Ukraine Pics!

Left: Ted & Tris in front of the National Opera House -- Ted's head is just in front of the poster for Madame Butterfly.

Right: hanging out on the street

Left: Ted and Tris in front of a beautiful old church -- there are churches like this all over the city. URC may not look so cool... but we are very thankful for the fellowship and teaching we get there!

Right: this is a typical street scene, one of the busiest streets in downtown Kiev, a few minutes walk from our flat. You can't see it well, but thru the archway is a steep cobbled street leading...?? maybe we'll check that out tomorrow!

General observations about the city:

This place is so vibrant and fast-moving! There are people, everywhere, always walking fast, everyone on cell phones. There is new construction and bustle everywhere we look -- no sense of a recession here! There are many things the same here: teenagers scowl and mock with their friends, it's cold and snowy, families are out together, people walk their dogs, everyone is busy, some people look happy and some people look sad. There are lots of differences too: some of the food is crazy (or seems so to us), we can't read anything (for all my studying of Russian, I just can't keep up! I can study a word and possibly pronounce it, but still don't know what it means), a tiny little grocery store by our flat is considered a "super market" where you have to ask for butter from behind the meat counter, there are tiny little cars flying all over the road at high speeds parking in the most unlikely places and squeezing between lanes of traffic. For all our visiting before, and even living in Lithuania before, we feel very foreign!

Today we did have a really great independent outing: we walked down to the "department store" (which is 5 floors of kiosks, arranged by content -- housewares on the 5th floor, womens clothes on the 4th floor, men's clothes on the 3rd floor, etc) and -- all by ourselves, mind you -- purchased laundry soap, ball point pens, and toilet paper! (this is still e. europe -- you have to supply your own TP). This was a big improvement over yesterday's quest for pens, where I hesitantly asked the scowling cashier in my pathetic Russian "I buy pen?" and she answered with a curt "Nyet!" We have arrived!

Thanks again for your prayers --

Kristin

Just a few pics of Ted, Tristan and some scenery in Ukraine! More to come (hopefully)...