Kiev, Ukraine -or- Holy crap I'm lazy

About a month ago, I went with the other 90 Americans to Moscow and Kiev, and shortly after, I got super lazy because I have not yet written about it.

Kiev was my first time in Ukraine, but it also marked my first trip riding the Russian Platzkart option. I have read about other people's platzkart stories, either of horror or of amazing memories, but riding with other Americans made the trip less than memorable.

We stayed at a pretty decent hotel, not as nice as the Holiday Inn in Moscow though. The hotel was definitely from the Soviet era.

The trip confirmed what I suspected. I hate group tours and excursions. The places we all went weren't horrible. Some of them were quite pleasant. What was not pleasant was being with 40 other people, most of whom were not happy to be there. Another thing was having a tour guide that was really bad about reading the desires of the group. For example: Sure, St. Sophia's is a really beautiful church. It does not, however, deserve an hour and a half of my time, especially when the tour only includes the first floor. I do not need to know the entire history of the church, rather maybe some interesting facts like during the fresco restoration, a bunch of workers died from dust inhalation. Cool Stuff. I also do not need to spend a couple hours in the National Museum of Ukraine and only see the sections on pre-Ukrainian history (granted the money exhibit was really cool and I explored that area by myself. Too bad the rest of the tour group just got to see a bunch of Greek coins and stuff).
The tour guide also assumed that were were all just a bunch of dumb Americans. When she asked us "Do you know who Lenin was?", what she interpreted as confusion was actually a group-aneurism. Most of us had actually seen his very waxy embalmed self just a few days earlier!

Kiev is definitely on my plans for winter break. I did get to visit the WWII museum in the base of the Motherland Calls monument as well as visit the Chernobyl Disaster Museum.

The WWII museum was spectacular, seriously one of the best museums I have been to on this trip. It cost only 3 hryvni on a student card. One thing I wish I would have done was, for just 200 hryven (about $35) you can go up to the top of her shield. My friend and I wrestled with the decision for quite a while before deciding it was too much money. Also, it would have required us to share the journey with a really creepy dude who was obviously in Kiev to purchase a wife. (Speaking of that, the map that we all received had about 10 escort service ads on it. Classy CIEE, classy)
The Chernobyl Museum, while very good, was not what I expected. It was designed as more of a memorial to the aftermath rather than an exhibit of the event itself. I kinda figured they wouldn't have any items from the site, and they didn't, but I still wish they did. In the front lot they had many old vehicles that were used during the cleanup and evacuation. The last room in the museum had a massive structure on the floor that looked like the top of a reactor, with chairs on top of extracted control rods. COOL.

On food. There is a super cheap restaurant in Ukraine called Puzata Hata (Пузата Хата) which, if I remember correctly, means something like "fat gut". The restaurant is set up like a cafeteria; grab a tray and tell the servers what you want (or point, if you're lazy). Not only is it absolutely delicious, it's cheap; you can get a complete, huge meal for under $6.

Since it's not obvious, These are Hryvnia, the currency of Ukraine