Friday 27th

On my first full day here, we went skating. I haven't done it for many years so Marina had to guide me gently around the ice as you can see. It used to be a great way to meet girls, either at Richmond Ice Rink or at Queen's Ice Rink in the west of London.

After about 40 minutes, I started to get the hang of it again. I couldn't get any forward motion but as soon as I did that, I felt much more stable.

As you can see, the rink is right in the middle of a shopping mall so afterwards we went for a meal in the food court and then Marina had to go off to teach English.






 I wandered around for a while and then headed back to the hotel by Metro from Heroiv Pratsi i which is to the north of the city. That is a wild ride! I have no idea how old the trains are but I guess they date back to the Soviet era. Grandiose stations with lots of marble. And the tracks remain well below ground even when they are outside the city centre. Some of the escalators are extremely long - I noticed that on a previous visit to Kiev. The reason is that the Metro was intended as a nuclear shelter in the event of war.

Neither Marina nor I are crazy about discotheques but somehow that was on the agenda for this evening. She arrived in a taxi from her home and then we went to the disco - Com'pas. It is right next to where we went skating earlier in the day. We arrived at 9pm which as you can imagine is rather early for a disco. In Spain they don't open till midnight! Marina had booked a table and we ordered some food and drink and people started trickling in.

We danced, Marina posed on a staircase but at around midnight, the powerful music was getting a little too much for us. We took a taxi back to my hotel and then Marina went on to her home which is to the south, near the airport. I will post some photos here. I took some photos of her dancing but I will save her blushes and not post them here.

I have been fighting off some kind of illness but sometimes I think it is just psychosomatic. I got very stressed before I came here and it comes and goes. 

Marina loves posing!