More Sightseeing ~ Day 32

 I was hoping to get to the church this morning but I figured that I would be OK since I could watch some conference on the computer. I decided when I got up that Vika really needed some sleep. Yesterday was a doosey for her and she needed to sleep all she could. She woke up close to 11:00! Mornings seem to be the worst. It takes us a little while to get back into the comfortable happy stage of our relationship! It sort of feels like that movie, ‘Fifty First Dates’ but not quite that extreme of course. I actually am getting smarter on my approach of leaving the apartment. I bought a book about Kyiv and was looking at it yesterday with Vika. Today I pulled out the map and showed her “house.” I held up 2 fingers then pointed to our destination and made a charade-like gesture so she understood “food.” Then 3 fingers, 4, 5, pointed to our destinations and then back to “house.” She understood and I felt better taking her out on my own knowing that she understood that we had a plan and had a better understanding of when we would be done with our plan. I think she really appreciated that. She perked up as soon as we reached the restaurant. She actually let me take her picture without her usual eye roll and “oi.”

Brunch was a lot of fun. We have discovered that we can pass time in restaurants playing the ‘dot game’ and practicing our English/Russian. Today we learned question words. Those were useful throughout the day. She would ask me things in Russian and I actually understood what she wanted! It was handy, then I would remind her what the English phrase is for what she was asking and she would get practice using it. Our best bonding times are in restaurants.  I've been writing down the words and phrases we know.  She took my book to study.  I had to get a picture of that!

 We both thought it was pretty funny how this restaurant presented us our check.  Very creative, but neither one of us could figure what this actually was.

 The Cafe we liked.  It is located ajacent to McDonald's and we both prefer it 1000%.  I actually never visited a McDonald's one time in Kyiv.  We took the kids twice in Zaparizhya but all I could bring myself to get were french fries.  I liked that she preferred something else.

I don’t really understand the restaurants here. It doesn’t seem that they have the same ‘restaurant etiquette’ I am accustomed to. First of all they take individual orders whenever you seem ready to give your order to them. They don’t wait around for the entire table to all be ready. The same system is used for food delivery. They deliver food as it is prepared and have no rhyme or reason to who gets what when. I’m accustomed to orders being taken for the entire table and the food coming for the entire table together. She had her food easily 20 minutes before I did. It wasn’t really something unusual. It is not really a good idea to wait for everyone to get their meals otherwise you may be eating a cold meal. It’s hard to let go of the manners I have been taught and just eat when food is presented, but that’s the culture of the restaurant here!

After our breakfast we walked over for our next destination which was souvenirs. This was our first moment of communication with our new words! She asked me where we were going and I told her to the green building! It was quite the breakthrough on both of our parts. The streets were unusually empty today. It was strange.

The weather was annoying because we would have nice warm sunshine, then rain, or hail, and the wind. It felt much colder than yesterday because I was pretty soaked. We shopped a bit and took a detour from the plan to warm up at Pizza Ciliantanos. I really didn’t mind getting that nice warm cup of ‘hot chocolate,’ which is really just melted dark chocolate with a little cream to make it smoother. I will miss that for sure.

 Another ramp picture.  Wouldn't you know that just as I am about to leave Ukraine after being here over a month I finally see one building with an accessible ramp that is actually a usable ramp!

 Turn around is fair play I suppose.  She took the camera as we were passing St. Michael's to take my picture.  I really didn't want my picture taken, but had to be a happy excited model to be a good example!

We walked down the road to St. Sophia’s our 3rd destination on the day. She was very cooperative with my picture taking.  I think she was really excited to visit this Cathedral. 

 Sitting just outside the entrance was this man singing and playing for money.  He really was quite good.

 I was hoping that we could get there and be involved with one of the scheduled tours, but how in the world do you pantomime tour to the cashier? I couldn’t and didn’t. We just walked around the grounds and explored on our own. It was nice. She seemed very interested in it. We spent just enough time there and she was ready to leave. I was able to have her see the Easter Egg mosaic she had been interested in and that was fun. It really is an amazing thing.

 Painted Easter Eggs really are a big deal around here this time of year.

Part of me felt bad for taking this picture inside.  I did get yelled at and told to put my camera away, but I decided to post the picture I took rather than one that I could just google and find somewhere.  This location has been sanctioned as a museum and is no longer in use as a church.  I loved walking through here again.  It is inspiring to be in a building with so much history.

 This is the ticket gate to permit you inside. 

 The golden domes are amazing.  I don't really understand the significance.

 The belfry for St. Sophia's.

The weather thankfully cleared up just enough for us to walk to the Golden Gate. We didn’t take the time to visit the museum there, but that was OK too. We wandered around admiring it. It really is inspiring to be around so much history. There really is so much history in every building in this city.

She was happy to be headed home. Natasha called and mentioned that she could get us tickets for the Operetta tonight. I gave the phone to Vika for Natasha to ask if she would like that and the one time she has an opinion on anything we do it was to say she doesn’t want to do that. Oh man! I really did want to do that! Oh well. The plan became going out to dinner with some of the other families who just arrived in Kyiv to travel by train tonight.

When we set out to walk to dinner it was a full rain. Fun. I did not wear my tall heels today so we were able to move much faster in the rain to get to the restaurant. She was thrilled that I forgot to put the memory card back into my camera so I couldn’t stop her for any pictures. She also brightened up when I pulled out the ol’ Ipod touch for her to play with during the stimulating English dinner conversation.
This was just a funny sign we saw on a restaurant nearby our apartment.  It felt blog-worthy!

She didn’t even get upset when I wanted to stop to find a book in a little bookstore we passed. She picked one out that she would like which I really liked! Books in Russian that appeal to her are going to be hard to come by. I wanted to get just enough that she will have something to read in Russian while she learns English. Hopefully she’ll be reading in English soon enough not to need a lot of Russian books!

Tonight was funny. Artyom, her brother, called her maybe 9 times and texted her at least that many. He actually went to a friend’s house and set up skype so she even skyped with him. He insisted that I be in the camera shot and kept asking me things. It’s great that he doesn’t care that I don’t understand anything he says! I wave and smile a lot. I’m sure I look like a complete idiot, but he’s great and doesn’t care. He was glowing to see her on skype. It was great to get it set up in place before we leave.

I’m not sure how I will explain to her that every night at home won’t be a movie and snacks night like we have had here. It’s been a lot of fun though. I can’t believe we only have one more night here and we’ll have to be all packed and ready to leave early the next morning! I can hardly wait. I may not be able to sleep I’m so excited.