Day 2: Kiev

Dearest Dema,

We had one fantastic day despite the yucky weather. It started raining about 2:00 pm here and hasn’t stopped. Thanks goodness G3 had me pack some travel umbrellas. It was a smart move.

We started out the day pretty slowly, still a little jetlagged from our plane trip. Sasha came over with the accountant at 11:00 am and we got to hand over the money. The most money I have ever seen in one place before! But it was nice to get that off our shoulders. Then Sergiy, our driver, arrived and took us downtown to the Kiev Opera House. It is world famous and highly recommended so we thought we would take in an opera tonight if we could. We managed to get seats on the third row for only about $50 dollars total. What a steal. After we bought the tickets, we went to the WW2 museum and this giant statue on the Dnipro River. It is right next to the Lavra Monastery and Catacombs. Advice for traveling families - if you have time for only one thing in Kiev - this is it. We did it last time we were here and it is breathtaking (women must have a scarf covering their hair). But since we had already done it we went instead to do some of the other things around there like the statue and museum.

The statue was cool - huge in fact. There was an observation deck part way up that we went to and got some pretty pictures. Here is one looking back toward the city.

Hard to see but St. Sophia’s is in the background.

Then we went to the WW2 museum which is underneath the statue and learned a lot. We had no idea that Ukraine was occupied during WW2 and had death camps in it. We were reading an English flyer posted by one of the exhibits and found the following sentence very funny, “It is worthwhile noting that while the majority of the Great Patriotic War was fought on the Eastern Front, there were some small contributions by the English and Americans on the Western Front.” Of course the same bias exists on our end - I never even learned about the Russian involvement other that they met us in Berlin pressing in from the east. I got a little frustrated with historians - why does it always have to be so biased - it is important to learn the facts and make your own conclusions. And history really doesn’t change depending on where you learn it! But practically, I guess it does. I feel that it is important to get all the facts for Dima all the history and culture that I can since I feel he needs both sides.

Anyway, back to our day. After the museum, we walked up the hill to an authentic if touristy Ukranian restaurant. We are somewhat hampered by eating since we are all vegetarian. We gave up vegan for the trip - no way we could exist without eggs and cheese! But still no meat or fish. So we ended up with vireniky with cheese, stuffed cabbage rolls, wild rice pilaf, and borscht. It was delicious - but expensive. We then walked around a little waiting for our driver. Once he came, we asked him to take us to a market to get some bottled water and a few other essentials. We are now feeling very at home in the supermarkets over here.

Then off the the opera house. We got there early but it was ok. It turned out to be a 3 and 1/2 hour spectacular opera - Don Carlos. The inside of the opera house was beautiful. Here is a picture I snapped quickly of Amanda since we weren’t supposed to take pictures.

We really enjoyed it. The costuming and sets were wonderful and of course the voices - world class. But it did last a long time and we are tired now!

We are so excited about the SDA appointment tomorrow. It will feel nice the get the ball rolling over here. We are going to get to see Alex, our old exchange student tomorrow - we can’t wait to see him either. So I better get to bed - big day tomorrow.

Love and kisses,

Bethany, G3, G4, & Amanda