Beer Pong 101 for Ukrainians

What?

You thought I was going spend my last day in Lviv waxing nostalgic about the beauty of the culture and the ephemeral feelings of the city, blah, blah, blah....?  As a cultural ambassador from the United States, I feel it is my duty to introduce the world to our vast amount of drinking games.

Drinking games are everywhere, but only the USA has managed to make them into physically demanding activities that often leave the competitors passed out; both due to physical exhaustion and alcoholic consumption.

"You Americans is different. We just drink the beer to get drunk. No games."

"We're a competitive cultural.  You see all the largest, most successful companies in the world are from the United States: Microsoft, IBM, Walmart, McDonalds, Facebook..."

"Mmmm.  Is true. How do you play?"

I was using my US business school education to rationalize playing beer pong.  It was one of my more elegant pieces of bullshit but it worked.  After buying a few large liter bottles of Ukrainian beer and acquiring some plastic cups, I had assembled a team of Retro Hostel guests, friends and staff who were curious.  America, Fuck Yeah.

Other than regional variations (based on what University you went to) the basic rules of Beer Pong are quite well known to all Americans, so I won't waste time explaining them.  The difficulty in the Ukraine was the logistics.  The Ukraine -and Europe in general- does not have those big, beautiful red SOLO cups that form a perfect basket for ping-pong balls.  We had to settle for smaller, dull clear plastic cups.  Such were the issues:


1. Inexperienced players who have no idea how to play
2. Smaller cups with less area to aim providing a greater challenge for beginners
3. Vast language barrier (fortunately alcohol usually fixes this)

For example, this guy couldn't even say, "hello," in English but that didn't prevent us from making a great start-up team.  Everytime we missed a shot he would yell and grab his head in a bizarre dance of agony.  Every time we made a shot he would high-five me and at times give me a big manly bear-hug while shouting at me in unintelligible Ukraine.  After 3 rounds we were leading the newly-found Retro Hostel Beer Pong League.



I couldn't have asked for a better and more dedicated team of rookies to coach.  The wild Ukrainian, a duo of Polacks and an African exchange student took to the game with enthusiasm.  The African in particular fought with a vengeance. He told me, "I will not stop playing until I have won against the 'professional'."

It took twelve rounds, but he finally beat me.  With my win streak broken, I conceded the game and everyone returned back to their regularly scheduled drinking activities.  I realized that I had to go to Romania at 2:30am.

The lovely Retro staff gave me some useful advice, namely, "The taxi trip is only about 35 Hrynia, but the taxi driver will tell you 70-80 Hrynia...because you are American."  The blond Veronika was particularly concerned with making sure this wouldn't happen.  I certainly listened, because its not everyday you meet hot Ukrainian cosplayers who like to dress up as Tekken characters.


Ukrainian cosplayers?  With sexy accents?

Awesome.  She didn't seem convinced that I could find enough guys in the USA who would help sponsor a plane ticket so that a tall, exotic, blond Ukrainian Nina Williams/Lili Rochefort would show up at the next Otakon or MAGfest....  Any sponsors?

  We bid our final farewells and I hopped in a taxi that the hostel called for me.  Veronika told the driver to charge me only 35 Hrynia, which he agreed to.  I asked if it was OK to pay with 100 Hrynia.  She confirmed that it was OK.  Secure with this knowledge, I jumped in the taxi and took the 10 minute trip.

When I arrived at the train station, the taxi driver 'conveniently' did not have change for 100 Hrynia.  I sat there and stared at him, wondering why I couldn't leave this fucking country without another scam.  After a 30-second staring standoff, the driver threw up his arms, got out of the taxi and gruffly placed my luggage on the street.  As with my previous experience with the staff in the Fashion Club, being an American asshole was the smarter option.

I have my luggage and I have my ticket to Romania and Bulgaria.  I successfully avoided being ripped off by another taxi driver.  Now all I need to do is exchange currency.  The gentleman at the currency counter is asleep, but what does it matter.   Nothing in the Ukraine is efficient anyway.

I have taken a little bit of the Ukraine with me and I have left a little bit of the USA with the Ukraine through our great cultural game of Beer Pong.

So what's the next step?

Flippy Cup.

One Night In Lviv Is Never Enough

Hurry up and wait... 
                                Hurry up and wait... 
                                                                Hurry up and wait...


Now hurry up!  After a quiet train ride through the Ukraine countryside I found myself in a mass of people rushing off the train in Lviv.  For a few wild minutes I surged forward with the herd and suddenly....I was alone.

A large white concrete platform spread out in front of me.  Central Lviv was off in the distance.  The train passengers were dispersing and I quickly hailed down one of them before I ran out of options.  He was a large, young guy with an massive beard who spoke a little English.  He introduced himself as "VladakrunpronouncableSlavicname."  I showed him Maria's drawing of the two parallel roads and the directions for Retro Hostel Shevchenko.  Instead of simply pointing me the right way, he told me to follow him and walked me to the street where Tram 29A waited.  I thanked Vladakblahblahblah kindly and paid for the ticket.

The tram did a quick turn onto the main thoroughfare.  No sooner had I sat down when I saw the same bearded young guy running after the tram.  He quickly appeared at the door and apologized for putting me on the wrong tram.  As if I knew the difference.  He lead me to a tram immediately in front of the first.  He found two young, attractive girls on the tram and chatted with them briefly in Ukraine:

"This girls speak English.  They know where you are.  Follow them."

Here we go again.

Flirting with the girls was easy, since they were flabbergasted that some American guy would end up sitting behind them on a tram.  At that point I had been border-traveling for 14 hours and could barely entertain the notion of some wild, exotic Ukrainian girl sex fantasy.  I talked with them, but the only image that kept popping into my mind was me alone, sleeping in a warm bed.  We arrived at the Green Street stop and I found Retro Hostel easily enough.  I checked-in and slumped up the 6 stories to my 10 bed dormitory.  After a shower I passed out to recover for a few hours.  Before hitting the pillow, I saw several Polish guys drinking beer and vodka in the dorm.  It was only about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  They would be ideal party comrades.

Team Poland (plus 1 American) at Kriyyika

 We did party.  By the time we found Kriyyika Pub on Market Square at 11pm, we had already helped ourselves to several liter beers at the hostel after sharing travel stories, establishing my proud Polish roots and finding a few Polish girls as well.  Retro Hostel staff tipped us off to the pub.  Its well hidden and quite a task to find if you don't know where it's at.  This is exactly what the bar wants.  Even the website has a password.

Two bottles of 'Mint Stagger' vodka

Kriyyika Pub is what I expect from a part of the former U.S.S.R.  You can only find the location by word-of-mouth, it's hidden underground, the bouncers don't blink and they don't let you in without a password (ask the Retro Hostel staff.)  Once you're inside it's a different story.

The place is a massive underground cellar with a Communist theme.  Its food menu is nice and the drink menu nicer...especially the homemade flavored vodkas.  A few fresh, delicious bottles of  "Mint Stagger" vodka set our group of Polish folks (plus one American) reeling.  They were good enough to demand a 2nd round.  Possibly there was a 3rd round or even a 4th, but we were quickly losing track of the bottles.  Ukrainian vodka is strong and potent when its this drinkable.  Drinking it with a group of rowdy Polish guys and girls further complicates the problem.

These large amounts of vodka caused my mind to drift back to the lovely Ukrainian girls from the bus.  They weren't the only ones I had noticed.  Our difficulty in finding Kryyvina pub was troublesome, but it had given me plenty of time to watch the locals girls walking around.  What I had seen this night simply made my jaw drop.  That is no easy thing to say after having lived in Slovakia for 2 years and traveled through Poland.  Slavic girls are already amazing in general and yet somehow they got better in Lviv.  Maybe a Ukrainian mail-order bride isn't such a bad idea?

Lovely Ukrainian & Polish girls. Plus one Polish guy.

I abruptly stood up from the table and declared my plans to start looking for my future wife.  The Polacks were very amused and said since I was American it would be easy.  I started stumbling around the cavernous bar in search of a soulmate.

She was tall, beautiful and had jet-black hair to contrast with her ivory skin.  I found her drinking champagne with her equally lovely blond "mother."  I couldn't honestly believe they were mother and daughter, but who cares?  They joined our table for more vodka rounds.    

Hold on.  When two lovely girls so willingly leave their table at the request of a drunken, loud American something is suspicious.  The words of my border-crossing guide, Maria, "No English. Speak English, more money" echoed in my mind.  This thought bothered me, but the 5, 6, 7..??? shots of vodka told me otherwise.  I told the Ukrainians we were ready to dance and asked their suggestion for the next stop.

"We go to Fashion Club.  You and mother and Polish."

Fashion Club?  Sounds posh.  In our drunken mess, we managed to pay the bill and stumble out of the cellar.  The Ukrainians guided my Polish crew and I to a place right on the main drag.  It looked posh, intimidating and screamed "cover charge."  The line to pay cover had several supermodels and their big Mafia-looking boyfriends.  I wondered if my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Party Wagon" shirt was up to code.

Despite my drunken state, what happened next sobered me up quickly.  "Mother" and daughter had kindly gotten entry tickets for us foreigners.  Yet somehow we were all getting quoted different prices.  Men do pay more than women, but oddly one of the Polish guys was charged an additional fee because his shoes were "wrong."  Not surprisingly, I being the "rich" American got charged the most.  Mother and daughter said I was paying for them plus "added" fee.  I tried comparing single ticket prices.  Something wasn't adding up.  I could've spent more time calculating but drunkenly converting Ukrainian Hryvna to American Dollars while being scammed by beautiful foreign women is not something I learned in university.  I did the asshole backpacker thing.

"I'm not paying for you."

The golden ticket

At the risk of getting my ass beat by the skinhead bouncer with probable ties to the Russian Mafia, I argued with the ticket doorman.  By waving my arms, shouting and gesturing enough the man finally figured out I wasn't going to pay for the girls.

He ripped up my first ticket and gave me a new, single ticket.  I paid the new amount and stomped into the club, ignoring the fashionable Ukrainian spectators who were eyeing me with disgust.  Life is good.

My Polish comrades hadn't been so lucky.  One had paid the "shoe fee" and the others seemed unsure of what had just happened.  I myself wasn't so sure.  How had one ranting, jeans and t-shirt American convinced the Ukrainian staff of a fashionable Lviv club that he had been ripped off by two scheming Ukrainian women?

The rest of the night slipped away as we consumed more vodka and danced to bad Ukrainian pop music.  One of the Polacks fell victim to too much vodka.  Two Polacks fell victim to each other and left early.  I fell victim to another beautiful Ukrainian girl.  Somewhere around 5 in the morning I found myself sharing breakfast and singing "Just The Way You Are" off-key to a blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie doll in a 24-hour casino.  This is only the first night.