Art School Restaurant: Fine (in both senses of the word) Dining in Liverpool

I have to admit that I did not know about Kyiv. Not Kiev; I knew about Kiev. But that’s all I knew. Let me splain. As we planned our trip from Russia through Eastern Europe and back home to London, my husband said “we should go to Kyiv”- pronounced Keev. And I said “where is this ‘Keev’ I never heard of it” and he was like “Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine??” and I was like “no that’s Kiev and it is pronounced ‘Kee-ev'”and he was like “wat” and I was like “what is happening” and I learned that Kiev (‘Kee-ev’) is the Russian word for the city, and since gaining their independence, Ukrainians have been very serious about reclaiming their own word for their capital city, ‘Kyiv’ (Keev), the one syllable version that was unknown to me. Can we blame the Russian bots for my ignorance? Now I’m all smarted up and ready to talk about this great city, Kyiv. Or Kiev, if you wanted to I guess. I like the sound of the two-syllable evil version better, but my preferences as a non-Ukrainian don’t matter. Do as the people want us to. It’s Kyiv.  

Now that that’s sorted, let’s talk about this charming city. We were solidly back in Eastern Europe now, having left Mother Russia. Oh let’s talk about that leaving bit, shall we. After our less-than-a-day return to Moscow, we caught an overnight train – our second-to-last one of the trip!! – from Moscow to Kyiv. This train was the worst experience yet, isn’t that so fun??? I know some of you who kept up through all the China and Uzbek trains are like, what how on earth could it be worse? What about those 8 hour border stops where you had to sneak into the bathrooms to pee? What about the old Chinese lady in your bed? Well those were all terrible, yes, but hear me out. When we boarded, I thought we were soo lucky because the toilets were automated! Like Amtrak, with the lit-up flush buttons and stuff! They weren’t just holes opening up onto the track! Unfortunately, that luster was short-lived. Apparently the super-fancy (not fancy, basic technology) toilets very quickly broke, and since the conductor isn’t an engineer, he just duct-taped the toilet shut, rendering it unusable for the rest of the journey. I trekked down to the other end of the carriage with a sigh, which turned into a bigger, more horrified scream when I saw that that toilet was ALSO taped shut. The next cabin on was the restaurant car! No toilets in there! And the next one in the other direction was the overcrowded platzkart, packed full of people in bunk beds in the open plan, with lines for the toilet at all hours and so resentful of people from other carriages on their turf. Those toilets were basic open-the-bottom-onto-the-tracks; apparently only those passengers with doors were given the fancy easily breakable toilets. So every hour throughout the night, I had to clamber through the terrifying open section that connects carriages, stepping on the giant metal chain links that wrenched forward and back with the train’s movement and trying not to fall while jerking the heavy carriage doors open with all my might. Over and over again!

Thank all the lucky stars, I was okay. Pissed off and full of impotent rage that I couldn’t actually direct at anyone (I never saw the conductor people, and also what else could they have done), but okay. I was so excited to see Kyiv, which I know I am spelling in the progressive way but honestly I can’t stop saying Ki-ev in my head. Anyway, I didn’t know much about Ukraine going in, except that I had just recently started saying it without the ‘the’ that so many Americans seem to think is required – seriously why do we always call it The Ukraine?? it’s so weird! – and that Oksana Baiul was my favorite skater in 1994 and the only winner to come out of the whole Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan debacle. Well her and Margot Robbie. I was eager to learn more about the country through its well regarded capital city. 

Our Russian language skillz would come in handy to understand all the signs in Cyrillic and all the similar sounding vocab, but despite much of the population speaking and/or understanding Russian, it would not be very wise to lead with speaking Russian. Since their independence from the Mother Country, Ukrainians have some tension, to say the least, with Russia, as we all do. We assumed, now that we were back in Europe, that it would be easy to get by with English. Surely most of the people know English! Spoiler, they don’t! It was very rare that we encountered English speakers. So follow Scar’s advice (not the Boy Scouts)(the Boy Scouts suck) and Be Prepared. 

Our train arrived at about 7am, so we were exhausted and very much wanting to shower. Our last shower was in that random hostel in Moscow (was that the day before? Time had no meaning any longer). So we took a cab to our lodging. We were staying for the next few nights at the Theatre Boutique Apart-hotel, in a studio apartment situation that operated like a hotel, sort of, in that there was to be someone at a desk in the building of apartments to check us in. I initially liked how it sounded because theatre. The building was hard to find because it was set back in a kind of alley complex that was SUPER shady and graffitied and even at 7am just completely sketchy. I was skeptical. And unforch, because it was so early, no staffers were in yet. The maid was there, luckily, and was used to dealing with guests arriving at inopportune times, and she told us we could leave our stuff and come back in….six hours. I KNOW! I was soooo mad. Surely the main employee would be in at 9, right? And would call us and tell us that our room was ready before the godforsaken common check in time of 2pm? I could not wait six hours! But I had to! Ahhh! Anyway the ‘place’ we could leave our stuff was right there in the main hallway, reeeeeally not secure, so I was not feeling this place at all. Strike after strike. Z was like ‘who is going to steal our disgusting stuff tho’ and I was like ‘disgusting people tho’. I asked the maid if there was a bathroom we could use – we still needed to brush our teeth and stuff if we couldn’t shower yet! Well, this is an apartment hotel type jawn, not a hotel hotel with bathrooms on the main floor or anything, so no, the only bathrooms are in the rooms. Ahhhh! Luckily, the maid was super nice and showed us to one down the hall that was HER CLOSET. Like it had all her cleaning supplies in it and also all her snacks and changes of clothes and pictures and knick knacks and stuff and also a toilet and a tiny baby sink and it was sooooo awkward. I was so grumpy about this whole situation. But there’s no time to sulk when you are filthy and also in a new exciting city! We decided to go out and get food, and that story plus all related stories will come in a separate post about Kyiv food next. After that and some activities which I’ll talk about next, our room was ready, and it was GREAT. I was so happy because after how low my expectations had dropped since arriving, it was so much nicer than I hoped. It was clean and modern, all black and white and cool, with a nice bathroom and a big comfy bed with really good white sheets. I love white sheets. Anyway, so don’t judge a book by its cover or its lack of employees or main floor toilets and all that. I would highly recommend staying here. 

The most important activity for us to do in the city center was see the St. Sophia Cathedral, the oldest surviving church in Kyiv. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and you know how we feel about them (loves it!) so off we went to see how the old broad looked after about 1000 years of hard living. The complex is lovely. Note, the Bell Tower costs extra to climb up, but I think it’s worth it. It’s right at the entrance to the whole complex and is nice to end your visit with after seeing the rest of St. Sophia. Also, the Bell Tower is the only spot in the whole place where you are allowed to take pictures so it was worth it just so I can break up all my nonsense with pictures. 

We had a nice time seeing all the interior churchiness and singing about how Jesus is an ocean, as one does. It’s said that in all the churches in Ukraine that ladies have to cover their heads because god hates seeing us evil-doers or whatever nonsense your religion teaches you to keep you down, but I don’t remember anyone telling me to do so here. I think they are more lenient with tourists. Anyway, we ended with the Bell Tower climb, because we like climbing this. I counted about 200 steps up before I stopped and lost track, which isn’t as bad as it could be buutttt the stairs were pretty, um, not reassuring as you could look through all the thin metal and exposed piping of the layout and see down forever and it was a little anxy. As you would expect of me because this is what I do when traveling in foreign lands and living my life, I banged my head super hard on a metal pipe despite there being a colored swatch on that section because it was low and apparently everyone hit their head on it before they decided to paint the cautionary alert on it but of course I am special and hit my head after they flagged it. It was really painful and we had to stop for a few minutes for the pain to subside and for me to run through the customary thoughts I have every time I hit my head which invariably have to do with Natasha Richardson. Luckily I was okay though, and it seems like Liam is now too. And the views from the top were nice. 

Our next sight to see was the Golden Gate in the middle of the city, standing like a fortress to remind us of all the fortifications they once needed (prob still need) against enemies. It was named after the Golden Gate of Constantinople, and although it was completely destroyed during the Middle Ages, it was rebuilt by the Soviets in the ’80s. It’s a tad controversial, because no images of the original gate actually exist, so the rebuilding process was under scrutiny from historians et al. who were like ‘no THIS is what it should look like’ ‘ no THIS is’ ‘no YOU’RE mother was a hamster’ and finally Vlad over at the Soviet Historical Society was like ‘no guys this is what we’re doing, you disagree I kill you’ or something probably close to that. 

The gate/fortress jawn is right at Zolotovoritsky Square, a lovely little square near a park and a nice row of restaurants and stuff. It’s a nice little city. 

Okay so I THINK there was a lil church at the top of the Golden Gate?? And this is me in it? 

This city is so nice, full of statues and greenery and beautiful buildings. I keep saying that, don’t I, that it was so ‘nice’ and I really hate that word. But there’s not much more I can think of to describe it, because I never really clicked with it. It was great to be back in Europe, and to see such lovely architecture and important monuments and relics of history and all, but I never really jived (jove?) with Kyiv. My husband liked it a lot more than I did, but I didn’t necessarily dislike it, not at all. I just didn’t connect with it. It was nice to look at, nice to be in, but I didn’t feel much for it. My heart wasn’t in it, despite its checking off all the proper points on my list like it was my Walter or my Frank in a Nora Ephron rom com before I met Tom Hanks. (Tom Hanks, btw, would be my Warsaw. Stay tuned for that, our next destination.) 

As always, I loved finding funny signs or product names in stores, and despite being back in Europe, we still found some, like this brand of milk that can probably only be enjoyed by blond boys named Chad who swim for just-sub-Ivies. 

Or this shop, which we made a LOT of very bad jokes about because Tories are the ones who would cut all arts funding in the UK you get? 

We had a great time exploring Kyiv. I know you’re probably thinking…you didn’t do that much, right? Well, that’s because our main activity warrants its own post (coming next, along with a food post). The main reason for our visit to Kyiv, besides logistics, was to visit Chernobyl. We took an all day (like seriously from dawn till nighttime) tour of the zone of the infamous, horrible nuclear disaster, and it was astounding. Devastating, heartbreaking, and we learned so much that is only now coming to light about the disaster. It’s a truly worthwhile trip to take if you are in Ukraine or in Kyiv, which, despite my not clicking with it whole-heartedly, I still do recommend visiting! 

  When Husband and I were planning our trip through Andalusia, we were as gung-ho on going to little-known Ceuta as we were on going to our main attractions Seville and Granada, even though there’s nothing to do there, it’s not necessarily beautiful, and it’s not known for any particularly good food or landmarks. Why would we be so determined to visit this lil baby hamlet (#yayhamlet) for barely 24 hours when we had such a tight schedule? Because Ceuta is a Spanish town, but it’s in Africa. So weird right! Located across the Strait of Gibraltar at the northernmost point of Africa, Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous city, which for us means one thing – another addition on the Travelers’ Century Club list. Yes we are nerds but we want to hit that 100 mark! 

But even aside from our silly tallies, it’s so cool to visit a Spanish town that is not part of the Spanish mainland, and instead is mere miles from Tangier and the rest of Morocco. We wanted to witness this geographic anomaly, even though (but also because!) its very existence is the most exciting thing it has going for it. Back in boring, straightforward Europe (jk), we got back on the bus from Granada to Antequera and then got a train (nice Renfe trains!) to the port city Algeciras, where the ferry to Ceuta leaves from. It was lot of modes of transportation early in the morning. They say to get to the ferry terminal an hour before takeoff, and even though we were well on time I got nervous because it took FOREVER to pick up our prepaid ferry tickets at the Balearia kiosk. There were three women standing behind the glass but only one was working and I kept giving them looks that said “Why aren’t you working why are you just standing there what is wrong with you ahhh” but it did NOTHING to speed them along. It took literally 20 minutes for the one working woman to assist the group ahead of us, and then when it was our turn we got our tickets in two seconds flat so you know, timing, man. We booked in advance which wasn’t necessary on our non-full boat but it can’t hurt. We left about 15 minutes late because Spanish time, but it was okay because there were three doggies onboard! And one looked like a baby Tobillo soooo cute. On the ferry, there was a big open area between the seats (facing the other way) and the bar/bathroom area, so I did yoga and stretching there and no one really came near me except to go to the bathroom so only a few people noticed me but then these two mean women laughed at me so I put a curse on their heads. A few hours later, we were in Africa but still Spain! When you get off the ferry, Ceuta looks sketchy, but that’s true of all ports, I think. Walking towards the city centre through roundabouts is a little scary, but the cars generally stop at the zebra crossings. One of the first things I noticed as we walked along the marina to our hotel was a travel agency called Septatravel so I got an immediate positive feeling about this wacky lil guy. ​Five or so minutes into the walk there is a SuperSol market and a Lidl! Lidl’s line is insanely long because it is like Costco so go get water and snacks at the SuperSol instead. Oh and SuperSol had vegan yogurt and giant apples, my favorite kind of apples! 

  The marina and all the old town buildings that we passed en route to our hotel were really beautiful. It felt so nice to be by water, which I sometimes forget I miss. The charming town centre was full of white buildings with clear Moorish and Spanish influences, and a few statues and tiny parks. The first thing we did was go down to the beach. It was a little cold, definitely more than we expected considering we were in Africa and we had assumed it would be hot, so we only dipped our toes in the ocean and had a nice stroll along the sand.

I don’t really understand sunbathing when there’s no chance of going in the water but hey power to these weirdos. 
   We stayed at Hotel Ceuta Puerta de Africa, and it was the first standard and modern kind of our trip, so not as charming or pretty or special like in Seville or Granada but it was clean and familiar. Also it had the first good wifi of the whole trip. And it had a bidet! Every bathroom should have one. After we dropped our stuff, we needed to find lunch! We had been traveling to get to Ceuta from 6am to 2pm, so we were hungry and all weird from travel snacking and off meal times. But we had a super hard time finding a place for lunch. We literally went into every. single. restaurant or cafe in the entire town center and checked every menu and found NOTHING even remotely veganizable. It was unbelievably frustrating. They eat a shittonne of fried fish and cheese there. Finally, when I was about to cry (I should have just realized I could have bought groceries from the SuperSol), we asked the guy at one random cafe if he could make me a salad with only vegetables. The guy was so friendly and accommodating and said yes of course and I can also grill vegetables for you! Even though I normally hate that, I hadn’t had a standard grilled veg plate yet on this trip (hooray!) so I said that would actually be good. The veg plate was, but the salad came with a big plop of tuna on top ughhhh people fish is not a vegetable! We took the plopball off and the surrounding bits but it still had the fishy sense all over. Not a great start to eating in Ceuta but at least I had veggies. And bread. So much bread in Spain. I mean Africa. I mean Spain! 

 After lunch, we continued seeing the main part of town. It seems like a really small place, but 80,000 people live there! I would have guessed 19 tops. We saw the beach and got our feet all sandy, we saw the main shopping drag of unidentifiable locals shops and a gigantic Zara (don’t shop there! ever!), and we saw a fun mix of statues on the main promenade by the water. My favorite thing of the whole town is this gigantic statue of Hercules and the twin pillars from his 10th labor. Why Hercules? Because apparently the Rock of Gibraltar (next post!) is one pillar and the mountains of Ceuta formed the other pillar and Hercules formed them when he smashed through the (much bigger at the time) Atlas mountains with this superstrength and created the Strait of Gibraltar. Cool story, all I know is after I saw this statue I started singing “Who put the glad in gladiator? HER-CU-LEES!” and I haven’t stopped yet. 

I also liked this statue called Paz y Libertad, in which a lady is setting a bird free after removing its chains. So deep, man.
 After walking pretty far up the main drag, we visited literally the one thing ‘to do’ in the Ceuta travel guides – visiting the medieval city walls. These royal walls used to be fortresses complete with a moat, and now are overrun with birds and their poop. They are cool to see and walk around, and that’s really all there is to it, and that’s the thing to do. It has become a hangout for Ceuta yoots, and the only other people we saw traversing the walls were a baby in a stroller, a group of male yoots smoking and doing bad things I can only assume, and a girl yoot and boy yoot making out. I usually judge yoots very harshly but I almost felt bad for them because there is nothing to do in their town. 

   After we literally saw the entire town, we make a dinner reservation at what is supposed to be the best restaurant in the area, Oasis. Our hotel called and made us a booking for when they open – 9pm. The restaurant opens at 9pm! We definitely were not in London anymore (most things are closed by then!). Oasis is at the very top of the hills of Ceuta’s head bit by Mirador San Antonio. You need to take a taxi because, well, it’s far, but also it’s all winding roads where opposing traffic just comes barreling around the curves.
   Mirador San Antonio has a perfect lookout spot we went to before dinner. At this spot, which sticks out over the water, you can see Africa curving around and a lil spot of Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, as long as it’s not too foggy. It was kind of foggy. The temperature dropped considerably once the sun set, and we were at the highest, windiest point of town, so be prepared. I only brought warm weather clothes.  Anyway, it was worth it because we saw a beautiful sunset between Europe and Africa and that is super cool.

Once it was finally close to 9pm, we walked over to Oasis Restaurant, and saw many ladies throwing buckets of soapy water on the windows and front patio. Um. Wat. I tried to open the front door (despite the soapy puddles) but it was locked. The ladies kept cleaning and scrubbing and throwing buckets of water just everywhere, so we walked a little up the road and decided to wait a few minutes. On our little wanderings, we saw these little fellas crossing the street: 

  So that was interesting! A little bit later, we went back to peek at the restaurant, and the ladies were still going strong with their water games. We’re at this incredibly remote spot, far from the center of town and far from any other living creature (except those crossing the street), and we were like what is happening! Finally a few minutes later a man came out the front door and said it would just be a few minutes more. And then he mopped the patio, while we just stood there in the cold. I wanted to be like, duuuude let us in and mop LATER. I was so angry and cold. So cold. Finally after at least 15 minutes we went inside, and it was gorgeous inside. It looked like Morocco. The man, although obviously very stupid, was nice and I stopped being so angry. I was concerned that it was supposed to be the best restaurant in the whole city, but we were the only guests! Also he was listening to a football match on the radio pretty loud which really did not jibe with the decor. So odd. We thought maybe the emptiness was because it was a Wednesday, or because Easter processions were going on (yup here too). Well, turns out we are just REALLY underestimating how late the Spanish do in fact eat. At 10pm (bedtime!), while we were eating our starters, a big family arrived. Then at 10:15pm, four teenage girls came. So random. Then at 10:30pm a group of old people friends. We were flabbergasted – when they say people eat dinner late in Spain (and pseudo-Spain), they really mean it! It’s semi-late in Madrid and Barcelona and Seville was tourist-friendly, so I guess we just never experienced dinner time for real in a town not catering to tourists. Places were people actually live like Ceuta do midnight dinner. 
    Then, at almost 11pm, a big family came in WITH AN INFANT. I was done trying to understand. I was literally falling asleep in my food and a baby was just getting started.

The food ended up being just as good as I hoped. The mopper man seemed to be doing everything; he was the only staff I saw (though the kitchen was through the many big rooms in various connected buildings. It was a gorgeous space). He understood the veganness really easily and promised I would eat well. I started with a decent carrot salad, literally discs of cold cooked carrot with herbs that was really good but a little too much carrot. We also got great giant slabs of flat bread which is our favorite.

For my main, I had a delicious couscous. I know it sounds boring but it was one of the very best couscouses (couses cous?) I’ve ever had, up there with the ones I had on our honeymoon in Morocco which makes sense since this is effectively in Morocco. First of all, it came with chickpeas! Hooray for restaurants that give vegans beans! We want beans! Then, the broth that the cous was in was soo good, and it came with a good mix of weird veggies. It was wonderful! There was so much couscous though, I couldn’t even finish it. I liked this very much. MUCHO GUSTO.

  After dinner, the mopper man brought fresh mint tea which is literally our favorite thing. This tea was in that great Moroccan tradition of being way too sweet and poured from a great height. He also brought us a huge, HUGE, dessert tray. There were peanutty jawns, sugar syrup baklava type jawns, flaky cookies that left tons of powdered sugar in their wake, all kinds of sugary syrupy twisty little bites that were so good and sooo sugary. I wish that he had told us that we would be charged for each little piece we ate, but they were super cheap and it’s better than being charged for the whole gigantic tray. I just wouldn’t have bit every single one and put half back. Just kidding I didn’t do that I am not a monster. It was a great meal overall. The only annoying thing (besides the opening wtf) was that I asked for a half liter of water (no tap water really in all of Spain. Or Africa) and he said they only had full liters left (menu said both so it was a supply problem) but on the bill he charged us for the full, which I thought was wrong since we wanted to get just a half (I had bag water as always). 
   The guy called a taxi for us (you can’t hail one at the deserted top of a mountain) at 11pm, and it took a full 30 minutes for it to come. Ughhhh it was sooo cold outside too and I was dizzy from all the sugar in the tea and the desserts and that darn baby was still going strong inside. It finally came, and after all that it couldn’t drop us at our hotel but a few blocks away, because this was happening:

 
​YUP, another Easter parade! Even in Africa! And after 11pm! Oh boy this was getting kind of annoying. I mean I’m not a fan of parades to begin with so a slow, somber one about Jesus and clan got old kinda fast. But still it’s pretty cool, and kind of hilarious. Thank goodness we couldn’t really hear the drums from our room.
   So that covers all, seriously all, of our time in Ceuta. There’s not much to do as a tourist, so it’s kind of meh and I can’t recommend that people actually vacation there. But if you happen to be in the area, it’s cool to see a geographic oddity and the Strait of Gibraltar, and you get to say you went to Spain but Africa. Also you get to sing “I am Africa” the whole time. Oh and of course the songs from “Hercules”! So it is great for the music in your head if nothing else.