St. Patrick's Day
This year I decided to go to Kyiv to celebrate a fellow PCV's birthday and to enjoy Kyiv's St. Patty's Day fesitivities. There are two Irish pubs in Kyiv and we went to the one the revellers celebrated in the year before.
We arrived around 9 pm and the place was already packed with expats. This primarily consisted of men aged 40 or over already on their way to having a good time. They wasted little effort in attempting to get acquainted with the mostly female pack of young PCVs. While the price of entry was pretty steep ($12) it did include some drinks.
The place was decked out in green with balloons and shamrocks everywhere. The large screen TVs played U2's concert footage from their "Into the Heart" tour for most of the evening and early on there was live Irish music, complete with several girls doing some Irish dancing.
Tired of standing, another PCV and myself headed into another room that one Englishman proclaimed earlier to be "where all the other Americans are," hinting for us to join them before he berated us for the sins of our President. ("Did you vote for Blair?" I countered. He looked reflective and shook his head no. "There you go" the b'day girl and I echoed back before drawing our attention back to the bar.) We found some empty chairs near some folks who struck up a converastion with us for a while. Expats in Kyiv tend to be a rather smarmy crowd, enjoying the privileges that their incomes can afford them and the access to things like young Ukrainian women, but these folks seemed rather normal, interesting and nice. It could be because they consissted of what I took to be two couples. It was good for a change of pace.
After a while I heard a new band start to play and realized that they were playing U2. I got up to go and dance and headed to the front to get the best view and sound. Around me emerged a bit of a younger crowd and mixed in terms of nationalities. We met young Americans teaching English in Kyiv, young Ukrainians with excellent English working for American companies, just cool folks in general. As the band played on and I lost myself in the music I was incredibly happy that I took the long (and expensive) trip up there for the weekend. But what else should I have expected from a holiday that stems from a nation deep rooted in the beliefs of luck and chance.
We arrived around 9 pm and the place was already packed with expats. This primarily consisted of men aged 40 or over already on their way to having a good time. They wasted little effort in attempting to get acquainted with the mostly female pack of young PCVs. While the price of entry was pretty steep ($12) it did include some drinks.
The place was decked out in green with balloons and shamrocks everywhere. The large screen TVs played U2's concert footage from their "Into the Heart" tour for most of the evening and early on there was live Irish music, complete with several girls doing some Irish dancing.
Tired of standing, another PCV and myself headed into another room that one Englishman proclaimed earlier to be "where all the other Americans are," hinting for us to join them before he berated us for the sins of our President. ("Did you vote for Blair?" I countered. He looked reflective and shook his head no. "There you go" the b'day girl and I echoed back before drawing our attention back to the bar.) We found some empty chairs near some folks who struck up a converastion with us for a while. Expats in Kyiv tend to be a rather smarmy crowd, enjoying the privileges that their incomes can afford them and the access to things like young Ukrainian women, but these folks seemed rather normal, interesting and nice. It could be because they consissted of what I took to be two couples. It was good for a change of pace.
After a while I heard a new band start to play and realized that they were playing U2. I got up to go and dance and headed to the front to get the best view and sound. Around me emerged a bit of a younger crowd and mixed in terms of nationalities. We met young Americans teaching English in Kyiv, young Ukrainians with excellent English working for American companies, just cool folks in general. As the band played on and I lost myself in the music I was incredibly happy that I took the long (and expensive) trip up there for the weekend. But what else should I have expected from a holiday that stems from a nation deep rooted in the beliefs of luck and chance.
posted by Molly | 3:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home