Hey there, I'm back! And I've bought a brand new Advent 4213 netbook on which to type up my blog. It's very small but has all the trimmings and, for a PC of this size, is pretty damn fast, too. If I can find a nice little coffee shop with free Wi-Fi, that'd be very nice.

But enough rambling. I, again, haven't updated in too long (though I think only Pete really cares, as it's a nice way for him to avoid working). There's been a few interesting things to note on since my last update. Obviously, Christmas is a clear one. Before leaving for Christmas, however, there was the little matter of parties and such - work-related ones, mainly. We had a student party, which entailed renting out a place called 112, a nightclub, which was quite fun, especially as us teachers wore badges with our names on them, and got in for free. It's in a huge complex called Arena, which I must have a look round soon as there's restaurants and stuff in the place too. And shops.

The following week, with the pavements ridiculously icy - so much so that people constantly were falling over, including myself - we went to an Indian restaurant called the New Bombay Palace. No idea where it is, as we took a minibus from school to get there. It was a strange experience, mainly because I'm so familiar with Indian restaurants in England that this one was clearly a novelty to the locals, but pretty standard to me. The other thing that made it strange was that nearly everyone involved with the Kyiv schools - not just mine, [removed], but others too - was at the place, and they rented out the large back room for the evening. There was plenty to drink, so much so that when the 'mains' arrived (the starters were there when we got there) most people were too drunk to sit down and eat, so everyone was just dancing in the middle of the room. Not quite what I expected from a work dinner, as I've had a couple with office jobs, and they're much more formal. TEFL is nice and fun.

A couple of days later, I headed on home to England. Not quite sure what to tell anyone here (my majority readership live there anyway) but I spent Christmas day with the family, spent a couple of nights with my pals, and spent New Year's Eve in a (usually) popular pub called The Dog with Pete and his mate. Pete was rather displeased that there was breathing room in the pub: it was busy by Friday night standards, but certainly not New Year's standards. Credit crunch? Maybe. Weather? Nah, it's always cold on New Year's. The fact that I had to pay £3 just to come inside (it's a pub, not a club, so this is a once-a-year oddity that doesn't really hold up given how empty it was) was the icing on a disappointing New Year's cake. Don't think they make New Year's cakes. Maybe in Ukraine...

After a few days of biding my time and watching the FA Cup, I flew back home. I wasn't exactly given a warm welcome back by my adopted country, as a policeman saw me inside a metro station as I entered and decided it'd be fun to interrogate me. Fun it was not, for me that is. I barely understood a word he said, something he seemed incapable of assisting. I know I'm a TEFL teacher so I have training and experience of communicating with people who don't speak much of my language, but common sense must dictate that not changing your approach when the person in front of you keeps saying "what? I don't understand" isn't going to help you. He had a rummage around my bag for kicks, too. When he pulled out a plastic bag of suspicious-looking drug-like stuff, I had to blurt in Russian "that's tea!", as it was. My mum thought it'd be a good idea to put lots of tea bags in a plastic bag and not tell me she'd put them there. Imagine my face if he found them and I'd never seen them before! Yeah, thanks Mum...

After realising he was getting nowhere (and he checked my passport with visa - though he kept saying "what?" while looking at it, as if he'd never seen a visa before...) he bade me farewell. I was a bit annoyed by the encounter, as it's the first time I've ever been stopped by police, anywhere. For future reference: once you get your baggage at the airport, remove the ID strip from it, it's a dead giveaway. Why else would he decide to pick on me? I did have two bags, a backpack and a very heavy sports bag, so maybe he thought I was a bootlegger off to sell something, I don't know.

Anyway, since coming back, I've been a complete recluse: my sleep patterns are messed up, so I've been getting up late, sleeping early, whatever. It's around 1pm and I feel like I want to sleep, so that gives you an idea. All I've done since coming back is some food shopping, though an hour or so ago I decided to finally explore Babyn Yar, as it's right over the road from my flat, but for some reason I'd never been around it before. I took lots of pictures of it, but that's another story for another day. Pete was bugging me to take lots of pictures of this strange and mystical land of Ukraine, so I'll oblige. Just not today: this post is plenty long enough already.