On Dusk and the Soviet Colours, or 400 Takes on Gray and Red on Colourless Tiles.

So dealing with the joyality, spectacicus of jet lag the second time around isn't as smooth as the previous. There were so many things to rest my eyelids from blinking as much after landing in Ukraine that the time shift took a second stand to anything else possible, back in the cities it is a faster transition to the usual and few things to spark any sort of excitement and hold myself fully conscious. Almost makes it seem full consciousness is only possible if everything in the most outward seeping sense of the concept is in a perspective inherently aside from what you are most adjusted toward. Few extended months in Kiev, a trip to the Shetlands for a bit and then a return would probably land me in the same sort of state as I am now, just with a more accessible source of alcoholic counters to the experience.
The transatlantic trip from Amsterdam to MSP was the best from any of the other flights, and wasn't really any competition for the outward to Amsterdam run as the plane was a fucking pensioner of Boeings and even lacked individual seat belt signs. This flight wasn't just a kick up from the prospect of Western culture again, although possibly that is true as one of the sweetest parts of the 8 something hour dragging out of a 13 hour morning for us was the individual screens in the back of each seat. Movies and an actual semi decent NWA music selection! The movies were all mid range for enjoyment, with the stark exception of Peter Jackson's latest reel of shit which would have sent me into utilizing the ever present fold-down bag in the seat pocket in front of me, wedged between the untold wonders of duty-free capitalism and diagrams of pacific passengers fitting their oxygen masks to the most comfortable form for their 90 degree descent. I sort of want to find out if there was ever a specific event that triggered the usual command of 'make sure to adjust your own mask before assisting others' that caused the commonality of the demand. So before everyone else died the two had an argument over the mask situation and pissed off enough of the other passengers to complain post mortem? Someone lodged a legal battle against the airline over someone else risking themselves over the safety of someone else struggling to suck down some straight oxygen and soothe their nerves for a ride in a rubber boat with their seat cushions?
Digressing, the music selection was decent in parts and you can set up a playlist of a few 40 songs while throwing back some high altitude beverages. One of the Euro sets had some Royksopp and Sigur Ros, which were sweet for the pass over Greenland. I scored a window seat next to Jenny and when I intermittantly cracked open the shade to the unending 8 hours of blinding morning light, there were a few decent airscapes. Airscapes? If I have ever tried conjuring up an image of what Greenland looks like before, it would probably be around what the bits I spotted through clouds came out to represent. True that there isn't really anything around the barren, cartographically manipulated stretch of rocks, but it would be sweet to frolick around in sometime. Iceland was all under clouds and the flight only toppled over the tip, so some of Greenland was a decent compromise along to Scandinavian vibes.
Every interaction I have the last day I have to hold back an, 'эти, пожалуйста' or a 'нет, спасибо' from setting everything into Russian the last three weeks, and it slips out every few phrases. Figure that approaching semi fluency will have a grand scale of up-sides and the few turns into a usually distant language could be a smooth way to opt out of conversations with people who don't know my national backgrounds and who I would want to disperse from a language barrier. Most of the fresh words I picked up in Україна and am able to remember are all slang, and most deal with drinking, figure that one out yourself. Eskimos have a thousand words for snow, Ukrainians and Russians have threeve million for drinking and the state of not so sober.
Loaded up the Nalgene and set out to take on the first bit of Huntington today after I landed a new phone charger for 25 fucking USD as my usual one didn't take the plane ride from US to Kiev in the exact way I expected. I probably could have picked up a cheaper one in Amsterdam, even priced in Euro. Again trailing back to my struggling line of thought, I'm sort of excited to dive into the Clash of Civilizations. That excitement isn't a struggle, as the prospect of hours working this summer are bleaker than a Frenchman ordering cognac in the Kashtan bar around Шулявска station in western Kiev, and a decent amount of time is going to be spent on undirected academia. Grad school on the horizon? Fuck.
The lack in imminent random experiences in a familiar culture where the boundaries usually are stable boundaries is flaring up a bit of missing Eastern Europe. I dropped some sort of line about hackey sacking oranges in a Cільно store last time, figure I'll finish out with cutting out the suspense. After watching the Ukrainian junior football leage getting trampled by Netherlands in the non-ventilated sports bar connected to Сільно and a few hours short of our required 3am preparations to kick out to the airport, we figured a last beer to level out the hours before our flight after the few we had in the bar would land well. Needed something to flatten out the smoke in my ventricles anyway, there was enough smoke in the bar that when Andy was finishing off a cig the smoke dropped straight down from the pressure. As it usally plays out in Ukraine, the 24 hour market was partially closed for an hour as the one person working the register was on a spontaneous break. The bottles from Сільно are usually cooler and decently priced so a few of us took the opportunity to ramble around until the register reopened after the ringer probably had a few beers, a pack, and some варенники to slip out of the disillusionment of a retail job paying a few grivna a day. Drunk eyes Jenny tossed around through the oranges for a while before finding the perfect one and after inspecting the raw, probably naturally chemically induced fish from the Dniepr, and restraining urges to have an orange-schooner race in the open fish tank we took randomly to the aisles. Lacking in sobriety from our 25 grivna tabs, Jenny dropped the orange somewhere in the chocolate and tea aisles, around four aisles down from the 4 stretching aisles of wine, cognac, vodka and beer respectively, and one of the Ukrainian Andrei's flipped it up with his foot to start of the match. With all the security around the aisles and their indiferrence or lack of restrictions at the sort, it was a stellar time, and one of the oranges still resides around the teas.
So a few Белі Ноч bottles later it was a bit of a better story, I'll drag some more captivating ones up for other Ukrainian relapse postings. 22 days straight of alcohol intensified cultural experience, as Ukrainian culture is inherently part alcohol constructed, there are a few decent ones in the stock. Narcotic taxi drivers, maybe not so добрый mornings, three weeks in Ukraine provides the possibility for the Crime and Punishment of intoxicated ramblings, and the summer is just breaking in.
Break open the smuggled bottle of Ukrainian vodka with honey and pepper? Topping out at 24 days straight is just reworking the culture, правда?
За всё.