian Outfitter Client
 Not unusual behavior of happy de-I Eurasian Outfitter Client once free of tour and realizing personal safety has been achieved
Hmmmm there are two drinks here...
 I am a de-I Outfitter survivor
Might as well have them both!
One scarf to rule them all
The scarf for #1 that started the buying spree
One of the benefits of being lifetime Gold on the Star Alliance airline network is being able to tap into a partner airlines' Business Class Lounge. Many of these offer better fare than my home United Airlines Club does. Turkish Airlines has always had a good club but with moving to a new airport the good club got even better. There were all kinds of stations making food to order. Way more than you expect in an airline lounge
The new Turkish Airlines Club at the new Istanbul Airport
Second breakfast there
Fresh made menamen with mini-fresh baked simit (there was actually an on-site bakery!)
#2 flew Ukraine International Airlines and sent this picture to us
What the well dressed UIA passenger wears
 
Tired in Kyiv we went out to (of all things) a Georgian restaurant
Except it didn't taste anything at all like what we ate in Georgia
Some kind of salad in the foreground with a roasted cabbage in the background
Was not impressed with the salad but loved the cabbage
Roasted mushrooms that were exceptionally good
A roasted salmon that was...well a roasted salmon
Grandson 2.3 ordered the lamb tongue on my recommendation
The meat itself was fine but the sauce was too sweet and over powering
2.3 and I were ordering in combo
He had a fish soup and I had a mushroom soup and both were very good
The fish soup
Lamb kebab which 2.3 and I both agreed was better than the lamb tongue - lots of good flavoring in meat





1 comment:

alexis said...

jeeze that seems like an epic amount of food to end the day - and after all that food lux-o-land gold status lounge!