As I drove to Kiev I had a lot of time to think. That’s quite obvious as I’m driving on my own. But I don’t have anything to write on so many things that I want to write about just disappear. I need to work on my memory 😉

Anyway, first of all, the weather is much better for driving then last year. I prefer some rain for the heat. I can protect myself from rain but not from heat. Today it was almost cool; I even had to put on an extra sweatshirt.

As Ukraine (still) is not a member of EU and also has no Euro as currency, could be a reason, that it’s very cheap here. And for Swedish people very easy to convert the currency because our currencies have almost the same value. So petrol is about nine kr/liter, about one €. Locally produced goods are extremely cheap, like clothing and shoes. Food, cigarettes and liquor also. Hotels are very affordable, I’m staying at a four star hotel in Kiev now for 550 kr/night. (appr. 60 €). Normally I find a nice hotel for half that price.

Away from the big cities the prices drops even more. That I look forward to, when I leave Kiev tomorrow.

Ukraine is trying to catch up on the road condition, many says it’s because of the Euro 2012 soccer championship. Today I experienced a nice road almost the whole way from L’viv. But the organization at the constructions sites were hard to understand. Suddenly I got a car coming towards me in my lane. And I don’t think I did anything wrong. I’m always driving correctly 😉

The police love their laser guns. But once again the Ukrainian drivers are very kind. I just have to watch out for flashing headlights coming towards me. It worked at least 5 times today, so no speeding tickets for me 😀

Yesterday I realized that they have organized how to get the waiters attention in almost a organized Swedish way. At least I think this could have been Sweden who introduced it. At lunch time I had a very fine apple cake. As I sat down I got a small bell. I felt like in the 19:th century, upstairs and downstairs.

In the evening, in a restaurant, they had an even more sophisticated thing. En electronic button on every table. Just press and wait.

Tonight Kiev is on, I’ve been here before so I try to find some new places. But I’ll have to go to the central place. I just love the stairs with the water pouring down. Last time I was here it was very much warmer and people were walking up and down. I’ll see how it is tonight.

Tomorrow, Swedish history. Poltava. One of the highlights of this tour. I’ve decided to go a bit faster down to Crimea so I won’t stay for the night in Poltava. I’ll be around lunchtime at the battlefield and the museum, but I’ll skip skip most of the town. I really want some heat now, and that I’ll hope to find further south.

I hope this will work, at least if I can start as planed tomorrow, quite early. I hope the traffic on a Sunday morning will be less hectic.