#1
Um. Okay. So I had a great time, and I'm wondering if I did something wrong because man people seem to hate this place.
Look. I get it. I totally get it. Any place CAN be good or bad, but I suspect a lot of that is a combination of your expectations and whatever energy you bring to a place. Catch that? I used the word energy. Yeah. I'm from California. Let's get past it okay?
I showed up for this club, and it may have been an off night, not a weekend, because the "packed" ness that shows up in other comments wasn't evident at all. In fact when I first showed up there was one couple dancing. That's it. And I don't know if they were ringers are what but they were putting on a CLINIC. It was worth the price of admission, that's how good they were.
Anyway, so I made my way to the bar, using fully 20% of my Ukrainian to get there ("Vybachte","Vybachte","Vybachte") and ordered a drink. I tipped as if I was in America and hadn't just been able to buy a $10 beer for $2 or $3 or whatever it was. I may have tipped $10 on a $3 drink. From that point on I had the best service I've ever had. I never had to wait more than 5 seconds for a drink, and then when my phone died later this guy searched the entire club to find a charger and charged my phone for me.
TIP: When you go to a country that has a favorable exchange rate, the 'move' isn't to see how cheap you can be, it's to see how generous you can be. You, and everyone else, will have a much better time that way. Trust me.
Eventually I got tipsy enough to just sort of go dance by myself on the dance floor, I tried to be sneaky but I'm black, 6'4", with dreadlocks, and in the two weeks I spent in Kyiv, a grand total of zero people matched that profile, so people noticed/stared. It's a good thing I'm a totally mediocre dancer so that I could let them and their expectations down gently.
But then a strange thing happened. More people came out on the dance floor. Including a bachelorette party that knew as much English as I knew Ukrainian, and I ended up clicking in the most playful flirtatious way with one of the girls and we danced the night away and have kept in touch. It was fun and playful and harmless and I had a great time, so ... there's that.
Again, it wasn't packed, but I got drunk and danced for hours with a really cute stranger which is pretty much all I needed or wanted out of a weeknight.