England - The Worst Weather... But The Best People.

We landed at Luton Airport near London on August 2nd not knowing what to expect. The week and a half that we had planned in England was a total deviation from what we had been doing for the last 70 days - Ukrayina felt like roaming around a familiar neighborhood, and our bounces around mainland Europe were in typical tourist fashion. In England, we had planned to spend a couple of days in Coventry (aka, the European middle of nowhere),  a few days at CYM Tabir (deeper into the depths of nowhere), and a few in London.  Little did we know that it was the "middle of nowhere" that we would make some great friendships...

First and foremost, a warning to our new British friends: we plan on spreading the word about your unbridled generosity, so don't be surprised if you have a huge influx of Ukrainians from Canada coming to pay you a visit in the near future.  It all sounds well and good, but those Canadians are going to have some very high expectations from you... And a hell of a lot more mouths to feed!

We landed in Luton, and after some unpleasant repartee with the customs agents, we were in.  A much needed chill day at our friend Styopa's turned quickly into celebratory shots.  What did we celebrate...?  Anything and everything!  Klitschko's gold medal in the 1996 olympics, Mr. Bean's successful replacement of Whistler's Mother in the Bean movie ("it's a poster."), the Coventry Sky Blue Army... As it turns out, British Ukrainians don't really need a reason to drink.  But at least they pretend to make one up!

Two days and two nights in Cov... What can we say, boys?  You treated us like royalty, showed us the sites, we shared laughs, beers, and some disgusting British snacks that no person should ever have to consume. We roamed around Warwick Castle with Zen Dzula (the handsomest man alive), Deek Buniak (the tallest man alive), and Styopa Luczka (the baldest man alive).  That same night, we got a taste of a typical night for the Coventrian Ukrainians.  Step 1 - drink a bit at home.  Step 2 - have a few cheap pints at a downtown pub.  Step 3 - eat the spiciest curry in the world.  Step 4 - go to another pub.  Step 5 - abandon that pub, and go for karaoke.  We could get used to this!  The next day, as if it was meant to be, we picked up tickets to the Canadian women's soccer team against the GB women's team in Cov.  Despite being the only two Canadian fans in the stands among 35,000 at a match Canada won (I know eh?  ...Beat 'em at their own game), we escaped unscathed.  How, you may ask?  We'll, we're newly initiated Ultras of the Coventry City Sky Blue Army, so... Can't go wrong by supporting the home team.  Though we didn't die at the Canada-GB game, we certainly came close at the Coventry CYM club!  Uki British generosity + us making the mistake of bragging that we were in Ukraine for 7 weeks and are thus immune to alcohol = ... We're sure you can guess.

The next morning (or more accurately, afternoon), we awoke to the sweet aroma of a proper English breakfast, prepared by the wonderful mama Dzula.  With our stomachs filled, we headed off to Tarasivka excited, but also a bit nervous...as it turns out, our nervousness was ill-founded.  We got over the standard foreigner-coming-to-tabir apprehension a lot sooner than we thought.  The boys invited us down for a druzhynnyk barbeque, and we got to know everyone over beers and burgers.  Later in the evening, armed with some more social lubricant, we played the games that unite the masses better than any other... We are of course referring to the respective powers of Beer Pong, and Flip Cup.  Apparently, Flip Cup is a little known phenomenon in England... Since many refer to A to Z as the greatest social innovators of our generation, we felt obligated to introduce this wonderful pastime to the Brits.  Once we put up the pictures from England, you'll see how effective Flip Cup is in breaking social barriers... The ultimate day one tabir get-to-know-each-other exercise. In any case, after few games, and we were all best friends.

The Ukies in Britain have figured out a winning formula for tabir.  Think of the age-old adage, "Work hard, play hard."  Though everyone enjoys themselves in the evening, and are not bogged down by overbearing rules, every single person at tabir pulls their weight when it's needed, and often even more.  Our own contribution (besides the time we helped move three chairs that one time) were a few hutirky on UPA and CYM in Canada.  We sincerely hope the taborovyky learned something... Or at least that we managed to keep them awake for a few hours!  Thank you to the komanda, the technichnyj tabir, and everyone else for including us, showing us around, and just generally bearing with our idiosyncrasies.  We can safely say it was one of the most fun and productive parts of out trip :)

On Monday, we were off to London for a few days of sightseeing and Olympics.  Our savior, Chrystyna Chymera, opened her doors for these two Ukrainian drifters for our time in London, and by doing so, saved us from what were probably some outrageous hotel prices.   Without her, we would have literally been homeless.  So, thanks to her, Euan, and her two rabbits, Bunny and Clyde, we lived to sightsee another day!

While in London, we were immediately immersed in the Olympic fever.  Naturally, we cheered for Ukraine.  But at the same time, we felt inclined to cheer for Canada as well.   Though we're proud to be Canadian, we were never rambunctious supporters of Canada so we scrambled to find a Canadian flag to buy.  After hours of searching, we finally found one...as it turns out though, 5 pounds is too steep a price to pay for a Canadian flag.  We settled for the crappy paper ones they gave us at the Canadian Olympic Village.

After 10 days without hearing the sweet timbre of his voice, we once again turned to Rick Steves for his tour-related wisdom.  He led us on a walk through Westminster to Trafalgar Square, and in typical Rick Steves fashion, we got the full spiel about Downing St., walked past Big Ben, and saw the changing of the Horse Guard.  Beyond Rick, when it comes to London, we've found that you get two extremes.  On one end, there are the gimmicky sites that are extremely expensive - Westminster Abbey = £16 (though with a free audio guide narrated by Jeremy Irons, we found ourselves second guessing our unabashed loyalty to Rick Steves for a minute...), London Eye = £18.  A bit of a rip-off.  On the other end, a lot of London museums are extremely cheap... at the British Museum, they offer an awesome cross-section of Britain's 2,000 year history, including one of the main attractions, the Rosetta Stone. That went over our heads a bit though - we can barely read English, much less Greek, Egyptian, or Hyroglyphs!  Other museums we visited were the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum, both excellent bang for your buck (even though for both we paid exactly 0 bucks each).  (To preface the next sentence, we need to tell you that we both have business degrees and abhor science, which makes that sentence particularly astounding.)  Something we learned at the Science Museum is... Science is awweeeeesome!  You know what made the science particularly awesome?  The lights and shiny objects. And so many activities!   As for the London Natural History Museum - the most effective thing we can do is compare it to the other free Natural History Museum we visited on our journey so far... The one in beautiful Kyiv.  Do not ever go to that museum.  If you want to get the effect that the Kyiv Natural History Museum gives you, travel back in time to high school (we're assuming you're old enough to care about the natural history of anything), and walk up and down the halls of the science department.   See the paper mache?  See the bristle boards?  See the magazine cut outs?  Any or all of those science projects you saw on the walls of your high school would be the main attraction of the Kyiv Natural History Museum.  But we digress... The point is that, unlike the Kyiv one, the London Natural History Museum is a child's educational dream.  Or an adult's educational dream, if those adults have the attention span of a dog (us).

Before we wrap up this diatribe, we have to say something about the weather in England.  One minute, it's sunny and hot.  The next, it's cold and raining.  How do you plan your day with that?  On any given day, we were at some point dressed in every extreme... In half an hour, you can go from sweating in shorts and a t-shirt, to freezing in sweats and a jacket.   To be fair, England doesn't get Canadian winters, so.... Maybe we just came at the wrong time of the year.  I guess we just have to come back in a few months!

Through our 9 some odd days in England, we were treated like kings, and were absolutely humbled by everyone's generosity.  We will tell tall tales of our time there...though in Andrijko's case, we use the term "tall" pretty loosely.  Now, it's time to pay it back - we'll see you all in Canada in the summer of 2013!

Also, we've complied a British-English to Canadian-English dictionary for you North Americans' next journey to GB:

"Knackered" = Tired
"Budgie Smuggler" = Speedo
"Peanut Smuggler" = T-Shirt
"Lord Baldemort" = A Bald Person
"Are You Alright?" = Hello
"That's Proper Gay" = That's Very Gay
"Tune" = A Particularly Good Song
"Slag" = Promiscuous Female
"Fit" = Attractive
"Tidy" = Attractive
"Bird" = Girl
"Happy Queueing" = Enjoy Yourself While You Stand in a Line (we don't get it either)
"Go For A Slash" = Go Pee


...and some others we can't mention.

Keep checking - we've got a lot more things coming!