These pictures are from the Independence Square area. They have set up a very small ice skating rink and a variety of Santa (Father Frost) & Mrs. Claus, along with other creatures in costumes, line the streets trying to hustle tourists and locals to pay them for photographs.
The view across the street towards the underground mall.
Hard to see, but I am dead center in this photo with my arms outstretched.
The view of the street we walked down. The police had closed the street, so it was filled with people. We watched a man dressed in a large rat costume, hassle some women in the street. They walked away from him in several different directions, but he continued to follow them. I sure hope he was drunk and that's why he was behaving like that. We just tried to avoid anything in a costume!
The giant tree in the middle of the square.
That is me in black next to the white car.
That is me in black next to the white car.
This photo was taken without the flash on, so it's blurry,
but I tried to fix the exposure so you could see the people in the image.
but I tried to fix the exposure so you could see the people in the image.
Today we mostly bummed it around the apartment. Brian didn't get up until like 10am. I was up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I logged on and checked out the photos from New Horizon's friends doing Christmas hosting! The kids look so happy with their hosting families and decorating for the holiday, vacationing, and wrapping gifts for others! It warms my heart! :)
During a late breakfast of cheeseburgers & chicken nuggets at McD's we people watched. We were near a photo-with-Santa area and a woman dressed as the "Easter Bunny" was out greeting kids and handing coupons to their parents. I don't get the whole bunny Santa helper, but whatever! :) In the US there would have been a line circling the entire mall to see Santa, but maybe he's not quite so popular in Ukraine. I felt sorry for him sitting there all by his lonesome! Poor Santa :(
We walked the mall and went into a couple of stores, but didn't buy anything. We talked about what trinkets we'd like to bring home to our US kids, but decided to wait and buy stuff on the way out instead of hall it all around Ukraine with us for another couple of weeks. We made our way slowly back to the apartment, as the streets are filled with muddy slush and cars have a hard time making it up even the slightest hills. Much busier on the sidewalks today than the weekdays when we've been out. We stopped by the market for some more bottled water and yogurt for breakfast tomorrow.
Brian and Sam played Starcraft online together for a few hours and I read a magazine that an American friend left behind! :) We turned on the TV, but couldn't find anything in English other than BBC World News - blech! I chatted online with friends and caught up on email and facebook.... lazy sorta day. We went back down to our favorite Ukrainian buffet for dinner and took these great photos! :) By the way, we can eat for like $13 together at this place, soup, bread, meat, potatoes, breaded chicken/mushroom bake, sausages, and bottled water!
Neither of us is really good with down-time ... not sure what we'll do tomorrow, but it will most likely be our last slow day ... hoping for a full week starting on Monday!
This is right where we stayed 2 weeks ago, but they were just putting up the tree. Its so pretty! Cant wait to see it again this week.
ReplyDeletePraying for y'all!
@Just: Thank you. We are back after two weeks. They had a concert going on today. If God is willing we'll be headed out on an 18hr train ride tomorrow. Sounds like a crazy thing to be praying for but we are. Under more outcomes we can envision, we head out from Donetsk on 12/30.
ReplyDeleteDid you get your court date?
Melissa if you need a good yogurt recommendation, look for something that would be vanilla yogurt (might be pudding instead) and has what i'm sure are coco puffs in it - delicious! and because i couldn't read the label (might be a dannon product) i am certain it was packed full of all kinds of nutritious stuff!
ReplyDeleteWe "accidentally" got chocolate covered banana yogurt our first day, so now we know the brand and the look, so we just get that in whatever flavors that have that day. Our first day here the translator showed us the kind she likes, so Brian gets that kind ... but today he got one that was a bit tart! :) We basically just eat yogurt and banana for breakfast and then get a cheap lunch and then go to the buffet for dinner!
ReplyDeleteMy very favorite yogurt is a President brand (that's easily recognizable;) called Dessert looks like 'Decept' but probably with the Russian 'd'. MMMMM! I like the cherry best, but they have lots of flavors - cherry and chocolate, banana and chocolate, peach, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe Square is gorgeous during this time of year! They close that street(Kreshatik) off to traffic every weekend and have concerts, parades and all kinds of events. Dennis has some video of brake dancers.
You are very wise to stay away from anyone wearing a costume. We were walking across Kreshatik once after a parade had just passed. A man in a monkey suit picked Karina up and wanted us to take his picture. We thought he was part of the parade. He told me to get in the picture. Then he wanted a picture with our friend and her daughter. Afterwards he asked for money from Dennis. We realized then that he was just a drunk.
June
Okay, so I should have looked it up first -- break dancers lol
ReplyDeleteJune
Yes we did, 12/21... TOMORROW! Hoping our last piece of paper is on the train tonight so we can have it...
ReplyDelete