кетчуп

Last night I met someone who told me that there was a supermarket type grocery store down the main street of Kiev. Supposedly if I walked to the end I would find a big shopping area and if I went all the way around it just on the other side would be this grocery store. Today I went looking for it. As it turns out, it isn't around the back at all, nor is it in the underground shopping area that is some how not connected to the shopping center directly above it, but it is actually IN the big shopping area. Of course, there are no pictures of fruit or food on the doors, so I had no idea. In my defense, not only do you need to walk into the doors of what seems like a mall, but you need to then find the escalators that go downstairs to the grocery store.

Once I got in though, things were good. I found some things I recognized like Pringles (only a dollar), and Barilla Pasta (...only 3 dollars...). I purchased the cheaper local spaghetti. I looked all over for tomato sauce to make a curry base and eventually found something. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I have a very large packet of ketchup instead of tomato sauce. Sure, they're the same things kinda, but I'm not sure exactly how that's gonna taste. I'm going to just make the chicken I got tonight instead and find some tomato sauce tomorrow. Irony is that had I just even tried to read the label, I would have realized that the letters on the front make out the word 'ketchyup'. However, the large tomatoes all over the bag are rather deceiving.

There are a few things I've yet to do since arriving. One is study Russian and another is unpack. Now, technically I've been studying everytime I go outside since I am constantly trying to read the signs all over the place. I'm almost an expert at butchering the language now. And for the unpacking, well, seriously, who likes to do that? I plan on unpacking at some point when I can find no other way to put it off, but for now, I'm going to go change some money, see if the corner store by my place has any real tomato sauce (and then point and grunt at it), and possibly go sit down in the coffee house and try to order something. I know the word for coffee is кафе (pronounced 'ca-fe') and we'll just see what happens.

Also, here are some pictures from yesterday. I still haven't taken the time to figure out how to do this better, so for now you can just look at the bucket.
http://s595.photobucket.com/albums/tt33/mmmba08/