Crossfit M4

Friday we were tired. We were going to trudge to a “SPAR”grocery store that Jason found on his way to a meeting, but we’ve got someserious melt going on—you can imagine how much fun it is to walk on melting iceacross the “Children’s Park” that was once a cemetery (they left the bodies,but moved the headstones). I think the cemetery-cum-park makes more sense on an ice coated, grey day in Ukraine. In any case, the peanut butter question remainsunanswered, which also means that our hope remains alive…

…and in case you were thinking, “I can just mail you some.”Why, no, you can’t. We don’t have a mailbox. Thus, I’m pretty sure we don’thave the corresponding mail service to go with one.

We ended up at ye ole “L’eto” grocery store, but before wewent in, we went for a quick lunch at the “Ali Baba” café, which advertisedschwarma, but was, curiously, out of potatoes (= no fries). Neither of usactually ordered the schwarma once we saw what else was on the menu- Fajitas!Now, you may wonder what a fajita in Kharkov, Ukraine entails, so let me fillyou in: stir fried chicken, onion and bell peppers, mushrooms, corn, cheese(the only description I can give is: white), and mayo. It was all served on asteaming hoagie. Surprisingly, no cabbage was involved, although I swear I sawit listed—it may have been MIA like the potatoes. I gave up on the last coupleof bites, which were dripping with a combination of grease and mayo (bothhealthy and delicious!).

As for atmosphere, the place was an overgrown kiosk. It hada counter a la McDonalds at which you ordered and the familiar coating of frygrease on the floor and, well, everything else. We sat in an extra room tuckedin to the side of the stand. There were two tables- one filled with centralAsian students coated in black leather, who were playing Russian rap on theircell phones, and Jason and I. I’m sure we blended.

This afternoon we hauled ourselves over to Crossfit M4. We’davoided it for a bit, because we knew it would be an odyssey. Two metro stopsand then we walked…turned around…walked some more…turned around again andfinally found it. It took us an hour and a half. In our defense, let me justsay that I did not expect to find two different roads named after two different50 year anniversaries- one for the 50 year anniversary of the Former SovietUnion (wrong) and one for the 50 year anniversary of the “Komsomol” (correct)…and I further would not have guessed that they’d intersect. In any case, weskated over the melting ice and felt such relief when we found it situated nextto the Hospital (convenient and probably not the best omen).

Yuri seemed really glad to see us and quickly threw togethera WOD for us. He spoke Russian with a Ukrainian accent, which means that everytime he encounters the letter “g” in Russian, he says “h” instead. So, we didoverhead squats, or “nad golovoy”, only he pronounced it “nad holovoy”. I toldhim he could call me “Galya”, which is about as close to Holly as you can getin Russian, and it came out “Halya”- even closer. Jason was “James”.

Everyone was very friendly, though. They told us to taketrolleybus # 24 back to the metro. It took about 5 minutes, which I mentionmainly because of the deathmarch on the way over. Jason points out that we didsave 3 Grivny (45 cents) by walking…

I’m going to try to collect “fur” photos for you all. Ithought you might find it interesting because it is so…not déclassé…butcertainly much more taboo in the US. There is lots of sable and mink going downthe street and some really fantastic “shapka’s” (fur hats) on both women andmen.