overheard

madame: ‘the fox’, do you understand what ‘fox’ is?

me: yes I do.

madame: explain to the class please.

me: well, it’s a creature that is red.

madame: it has an orange coat.

me: oh, yeah ok, orange coat.

madame: continue.

me: it is an animal which is orange. In England they is in the countryside and sometimes in the big towns.  They like to eat chickens. Some people in the countryside do the horse and walk very fast on the horse to take the fox (try to understand what my preschool French is like)

madame: so they don’t use the fox for making coats?

(me being a goodie goodie know-it-all in French lessons)
.
.
.

natalia: I feel sad for our teacher.

me: why?

natalia: she must hate us because we are so stupid.

(walking home after our French lesson, I couldn’t agree more).

overheard at the pp

balding german man: wow! Your English is so good!

me: that’s because I am English.

bgm: no you’re not!

me: uhm, yes I am.

bgm: but you look Ukrainian.

me: oh.

bgm: no, really, you really look Ukrainian.

(at a party held by our gym, I am trying to think what ‘Ukrainian’ he is thinking of – devoushka, babushka?)

little american girl: mummy mummy, that lady’s drinking out of a baby bottle!

me: grrrrrr

(in the gym changing room with me trying to look cool and athletic with my SPORTS CAP water bottle).

french lessons in russian

I’ve taken up French lessons. They are held in the French primary school a half hour trek away which is a bit annoying when it’s snowing and it’s late in the evening but I guess I must suffer for my art or something. It is just like being back at school – I was told off by the French headmaster on my first day for pronouncing the time incorrectly and for having an English accent.

 

We sit at tiny desks with our knees around our ears and our teacher yells at us when we haven’t done our homework. It’s a bit strange considering we’re all adults and paying to have these lessons. I guess it’s one way to get people motivated:

madame: who has done their homework?
us students: mumble mumble.
madame: why haven’t you done your homework? You must do your homework. Homework is very important. You won’t learn if you don’t do your homework. This is not for my benefit, it’s for you! etc etc blah blah blah

Apart from the occasional rant our teacher is very nice, but occasionally twitchy:

madame: Zhenya, your grammar is very good, but accent is a real problem. You must work on that accent.
zhenya: yes miss.
madame: Natalia you just try harder! When you try, your French is good, but you don’t try.
natalia: yes miss.
madame: see? When you try it’s good, you must must try.

 

All this is conducted in French apart from when something very difficult comes up and the teacher diverts into Russian. For example last night when Zhenya didn’t know what the translation of virgin was. Haha that was amusing to see our teacher explain it, keeping a very straight face. I could be getting two for one language lessons I suppose. When I am being particularly dumb the other students translate for me into English.

 

The eye opener for me has been finding out about my fellow students. They all live and work or study in Kiev.

madame: now class what are your hobbies?
me: hmm let me see, well, I go to the gym, I meet my friends in cafes, sometimes do pilates.
madame: And how about you Zhenya?
zhenya: I like to visit my friends at their houses.
madame: and you go to cafes?
zhenya: no, cafes are too expensive. And restaurants, well I hardly ever go to restaurants in Kiev.
madame: and you Elena?
elena: well, I like aerobics but I don’t have much time for that.

Zhenya is a qualified chemist working for a large company. Elena is studying at the aviation university.

 

After the class we all head towards town together. The other students are very kind and insist on walking with me part of the route even if it is a little out of their way.

zhenya: how long it take you to go home?
me: about thirty minutes by foot.
zhenya: where do you live.
me: uhhm sort of nearish the university. How long does it take you to get home?
zhenya and anna: thirty minutes by metro.
bogdan: I live in the north east of Kiev, where there are supposed to be lots of bad people that want to steal your money, but so far nothing happened to me.

 

They are chatty and keen to find out about the UK and Western Europe, even though Zhenya has visited London and Paris briefly. He worked near ‘Gyde park’. Gyde park? Oh! That’s Hyde park.

zhenya: tell me, what you like to drink in your country?
me: oh anything really. Vodka, beer, wine, alcopops. How about in Ukraine?
zhenya: beer and vodka.
me: how about champagnski?
zhenya: no not really, it’s expensive and it’s not like French champagne.
me: French champagne? Ugh no! Absolutely not. I don’t like that stuff. Much prefer champagnski.

 

And so it goes on. The others chatting away about their lives and me trying to disguise the privileges I have as an expat and being brought up in the West. I hope I will be able to get to know them better as meeting these ‘normal’ Ukrainians is a rarity. However I think a coffee or beer in a cosy cafe after a lesson might be out of the question.

devushka skid marks

The snowy weather has brought about new experiences and commentary. Little Miss Moi recently mentioned that tide marks are what you get when the salt stuffs up your boots. Willowtree commented that if you slipped you’d end up with skidmarks.Here is what happens if you are a devushka and you slip in the snow:

the three bitches

No, this isn’t a rant about my latest foray into coffee mornings. Read on and all will be revealed.

Strolling down Andrievsky’s Descent and into Podil is one of my favourite ways to while away a day. I never fail to find some interesting little courtyard or little nook I’d never noticed before, and photo opportunities are endless.

A couple of days ago a friend and I wondered around Podil looking for those old Soviet propaganda posters. All the regular places were either closed or had disappeared – not ‘been disappeared’. Although the latest efforts by the city to massively raise rents which have pushed out five galleries, does make one wonder. Eventually we stumbled upon a dusty old basement shop selling second hand posters and antiques. The back room was chocca bloc with old posters, some dating back to the 1920s.

The owner was extraordinarily friendly and was keen to try out his broken English. He was generous with his time and discounts – anyone trying to strike a bargain in Kiev will know that bargaining is frequently a painful process.

me: so are these posters the real thing?
posterman: yes of course.
me: how do I know that?
posterman: you have to trust me. (thumps his chest).
me: really?
posterman: yes, yes, look – this is me (digs in his desk and pulls out a newspaper articling a recent exhibition of his posters) and this is me (as above with a magazine) and this is me (etc etc), and this is my father (pulls out a book written by his father), he is famous writer, AND this is my grandfather (pulls out a dusty picture of his grandfather in military gear) he fight in war.

Posterman got terribly upset when I initially didn’t believe him. Finally he resorted to showing us several pictures of him posing with the president.

I think posterman was the genuine article – ‘cos if your dad is a writer, your grandad fought in the war and you are friends with the president you must be, right?

Two hours later we walked out laden with dozens of old posters, postcards, an oil painting and $200 less in our wallets. We had been given a detailed description of EVERY poster we looked at, despite our best efforts to rush posterman on (we had a Georgian meal to go to – a story for another time), but it was worth it.In with the pile of posters was the obligatory Lenin (see above) and a classic employment propaganda poster -peasant /factory worker / intellectual:

And the oil painting clearly was no oil painting:

Posterman was pretty open with his views, including those on communism. Describing a poster of Marx , Engels and Lenin (sadly I have no photo):

me: goodness look at this one!
posterman: yah! This is called three bitches. Hahaha.
me: ah rrrriiight.
posterman: no no no I joke. This one is Marx, and this one is Spencer. Aahahahaha.

Imagine that conversation taking place 15 or more years ago.

can you bear another cafe experience?

At the end of a peaceful afternoon strolling around UNESCO listed St Sophia’s church, my parents and I fell into a cafe by the Golden Gate. A decent coffee and something sugar-loaded was in order. So tell me how this:one tiramisu, one chocolate cake, one cheesecake

got confused with:two tiramisu, one cheesecake, six chocolate biscuits?

I hope you are confused, because my mind was blown. My Russian is rubbish but I do know how to point pretty effectively, and also know my numbers up to 10 – verbally and on the fingers.

My mother being the patient sort and a teacher who can point properly, went back to the counter with the dumbstruck waitress to change the order. Five minutes later the correct order came. Clearly I am a rubbish pointer.

Halfway through our sugar rush induced by not-that-great-cakes, the waitress approached our table looking all sheepish:

my manager says that because you ordered those extra cakes you must pay for them and if you don’t pay for them then I have to because I made a mistake.

Ok, this sounds logical and I suppose I might have agreed with it to save the bother of complaining to some dumb cafe manager who really couldn’t give a monkeys. But something just clicked in me and I felt a huge sense of injustice. Actually extreme pissed-offness is more accurate.

Instead of sitting there, rolling my eyes and putting up with not getting what I wanted and definitely not wanting what I got I decided it was time to protest. And boy did I regret it:

me: this isn’t right. Can I see the manager?
waitress: the manager will not come to your table.
me: fine I’ll go to the manager.

Big mistake, as the manager was at the till in the middle of the cafe surrounded by nosey devushka waitresses dying to see a piece of the action.

To quote every word (believe it or not I can quote our conversation verbatim it was so extraordinary) would be utterly boring but the essence of the altercation was:

…the cakes we ‘ordered’ and didn’t want had to be paid for and yes the waitress must pay if we didn’t. Fine, that’s a dumb rule but the waitress shouldn’t have tried to play on our guilt and the fact that we didn’t speak Russian by saying she’s have to pay because she messed up. Anyway, the spare cakes were put back on the shelf and didn’t end up in the bin therefore no one lost any money. Yes this was accepted by the manager.

…however, he said, there is a system and the waitress must learn by her mistakes… Yes but mistakes are normal and nobody lost anything (apart from my dignity as I got redder in the face as this discussion went on in full view of everyone) so can you forget this please? No it’s the system…can’t be changed blah blah blah. So can I see your manager? There is no higher manager, the manager here is THE manager. No he isn’t because this is a chain and I’d like to take it further. So the branch manager scribbles on the back of a till receipt the chain manager’s name and mobile number (so professional). Of course I don’t call him.

To cut a long story short and after 15 minutes of wrangling with this idiot, being eavesdropped on by five eager waitresses, I just gave in and said:oh come on, this is just ridiculous. Just this once, forget about the silly rule.

and with the biggest beaming smile I have ever seen on a Ukrainian, the manager said:

ok.

OK? Just like that? After all that faffing about and getting all hot under the collar it was over and done with with a quick ‘ok’ and a smile. Why bother arguing and just say ‘ok’ at the beginning? Clearly as Little Miss Moi has pointed out, we are descending into winter and the Kievites are exercising their grumpy muscles. I think I’m going to start doing the same.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

overhead on planes, trains and …. restaurants

I’ve figured out what’s so annoying about coming home or going to countries where I can sort of understand the language. It’s that I am assaulted by language expressed in all sorts of irritating signs, adverts and by people – which in any other country (like Ukraine) I wouldn’t be able to understand. Living in that little bubble can be quite peaceful at times. A few examples:

me: I’d like a sparkling water please

air stewardess: here you are. Do take care please when opening the bottle.

mdf: I’d like a sparkling water too please.

air steward: yes, you will be careful with that won’t you?

arrghh!I just loathe the dumb health and safety type warnings that are totally unecessary for reasonable intelligent people. Oh actually we were on Ryanair so that could explain the necessity of such warnings for certain unreasonably unintelligent people.

stupid american male tourist #1: ooh yeah, man look at this, I just love seeing those titties.

stupid american male tourist #2: no, man, like, uh, I don’t like the big ones, I like more the, uh, small boobies.

neeargh! This was at the magazine stand at Eurostar. Why did I need to hear this?

 

And finally, something I must admit I did find amusing to overhear in a Paris bistro:

waitress (elderly, white, very lipsticked-up and glamourous): I told you, put the vinaigrette on the side.

chef (young man, black): look, just get back to serving or I’ll come and slap you on the bum!