A quick hello again

Still having a fascinating time here in Kiev -- I don't have the regular private access to the internet I was expecting, but frankly I don't miss it too much. There are plenty of internet-by-the-hour places I can stop in at when I feel like it (very cheap, too). In two weeks of wandering around the city, I have run into precisely one leftover statue of Lenin (in the center divider of a boulevard choked with a traffic jam worthy of Los Angeles) and two examples of the abysmal customer-service standards characteristic of societies which are still getting the hang of a competitive free-market economy. Aside from that, there's essentially nothing about this colorful, vibrant city to remind me that it was part of the dreary Soviet Union until just sixteen years ago.

I'll be back in the US in a little over a week and will have plenty of more detailed observations then.

The Infidel