Huh?

Tuesday, 15 May

Mark to Christine: “Hey, honey, what time is it?”
Christine: “It’s 3:15”
Pause…Mark to Christine “Hey, honey, what did I just ask you?”
Christine: “You asked what time it was.”
Mark: “Uh, what did you say?”
Christine: “3:15.”
Mark: “Oh, OK, Thanks.”

We’re a little zoned out, but I think we’ve made the transition to Ukraine about as well as can be expected. we spent Tuesday in Kiev, getting a feel for the city.

We went to bed around 9:30 on Monday, dead tired. We both woke up about midnight, and decided it was time to put the sleeping pills we brought to a good test. One good night’s sleep would put us right on the Ukrainian time. We got up around 8:00 (we woke up before the alarm), made a cup of tea, and little triangular meat-pies and cheese slices that Zhana had left us for breakfast. We generally met the day ready to roll.

Sasha came by our apartment to pick us up at 10:00 AM, and Sergei, our driver for the day, was waiting downstairs. We quickly learned about traffic in Keiv…it rivals that of DC or LA in congestion. In addition, things like lines painted on roads are merely suggestions. In fact, curbs on sidewalks are merely suggestions as well. Ukrainians will pretty much drive or park wherever they feel like it. They still manage to avoid hitting each other or pedestrians, and they only seem to use their horns when danger is imminent. The exception is when traffic is completely stopped. Because honking your horn will certainly make everyone else in the traffic jam move faster.

Sasha dropped a couple of documents off, and then we headed off on Mission #1 for the day…getting our cell phone figured out. We tried three or four places to get our T-Mobile phone unlocked before we gave up and bought a new phone…$60 bought us a perfectly good LG phone with color display and Sudoku games built-in! Another $20 for a SIM card got us going. The per-minute charge is not too bad, and it’s got free incoming calls….so we’re in business!

We met up with Fred and Lisa for lunch at a pizzeria above Independence Square that had menus in English. They had a lot of different California-style pizzas; Mark and I had one that had a garlic sauce with ham and kidney beans on it. It looked weird (and really was nothing like what we thought we ordered) but it was very tasty. We got out of there for around $8.

We walked through the underground mall, where we saw a man carrying a monkey dressed like a kid. We couldn’t get our camera out fast enough to get a picture, but it was pretty funny. From there, we walked up a San Francisco-type hill to St. Sofia’s Cathedral. We paid 2 grivna (the Ukrainian currency) to walk around the beautiful grounds, where Sasha gave us a brief history lesson.

Then we walked a few blocks to St. Michael’s Cathedral, which was finished about 7 years ago. The inside walls and ceiling of the building were decorated with beautiful paintings of various saints. Just beyond St. Michael’s was a large park perched on top of a hill overlooking much of Kiev and its suburbs. The view was beautiful, and it really gave a perspective of this city of 3 million people.

After the park, we met back up with Sergei and drove to the internet café near our apartment where we managed to quickly upload Monday’s blog and check email. Thanks again to all of you who have expressed your encouragement and prayers! Keep ‘em coming!!! It’s really uplifting to hear from each one of you!

Sergei dropped Sasha, Mark and I back at the apartment, where we quickly checked our laptop and then walked to the local grocery store to pick up pastries, beer, and an access card for about 10 hours of dial-up internet service. Sasha came back with us, got it working, and then left us on our own. Mark got connected and called home with Skype. There was a bit of a delay, but it worked pretty well.

Zhana brought us dinner of fish and rice at 7:00, and then we settled into bed, shared a Ukrainian beer called “Black” (very yummy dark beer), watched a movie, and fell asleep