akoe

Current Mood: awake

While Andrew in flying out to Kyiv today and Peter on Wednesday, I've already had a few reports from some of the early birlds who are spending two weeks in Ukraine. Apparently the weather is nothing to write home about, and showers are forecast for later in the week, so it looks like the populace of Kyiv will be spared the sight of my award winning nobbly knees. I haven''t started packing yet, but the usual advice of "half as many clothes as you think yo'll need and twice as much money" is probably good.

Other news coming back is that the locals are friendly, welcoming and genuinely excited by the whole Eurovision circus hitting their city. Kyiv itself is apparently vast, and the airport is quite a bit away from the venue and most of the delegate hotels. Better news is that apparently everything is remarkably cheap by British and Irish standards, and you can feed yourself quite well for £5 / €7 a day. There are posters up all over the city centre and things are finally taking shape.

After all the reported problems (and this year has had more than most), it would appear that things are finally coming together. Despite being a few days behind schedule the stage is apparently ready to go and they have even had a couple of dummy rehersals.

 The accreditation centre is open, but the press centre doesn't get going until the first full day of rehersals on Thursday.

The tips that I've had so far;

• Bring towels, the locals ones double as sandpaper.
• On a similar subject, Ukrainian toilet paper is more functional than comforting, so a spare roll of "cushion soft" doesn't go astray.
• Be careful of pickpockets even close to the venue, as it's not a secure area yet.
• Be prepared for delays at emigration, even without visas there are still major checks going on.
• Be careful of overly friendly natives, you might have to pay for their company!
• Don't bring huge amounts of dollars or travellers checks. Their ATMs take our cards and give you local currency.