I told my guide Dmytro that I wanted a traditional
Ukrainian meal, and he did not disappoint.
He recommended a restaurant out here called
O'Panas, where I had a borsch, a pancake thing
with mushrooms on it, and Chicken Kiev, which
was a lot like Chicken Cordon Bleu except
with more herby stuff in it.
Also the dessert was pretty cool.
I think I just ordered a pierogi filled with
cherries.
But I think my favorite part of the evening
was the live band, which was a three-piece:
accordion, lute, and fiddle.
The accordion player, while playing the accordion,
alternated between tweeting like a bird and
saying "wahoo" like Mario.
If you think I'm joking...
ACCORDION PLAYER: Yyyyyahoo!
[Tweeting like a bird]
I love Ukraine.
That's like drinking smoke!
With a little bit of apple?
Am I vaping?
Alright, no more of this Missile Base, Chernobyl,
Eurovision business.
It was time for me to experience the REAL
Ukraine.
I started by spending two very real days in
a coffee shop logging footage from Chernobyl
so I didn’t forget anything.
I had a few days left in Kiev, so thought
I’d check out a local market to see if anyone
was selling video games.
They were, including classics like Doom 4.
Nearby was an open-air flea market where I
spent hours scouring boxes of junk until I
found what I was looking for.
[Yyyyyahoo!]
The original Dendy was a Famicom clone sold
in the USSR, but these appear to be some sort
of Sega variant.
Or perhaps a bootleg of a bootleg.
I’d never seen a Dendy in person, and while
these were in pretty rough shape, it was still
thrilling to find.
You can't go to Kiev in 2017 and not think
about what happened here just three years
earlier.
This central square, called Maidan, was the
site of some fierce fighting between pro-independence
protesters and Ukrainian government forces.
It was not only the most beautiful part of
the city I saw, but also the most powerful,
especially after walking a few blocks up the
hill.
Memorials line the sidewalks and signs of
the conflict are still visible.
The following day I left Kiev using a method
I had never before used: a sleeper train.
This is way smaller than I thought it would
be.
And very intimate.
And actually, for a second I thought I was
going to get the compartment to myself but
a guy showed up at the last minute.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.
I really just should have booked this other
bed, too.
But he was really nice, he even knew a little
English, and we went to sleep pretty much
as soon as the train started moving so it
wasn't that big of a deal.
The bed, however... not the most comfortable.
Nine hours later, we arrived 300 miles to
the south in the city of Odessa.
When I got off the train, completely by coincidence,
I met the ONLY OTHER PERSON I KNEW IN UKRAINE:
Nick, who had shown up at the Cloth Map meetup
in Kiev.
We walked around and shot crossbows.
I got it in the yellow, so I'm happy.
By the way, it's true what they say: FIFA
is pretty popular over here, especially at
a bar with a name like this.
After getting some coffee out of the back
of a van, we walked over to see the Potemkin
Steps, which the movie nerd in me was pretty
jazzed to see.
We couldn’t actually climb them, or push
any strollers down them, since they were under
construction, but it was still cool.
Aside from that, Odessa seemed pretty quiet.
But I had heard from a number of Ukrainians about a city called Lviv.
So I decided to call an audible and cut my Odessa time short to check it out.
So I woke up at four AM to catch my flight
from Odessa to Kiev, where I am right now
because the plane was delayed a little bit
and I missed my connection.
So I've been sitting in this airport for a
few hours and I have a few hours to go before
getting on to Lviv.
My laptop is actually in my checked bag which
is already in Lviv.
Hopefully.
The day started in Lviv, as days often do,
with cosplayers.
DREW: Are you from Bioshock?
BORIS: Yeah, sure!
DREW: Nice! Wow, that's perfect!
Boris and Julia were
from Kharkiv, a city in the East, AKA where
war is happening.
Their trip out west to Lviv was for a convention,
which they say sees smaller and smaller numbers
of attendees as the troubles in the country
persist.
You never know who you're going to run into!
It’s easy to see why Lviv is a vacation
spot for Ukrainians; it’s gorgeous.
Lviv already seems way more European, just
from the architecture.
There's a lot of squares and statues around
and stuff.
Lviv is also famous for its coffee.
[YAHOO]
This place, Lviv Coffee Mining Manufacture,
was a wonderland for any coffee nerd.
They made coffee the traditional Turkish style.
DREW: This is heated, and you move it around?
COFFEE MAN: This is sand. And it will burn quickly.
DREW: Oh, okay.
First you drink the liquor, then you drink
the coffee.
So I've been told.
That's really good!
It's sweet.
It's kinda fruity.
You can also tour the “mine” which basically
amounts to a giant bar in the basement, something
every respectable business should have.
This place served coffee with cardamom.
It's really weird.
Then, and I’m still not really sure how
this happened, I got roped into a group of
travel bloggers.
I essentially crashed a media tour sponsored
by the city of Lviv.
Before I knew it I was having lunch on Lviv’s
dime in a World War II-resistance-themed restaurant,
complete with password.
GROUP: [Secret Ukrainian phrase]
GUARD: America!
WOMAN: [Coughing]
DREW: That's good stuff!
We went to a brewery with a museum in the
basement.
Tastes like Grape Nuts.
I had too many glasses of this cherry liqueur,
which was incredibly tasty.
We met the Mayor.
Then there was fire.
It was a delightful and insane day in Lviv.
BARTENDER: Budmo! Budmo! Budmo!
GROUP: Hey! Hey! Hey!
But I still had few plane rides to go before
things got really weird.
Flight one.
Flight two.
Flight three.
