Photo time! I finally got my photos off my phone and onto my memory stick, so I can show you a few things that I've seen. I took the photo above while I was going to get food on my first night in Kyiv. I don't know what that is, but it looks important so I took a picture. I had no idea where I was at the time...

Anyway, back up to date:

6th September: Did you know there are beaches on the banks of the Dnipro River running through Kyiv? Beaches? Seriously, I know that sunbathing on the banks of the Trent or Thames would probably kill you, but it's a serious possibility in Kyiv. This is what I did on Saturday: I went east of the river (the 'left bank' apparently, which makes no sense to me at all) to a barbecue with guys from the neighbouring [school], plus a few guys from [removed] (my school). Surprisingly cool in the shade, but the sand was very hot underfoot. Having said that, the water in the river was very cold, but I had no swimming clothes so I just paddled. I also took a ride with some of the girls from the [school] on a boat over to a little island in the middle of the river, which was fun - the boat was a bit small, so it was a tight fit. Good time had by all, though.

The view at sunset was pretty good, too.

After I left the other guys, I got a call from [removed] to meet in the middle of town for a drink and some pool, and with no other plans I duly obliged. We hung around Khreshatik and Maidan Nezalezhnosti for a while, drinking on the streets from kiosks. Do they still have Big Tastys at McDonald's in the UK? Well, they do here, and they're 18 UAH (£2.13) so not cheap, but they're big and tasty, so I can't complain too much. We were buying some more beer when a random Ukrainian commented (in Russian/Ukrainian) on how he like [removed]'s tattoos. Now, [removed] speaks some Russian and Polish, and I speak almost bugger all, so you'd never think that this would last, but this guy and his group of around 8 friends encouraged us to join them. So we did.

This is a really bad picture of where we went for most of the time after. There's Soviet-type statues in the middle, and that big rainbow thing, and there were carnival-type rides as well, for some reason. We just sat around drinking for a long while, having very stilted conversations in a mixture of English and Russian/Ukrainian. We all split up for home time, and fortunately two of the guys were going back the same way as me, so we shared a taxi. We went to Mister Snack before that and even though I said I didn't want anything they got me a chicken sandwich, which was nice. Places like Mister Snack (or Містер Снек in Ukrainian) seem like a good replacement for the post-pub kebab shops of Britain. The group also had some food of their own so I had a banana and some pistachios. Altogether, nice people.

I've rambled on about Saturday now, so I'll wait till tomorrow to enlighten you on my roaring hangover and anger over the F1.