We are two days into our Ukraine adventure and have found ourselves seeking… Something… Haven’t quite figure out what that may be just yet, or maybe we have, but just don‘t know it; but we have found a few things not quite ordinary to us. Perhaps we, in our Western culture, “ugly American” attitude, and spoiled by conveniences constantly taken for granted in our world, are actually seeking a more simple lifestyle or a return to our lives when we were children and we didn’t have everything we have today… Understood, the goal in life is to ensure our children have a better lifestyle than we did growing up; but how good do our children really have it when they are given everything, want for nothing and don’t appreciate what they have.
We, of course will be living out of a suitcase for another day or so, and are in need of an iron, but have made do by steaming the clothes in the bathroom, then leaving them on hangers to dry in the room to hopefully look presentable.
The bed in the hotel room does not seem to be more than, well, a thick piece of stiff foam on top of a sheet of plywood sitting rather low to the floor, making for some uncomfortable nights of sleep… What I wouldn’t do for my waterbed right now! There is a blanket or something in a duvet that JUST covers the bed and does not hang over the sides, as well as a spare blanket that is similarly dimensioned.. (if the bed is 60” x 80”, so are the blankets). We have compensated by turning the blankets sideways, used one to cover the lower half of us, and the other for the upper half… There is little to no ventilation in the room which makes sleeping kind of difficult without opening the windows. But, since it’s cold out, that isn’t a good idea either…
We haven’t fully experienced Ukrainian cuisine yet, since there is McDonald’s here; and we found ourselves in need of an English-speaking cashier and/or a picture menu… Didn’t really want it, but we both ended up with Big Mac combo meals with Coke (no ice). The one-dimensional nature of the American tourist definitely shows up here; speaking louder to someone who does not understand, does not work. We did manage complimentary breakfast at the hotel, which was actually pretty good… A combination of various meats, some salads (no lettuce, but rather large cut vegetables), and what appeared to be a quiche of nothing but whipped and baked eggs. We also managed to bring along some simple items (tuna in a pouch and no eating utensils, crackers, snack bars, etc), to have something to tide us over… Still haven’t fully adjusted to the time change yet, but we’re getting there.
Without crosswalks, well crossing the street would be somewhat difficult. We avoided the underground crossing systems and did some extra walking to find more conventional means. The courteous nature of Ukrainian drivers shows up again… Busy street, the crosswalk not at an intersection as one would normally expect, and simply putting a foot anywhere near the white-striped crosswalk brings cars to an almost immediate stop to allow pedestrians to cross. We hiked back down the hill to Independence square, which is quite visible from our 7th floor hotel room…
Our sense of adventure increasing, we began a hike up a street that appeared to be well traveled and found ourselves at the top of a hill at another crosswalk looking at another large plaza (Bohdan Khmelnytsky square ) . This time the stoplights worked with us and we crossed the street to the plaza and out comes the camera once again… You can always tell the tourists… They are always looking up at everything around them and more often than not are carrying cameras (the locals look straight ahead). The walk across the plaza found us looking at St. Sophia CathedralIt is Thursday, and the Cathedral’s museums are closed, but for 4 Hryvnia (about 60 cents) we were able to walk the grounds and take some pictures.
Funny thing, at times when we thought language would be a barrier, we found ourselves able to effectively communicate by hand gestures. Our walk to St. Sophia’s in Kiev found us, maybe not in need of taking a picture of us together, but with a woman also taking pictures (with a camera phone) gesturing to us as if to ask if we wanted her to take our picture… blindly trusting a total stranger, I handed her our camera, went to stand with Mari and she adjusted and ensured everything as best she could get was in the frame and snapped the picture, then showed it to us to make sure it was okay… We nodded, then said, “Speciba” (thank you) and were on our way.
After spending about an hour admiring the architecture, we stopped at the gift shop, then left to head back. We’re not used to all that walking, combined with jet lag, so time to head back. Not wanting to stray from paths already traveled, we walked back down the same street to Independence square, stopping at a small market on the way down hill to pick up some water (with ‘gas’) and some small food stuffs), then back to the hotel for some much needed time adjustment (sleep).
So, have we found what we are looking for? Probably not, but I think we are getting close, or at least being turned in the right direction.
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