Kiev, Ukraine

Day 1 (May 2nd)

 May 1st was sacrificed to the flying world. It was spent entirely in the sky which for me meant sleeping and reading Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (she’s insane). As you might imagine, after flying all night and spending 9 hours in a 14” by 14” space we were tired and sore in weird places.
 
We somehow managed to commandeer a taxi despite speaking no Russian whatsoever. Point one: Boarmans.  Dad proceeded to show our cab driver where our hotel was using his iPad. I’m sure most tourist magazines would not recommend pulling out an expensive piece of technology in a foreign land… but he is a rebel like that. This is also probably not a best practice in a country where cab fares are negotiated and not based on a meter. Noted.

 We made it to our hotel… which was called Hotel Adria but it was located in a building called the Tourist hotel. They don’t mess around with creative names in Kiev. We were reunited with Julie and we hadn’t seen her since January. There may have been some tears but I told Matt I wouldn’t tell anyone so we’ll move along.

Tourist Hotel (tourists included!)

We showered and got ready to “seize the day”. We completely lucked out because the sun was out and the weather was perfect in Kiev. Julie swears it really was cold there but based on our time there I’m still skeptical. We walked around a beautiful garden area called Mariinsky Park and walked along the Dnieper River.

Mariinsky Park

Daddio, Jules & Matt by a foutain in Mariinsky Park

Mom & Dad considering moving into Mariinsky Palace

Dnieper River and view of the city

Bridge where couples attach locks and notes for good luck (its been recently cleared according to Julie...she has a much more impressive pic on her blog)

Friendship Arch in Mariinsky Park symbolizing friendship between Russia and Ukraine.  Here in America all we do is friendship necklaces.  How boring.

 

Another view of the Friendship Arch

I sampled some coffee. Said coffee was sold to us out of the back of a station wagon. This probably should have been an indicator to me that it would be fairly bad but I tried it anyway. It was not too awesome but served in an adorably small cup- so it was a win.

Awkward me with tiny coffee

Julie took us over to Independence Square. It’s a very pretty square in the center of town with some cool looking buildings and a tall statue/pillar that no doubt has a name I can’t pronounce.

Independence Square.  By the time we got here the sun was going down, unfortunately.

 

Pillar/Statue (I tried googling to no avail - sorry kids)

Julie also was kind enough to show us the EY office in Kiev… in case I ever decide to transfer.

The writing below the logo says Ernst & Young in Russian.

Then we went to dinner at a little Irish pub named O'Brien's because it’s one of the only places Julie knew of that the waiters and waitresses could speak English.

Mamacita & Matty enjoying some Irish Pub time

Dad & Jules

Beer.

After dinner we walked Julie back to her apartment and then went back to the ol’ Tourist and crashed because we were exhausted.


My thoughts on Ukraine based on Day 1:

•  I have a strong suspicion that Forever 21 was founded here and gives out clothes to all citizens.
•  I thought I loved heels. I was wrong. My love of heels does not hold a candle to Ukranian women’s. They must have the strongest ankles in the world because they were rocking them everywhere – cobblestone did not deter them. I’d have broken my elbows more than once by this stage in life if I lived there.
• These people LOVE pictures. Solo shots. Everywhere you look people were taking pictures of their friends alone pointing and smiling at some prop. I loved it.
• Russian. This language uses 33 letters (for those of us who may not be aware – we have 26). H’s are N’s and Big B’s make one sound and little b’s make another. It was the most surreal and confusing thing ever. Prior to this I’ve only been in places where they use the usual 26 letters. This takes confusion to a whole new level.
•  I was somewhat disappointed to find a lack of Euro-mullet
• If you read Julie's blog you know that Ukranians park wherever they please.  I got to witness this for myself and she was not exaggerating.  So funny.

Sidewalks: not just for people anymore.

Day 2 (May 3rd)

We woke up early and started our day off like any good Ukranian – pointing at pictures and confusing the daylights out of the McDonalds staff.

We somewhat balanced out our extreme Americanism with Julie’s help. She introduced us to something amazing we do NOT have in the states (or at least at my local Kroger) – banana juice. I think I fell in love.

After our nutritious breakfast we headed off to see Kiev with Julie guiding us. I know, it scares me just typing that too. First she took us by a World War II memorial which was pretty and had a beautiful view of the city. There was also an eternal flame type thing commemorating World War II. We have impeccable timing and happened to show up during some type of remembrance ceremony or something. It entailed a bunch of (I think) Russians standing around the longest orange and black striped flag I’ve ever seen. They kept asking us to sign the flag in Russian and we just kept smiling at them blankly. Eventually one of the men said, “I don’t know” with a Russian accent and laughed. I think they were making fun of us but it’s still unclear. I would have so It’s safe to assume they were.

Julie at the entrance to the pathway to the World War II monument

World War II Monument.  (Ryan I took this primarily for you.  Look familiar?)

Eternal Flame at the monument.

Me, JuJuBee & Matty

"I don't know."

Next we went to the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra (yes I just Wikipedia-ed that to get the full name). We’ll call it the Lavra because that’s what Julie called it. The Lavra is a Cathedral and Monastery that’s situated up on some hills overlooking the city. The architecture of the Cathedral was beautiful. I would like to tell you what the inside looked like but you had to have your head covered to go in. I didn’t have a scarf at the time and thus I passed on going in. Caddy on the other hand borrowed Julie’s scarf and was laughing so hard at her appearance that she was crying. The other tourists probably thought she was extremely moved. Really she was just extremely giggly.

Entrance to the Lavra

Cathedral at the Lavra

Close up of the top of the Cathedral.

Julie had heard that there were some caves on the grounds that used to be home to the monastery and also where some brotherhood members had been buried. We searched for a long time and finally found some kind Canadian people to show us where this was. We tried looking at the map but that was fruitless (see 32 letter discussion above). Caddy and I purchased some awesome scarves for this. We bought candles and went down into the caves through some very windy staircases. It was a pretty awesome experience.

The gentleman to the right of this shot seems to echo our sentiments about how we look in our new scarves.

After the Lavra, we headed over to Rodina Mat, which is the city’s most famous statue. She is to Kiev more or less what Lady Liberty is to us here in the US. There’s a pretty park surrounding her with lots of interesting old war weapons, tanks, etc.

Rodina Mat

Tourism Time Out

Matt operating heavy machinery

After visiting dear Rodina, we went over to Tequila House which is supposed to be the best Mexican Food in Kiev. My parents paid for Julie and some of her friends to go there for her birthday in October. It was no Lupe’s but our waitress was adorable and the place was cute. Julie then took us up a winding, cobblestone street with all kinds of things for sale – old cameras, sweet track suits, etc. I think the name of the street was Andriyivsky Uzviz. People were still most definitely rocking heels on this street. My heros.

Next we headed over to Saint Sofia. You had to pay to go into Saint Sofia so we opted out. I took a picture on the oustide though, so we will still count it as a visited destination.

Julie loves pictures!

Then we headed to the opposite end of the street to see St. Michaels (which has a Russian name I can’t pronounce or remember). It was a beautiful blue color. The architecture in Ukraine was so different from anywhere else I’ve ever been. It was very Russian and colorful. I was a big fan.

St. Michaels

Mom & Dad

Next we walked over to the Golden Gate which was a portion of the old gate to the city.

Golden Gate

After this we were pretty tired so we headed over to Julie’s apartment to scope out her school, take some pictures and to see if she needed any last minute help packing.

Courtyard at the school Julie taught at

Julie's school

Julie's apartment building

Then we went to - wait for it – another Irish Pub to grab some dinner. As previously mentioned, Russian is a difficult language to master. Not very many of the places we went spoke English and thus our main criterion for food selection was menus with pictures. Irish Pubs and McDonald’s were happy to oblige.

After dinner we headed back to the Tourist, packed and then went to sleep.

Kiev: conquered.  I really enjoyed the city.  It was so different culturally from the other places I've visited and I loved getting to see a different way of life.  It was an added bonus that we got to see where Julie lived for the past 10 months and a glimpse into her daily life.  It took a lot of courage to pick up and move to a totally foreign country without knowing anyone or the language and she did it flawlessly.  I'm so incredibly proud of her.  :c)