More Adventures in Kyiv

Still suffering from jet lag and still sore from yesterday's walking, I slept late and stayed in most of the day today. Around 3:30 I went out, thinking I would head over to Lypky, a district which is supposed to contain numerous old mansions including the House of Chimeras. As has happened to me so repeatedly on this trip, though, I got a little lost. I found myself near Kyiv University. That was where this building caught my eye-- turns out it is the building of the National Bank-- gorgeous!

They just don't build them like that in the U.S. Although I did not find the House of Chimeras (today), I did achieve another (possibly more important) goal-- I found a grocery store, and was able to procure the necessary items for surviving the next two days until I go to Vinnytsia. I didn't want to buy a lot of food because I will have to take everything on the train on Monday. Instead, I figured I could eat out for lunch and dinner, and just got some chocolate, tea, and yogurt for the next two days.

Best of all, I was reunited with my long-lost love-- Svitoch chocolate. Words cannot express the joy I felt upon seeing it in the store. This chocolate is made in L'viv, and it is so, so good. My favorite is the white chocolate coconut, but as you can see I also purchased some of the tiramisu and raisin nut varieties. With the groceries now in my bag, I realized that I needed to head back to my apartment to refrigerate them, since I doubted that the yogurt would last otherwise. On the way back, I stopped to take some more pictures of St. Oleksandr's (below) and St. Sofia's.

These two churches are on either end of St. Sofia's square, a huge plaza lined with beautiful buildings on one side and a park on the other.

I need to go back to St. Sofia's tomorrow-- none of my pictures of that end of the square came out because of the sun setting behind it. I had similar difficulty taking pictures of the Opera House (below), which is right behind my apartment building.

I topped off the evening with dinner with my friend Mykola, one of my students from the English Summer School two years ago. He took me to a restaurant on the Khreschatyk, a traditional Ukrainian cafeteria-style restaurant with good prices. It was a delicious dinner. I helped him practice his English and he showed me pictures of his little baby, Danimir. I was waiting on the Maydan Nezalezhnosti-- the main square-- for Mykola, near the "Three Heroes" fountain (pictured below), when some woman came up to me and asked for directions in Russian. I only understood about a third of what she said, so I had to laugh sheepishly and answer "Ya ne znayoo" (I don't know.) An amusing turn of events, to be sure. I considered it a great accomplishment to be mistaken for a Ukrainian woman, since they all look like models-- admittedly, an even greater accomplishment would have been to be able to understand her and answer her in Russian! Someday.

Now it's time to put my feet up and drink some tea while watching Raiders of the Lost Ark in Russian. More adventures tomorrow.