I should take the time here to note that although most Ukrainians speak no English (and most of the ones who do speak very little and poorly), they make up for this by being very friendly and helpful. After parking I stopped a young couple to ask for directions to my apartement, and when they understood my predicament they used their own cell phone to call the rental company and insisted on waiting with me until they arrived. They absolutely refused any payment for the use of the cell phone.
I should also take the time to point out something I believe I've mentioned before on this blog - Eastern Europeans are usually very friendly and helpful when you meet them in a social context. But they are inflexible, incompetent and downright fraudulent when they're acting in an official capacity, be it as a civil servant or as a private company employee.
Since I had not been able to call ahead about my delay, the apartment I had booked had already been let out. Fortunately they had another place just a few minutes away. At the new place I was given keys and instructions by the American husband of the woman who owned the rental company - he was the one who told me what to do about traffic tickets - and all seemed fine at the time. I was just happy to have made it to Kiev in one piece, and on the surface the apartment seemed nice and the people renting it competent and helpful. Sadly, it was not to last.
Again, I'll spare you the details of my attempts to correspond with them and get the various flaws of the apartment fixed. The phone I had been promised was nowhere to be seen, which meant I had to use my Norwegian cell phone to contact them (expensive!) and the faucet in the shower was so leaky, most of the water just fell to the floor. This meant I had about 2 minutes of lukewarm drizzle to shower in before the water got ice cold. They kept stalling all week with lies and promises of plumbers, bringing a phone, etc, etc, and when I finally left the place they didn't even have the guts to show up and get the keys from me - they were left on the kitchen table with the door open. I had paid cash in advance, and the company didn't have my credit card number so I hope someone cleaned out the place before the bastards arrived.
The leaky faucet:
