I is putting the You in Ukraine

Nothing has yet passed in the Ukraine that has not been a little strange. If I am ever again in a position to instruct novices in literary theory, when the classes on Russian Formalism roll by, I will be well equipped with anecdotes to illustrate Victor Shlovksy’s (was it?) ideas about ostraninie.

A well dressed man walked past me carrying a framed print of a naked woman being embraced by a panda.

I watched nuns watching Ukrainian b-boys break it down on the street in Kyiv.

A very cranky museum attendant at the Lviv History Museum (the black building), having established that I was Australian and spoke a little bit of German, hauled me over to a cardinal’s robe and aggressively explained that this cardinal, of Ukrainian origin, had visited Australia in the 60s. I made interested noises. He glared and then left me.

In spite of a three hour wait on the Slovakian border for customs, during which I became increasingly concerned by the non-appearance of my passport, the train from Kosice to Lviv arrived on time.

The phone in the hall had no dial.

I took a sip of what I thought was apple-juice at breakfast and discovered it to be something like smoked bison grass cordial.