Pimp My Ride, Ukraine Style.

Had a good and fairly uneventful ride to Kiev today {as opposed to my last ride home from Kiev, described here}.  Not only did I get my favorite seat, the front passenger seat, but this was the most pimped out van/marshrutka I have ever ridden in in Ukraine.  The sliding door on the side where all of the passengers get on/off was automatic and controlled with a button next to the driver {never seen that here in Ukraine!}.  Our driver had a radar detector, a GPS, and a very nice stereo system. 

The view from my seat--the sign reads "KIEV" on the front so that we can pick up people in villages along the way if there are extra seats.

Why yes, that's a giant fake tarantula. This was the one con to the ride.  Remember this story?

The personal video screen in front of me, in addition to a mini-screen on the cd/dvd player.  BTW, it's totally normal for Ukrainian drivers to decorate their dashboards with crap hanging from them, no matter how distracting.  

We lucked out and got to watch a Russian western for over half the ride.  I listened to Glee.  The driver watched the screen in front of me too.  Surprisingly, he was one of the best driver's I've had since I've been in Ukraine.  Driving, texting, talking on the phone, watching a movie, and eating sunflower seeds the entire ride.  Totally normal as well.  

Upon arriving on the outskirts of Kiev, we were greeted with stand still traffic which made us 30 minutes late.  We took a different route than we normally do, and I'm guessing it's because they are doing road construction on a highway for Euro 2012 which is in a short 2 months.  Traffic was brutal.  And then on top of it, our driver randomly got pulled over by a cop for random search/questioning.  On the plus side, because of the random route we took, we happened to pass very close to my hostel and I was able to get out there and not have to take the metro.  Nice surprise :) 

Mary Kathryn {from my link cluster days in Oster} was in Kiev today too.  So, we met at the hostel and headed out to a favorite eatery: Chinese food.  I hated Chinese food in the states but absolutely love getting it here in Kiev.  

Mary Kathryn, with our dominated spread: veggie fried noodles, spicy fried tofu, and a spring roll.

the fried tofu is to die for.  

I'm exhausted now.  And I have to get up early to be at the Peace Corps office for blood work {and it's fasting blood work at that}.  Hopefully last tests to monitor all my blood levels and make sure the pneumonia is gone.  The past few nights I haven't gotten as much sleep because we just had daylight savings time on Sunday.  I still don't have all my energy back from the pneumonia. That thing literally sucked the life out of me...for weeks!  I hope none of you have to experience it!  Night night.  Much love :)