Six Times in Ukraine

I guess I must like the place, this is my 6th time in Ukraine. Or maybe it is a certain person here. I wrote a lot here about my trip to Colombia and I was visiting another young friend, Nini, there. I am sure I explained in a previous post why I'm visiting young girls (or in the case of the Philippines, a young guy) with obviously nothing more than friendship on the cards. It keeps me young, is my answer. I have plenty of friends my own age... or any age. It doesn't really matter. 

And I have visited places which otherwise I would never have seen. But I have to confess that six times in one country while visiting my own country once is a little strange. Maybe I like the person in question, love her even. But like a parent loves a child. I was married a long time ago and I have no children (children?? They would be almost 50 by now!) So I have my little family of three young people in three far-flung parts of the world. But it is Marina who I take care of the most. Nini is getting married this year and Nomel in the Philippines is surrounded by his friends and family and despite being female in a male body, seems quite content in his life.

I'm writing this in the Ibis Hotel in Kyiv (I write Kiev like that because that is how it appears in Ukrainian in Cyrillic and how it is written in English here). I decided to come and talk to Marina how best I can help her and I said that we should meet in Kyiv. But she had long wanted to visit Eurovision (previously called the Eurovision Song Contest) so we arranged to meet at the same time and then go back together to Kharkiv where she lives (that is tomorrow, 9th May).

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a single air ticket for Marina to fly to Kyiv on Saturday (two days ago) and I booked a flight the same day from Barcelona which arrived in the evening. That meant that Marina had to check into the hotel well before I arrived, so I went to great lengths to make sure my bank card was pre-registered so that she could occuply her room without my being there.

I arrived at 6pm, on time, and took the Air Bus to the city-centre, phoning Marina to tell her that I was on my way. We met at the bus stop by the Cetral Railways Station and walked up to the hotel. The weather was very warm, upper 20s I would imagine, blue sky. Very unlike the last time I was here when the temperature was well below zero and the ground was covered by frozen snow.



I checked in and we had a meal in the restaurant and planned the next day.

Marina likes Abajour!