My Pad

Through this dank-smelling portal....

 ...through this rather stern-looking gate...

 ...up two flights of these rickety stairs...

...and down this rather disheartening corridor, it´s...

 ...my place! OK, well, that´s the kitchen.  Yes, that´s a couch.  I had no need for it.

But this is the main room.  It was about 25 feet square - swear to God.  The ceiling was probably 10 or 11 feet high.  It was immense.  Not pictured is the satellite TV that I could never get to work.  Here´s the view I had:

 This is a little bazaar that sell souvenirs and really bad artwork. 

Oh, and my building was right next to the theater.  They were putting on Zorba the Greek in Ukrainian.  I wanted to see it but they were completely sold out.  After trying to watch Ukrainian TV, it became obvious that the population is starved for entertainment.

I´m guessing that the building where I was staying was around 300 or 400 years old.  Heck, there was a cathedral down the street celebrating its 600th anniversary.  There are all kinds of places nearby that date to the 13th century.  So yeah, it was a great place to stay.  The only drawback was that I didn´t do a lot of sleeping because of the blasted time change.  I always have trouble with it the first few days.  Day one: I wake up at 2am and can't get back to sleep.  Day two: 3am; day three 4am.  Although I'm making progress, it's just weird being wide awake so early/late.  I did get a chance to think about stuff and to listen one of the guys who sold bad artwork set up his stall at 5am.  Why he needed to do it so early I'll never know.