A great dinner in the forest

May 19

Today our ukrainian colleagues took us out to dinner at a fantastic restaurant in the middle of the forest. They had an indoor place but most of the table were outside under wooden canopies. We sat at a table set on the edge of the property. It's so nice to go with locals because they know what to order. We had endless appetizer dishes including some great cheeses from georgia (the country not the state). I ordered the chicken kiev and not surprisingly it was not like what I have eaten at home. I never knew that there was a special way to making them and it has to be a certain cut of the chicken that includes the breast and part of the wing. The food was really good and put the ukraine cuisine up another notch for me!

Tonight I got to see another side of my colleagues. They seemed so austere when I first met them but they really opened up once outside of the office. The high corruption index of this country (138) makes doing business very different from what I have experience. One of those things you have to see to believe. Klaus told us so many funny stories about the russians who I think have a love-hate relationship with the locals. Tourist here are mostly russians so I think they put up with them.