Marshrutkas

As you can see you need to stand right at the edge of the footpath to see which bus is coming.  You can also see we are not the only early risers (I am on the left of the photo :))

It is dark and fairly cold and we are standing on the footpath outside our unit block.  It is 6.30 am and sometime in the next ten minutes a Marshrutka will come along.  These are the privately owned fixed-route taxis (we would say mini buses) that provide a great deal of the public transport in Kyiv. Actually many Marshrutkas will come during the next ten minutes but just one of them will be the one we want. They have a card, about forty by twenty centimetres on the lower footpath side of the front windscreen with the number of the route on it.  Because it is dark, it is now almost impossible to read the number by the street lighting but you do your best.  The vehicles also tend to be going at quite a rate as they approach a stop and unless you hail it they will go straight on. Some of them have numbers that glow, but not all.

We had to take a picture of our first real snow- fall in Kyiv. We had snow showers for about twenty minutes about two hours before this photo was taken and the snow had not melted. It was quite cold but my coat is very warm. I am standing in the school grounds and behind me is the bus stop we use.  You can see a banana trolley-bus at the stop.  For the last couple of weeks or so we have first been catching a trolley-bus part of the way to school.  They are frequent and quick.  The one that goes past our unit does not come to the school so we have to change to a marshrutka after about three kilometres.

There is a very distinct Marshrutka etiquette for the process of entering and leaving these vehicles. The entering process is that everyone who is boarding, enters one after the other as quickly as possible.  The vehicle then moves off.  No one has paid. Sometimes people who have the correct change just toss it down on the bench beside the driver, but otherwise you just board and stand or sit as the case may be.  Then people start to pay as you drive along. Some people walk down to the driver, but usually people just tap the person in front  of them on the shoulder and tell them how many people they are paying for and give them some money. So you feel a tap and then hear 'one', or 'two' as the case may be and some notes will be handed to you. (This is all done in Ukrainian or Russian of course). You then relay the money and the message down the bus until it reaches the driver.  If there is change it comes back in the same way.  The right money always seems to reach the right person. The leaving process is of course very simple.  The front and rear doors and mostly both are opened at all stops.  There are rarely any bells on these vehicles.  The only ones there are on some are at the rear door.  When you want to get off off you simply call to the driver that you want to exit at the next stop. As I have said before, you need to be agile  in Ukraine.  The drivers usually stop for the very minimum time at stops. There are though, signs at the front of the Marshrutkas which say that if the Marshrutka stops and remains stopped do not ask the driver when he will be going again. He may wait at a stop for up to 5 min. The usual thing is that as soon as the last person exiting has their second foot on the road the vehicle takes off.

Well about ten days ago on arriving at the school stop we were leaving our Marshrutka and Bill left by the front door and a young woman and I left by the back.  All I can think of is that the driver didn't realise that two people were leaving by the back door and before I was off he shut the door which is a fairly heavy door that swings shut.  Well it hit me as I was taking a step and it knocked me off my feet and I feel heavily onto the road. There I was lying flat on my back in a muddy gutter. That would not have been too bad but I was carrying a backpack and a handbag and they had been caught inside the closing door and the Marshrutka started to take off. As the door hit me I know I called 'I'm not off yet',( this off course was not much use because I called in English) but Bill tells me I was calling as I was lying in the gutter.  I am sure I was because I knew I was caught and I couldn't free my arm from the straps of the bags. All I could think of was that I was going to be dragged under the back wheels. Anyway between us, Bill and managed to attract the driver's attention and he stopped quite quickly.  Bill helped me up, saw that I was just shaken, and indicated to the driver that he could continue. The only effects were that I was shaken up for a few minutes and a little muddy and for a few days was sore down my whole left side and my right shoulder was wrenched.  I now leave the vehicles at the same door as Bill and I leave first so he can race the closing door!

The last marshrutka event for now is that Bill and I have a new 'hobby': marshrutka chasing.  It is cold and dark when we leave school in the afternoon so it is not great fun to wait for long on the cold footpath for transport.  The 455 marshrutka comes fairly frequently ( every ten minutes or so ), but the 465 may only come every half an hour.  The 465 is by far the better for us so if we see one we desperately try to catch it. A few weeks ago just as we came out of the school gate we saw a 465 just leaving our stop. At this point the next stop is only about 230 meters away. It wasn't travelling very fast and there is a set of traffic light just before the next stop.  Bill called to me and suggested to me that we try to beat the marshrutka to the next stop. So we took off.  Bill had a somewhat heavy backpack on and I had a bulky but not too heavy bag on my shoulder. We both had good walking shoes on. We sprinted as hard as we could on a somewhat uneven footpath and managed to catch up to it at the traffic light and climb in at the bus stop while still out of breath.  You do see people running for the buses. They sort of glide along at a sedate trot for twenty or so meters at the most.  I have never seen anyone else sprinting for about 230 m.

Since this occasion we have tried to do it four more times. The next two times we were close but missed by about 30 m. :(  The time after that we made it again but had misread the number and had chased a 455 by mistake.  We decided to wait for a 465 and nicely only had a four minute wait. Our last try was last Wednesday and we made it - just. I think the driver noticed us in his mirror and drove just a little slower to give us a sporting chance.  I am glad we do it when we make it, but my legs are a bit jelly like by the last twenty meters.  Once the footpaths are icy this will be a thing of the past, till perhaps middle or late spring.

We thought we would add some general photos of or life and work here.

We find it intriguing how some of the trees have these small balls of leaves that haven't fallen At first we thought they were nests, but they are just clumps of stubborn leaves.  Why they are in these clumps we don't know.

This market is right outside the school gate.  We buy our fruit and vegetables there.  Some of the produce is from Kyiv  but some drive up to 400 kilometers once a week to sell there.

This is my classroom and most of my students.  I have since had another boy added and one boy was absent that day. The girls are all from mission families. It is very handy having the big windows because the other day we had a power outage most of the day and by 2.00pm it was very dim in the room.

A Sunday Morning

A Sunday morning

These photos are actually of the school grounds but are typical of what you see
everywhere in the parks..

This is a time when I wish I was writer and could take you with my words on my walk this morning.  I left the flat just before eight and the temperature was seven degrees (or I should say plus seven ) and the light was still a little dim.  We leave home of a morning a little before seven on a school day and it is not sunrise at that time so at eight it is still a little dim. This morning it was clear but it has since clouded over.  The trees right now are very beautiful.  I don't know the names of the trees here except for the maples, of which there are many. They are all at various stages of losing their leaves.  One will be almost bare and the one beside it will be covered in green leaves.  Most however are a lovely shade of yellow. They are like glowing candles in the park. I just stood for a time this morning with pale rays of sunlight filtering through the leaves,watching the leaves fall. It is amazing how many different ways the leaves find to fall to the ground .  Some fall straight done and even make a plop as they reach the ground.  Others are caught on small puffs of air and float and swirl all the way down.  Some come down singly while others come in clusters, so that you feel like you are among wedding confetti.  Some of the leaves are small - about two centimeters across - but others I picked up were much bigger than the palm of my hand.  Sometimes they are caught in one of the rays of sunlight and just glow so brightly.

More of the school

Here I am standing on the front lawn of the school. The groundsmen work hard right now raking and sweeping leaves.

Our lives are very busy here so it was so good to not have anywhere to go to and just be able to enjoy. There were not too many other people out at that time but there are always a few people walking dogs. There was a black and white dalmatian chasing sticks for his master; there was a bulldog straining on his lease with his bright red winter jacket on; there was a dark brown boxer trying to jump for sticks; there was a tan, black and white beagle nosing through the leaves and a large white dog with long hair rolling in the leaves. As always if you are in the park for long when there aren't too many people about you will see a squirrel. A young couple and I stopped and watched one quite close to us as it scurried around and picked things up and held them very neatly in its paws and nibbled away. Then something startled it and up the tree it went, so fast you almost cannot follow it. Even though they are quite a bright red you lose them in the foliage so easily.

Still at school

This park across the road from us is a park that is maintained by the Polytechnic University and has numerous paths winding through it.  I have never seen anyone working in it but they must, because I went across the road to Pushkin Park and it was a much wilder version of the one closer to us. The one nearer us is rectangular.  It is about 850 meters by 200 meters but filled with paths. Some of the paths are broad and grand and others are small and windy and almost completely obscured by leaves right now. Pushkin Park however is much more rambling.  The paths are just tracks and the undergrowth is not cleared at all.  I saw very few people there. Altogether I walked for two hours and it was very refreshing and a real oasis .

This is the children's play area.

A public road actually runs through the school property.

It is almost sad to think that soon this season will soon be past.

I am not sure why the trees are painted.  I suppose to stop disease, but it is not done everywhere.

This tree is right outside my classroom window.

Registering for residence - it's done! Thank you, Lord.

In the courtyard of our building complex

It is a wet and foggy Saturday evening. I just had to tell about  our day yesterday. To stay in Ukraine we needed a visa which we received while we were in Australia. Then we needed a residency permit which we organised last Monday and our final documentation was a registration of our place of residence. The residency permit was a little complicated but the residency registration was the best yet.

We had until the fifteenth of September to finalize it or face a heavy fine and complications. To do these registrations your landlord must be present. Our landlord is one of the other teachers at the school, so after work on Wednesday we set off.

We go through this passage way to get to the main street.

The stairwell leading to our apartment - Laurel wants to by a torch.

The office is small and the people trying to register are many.  Also there are not counters as we are used to.  There are small windows in the wall at about chest height so men especially have to bend down to speak to the person inside. You stand in line and wait for your turn.  This frequently takes a long time. You also have to remember that the queue you see is not necessarily the real queue.  People come and join the queue and then go off remembering whom they were behind and later on come back and rejoin the queue.  As well people who were once in the queue and have since left to fill out a form perhaps, realize that they have a supplementary question and come back and ask it even if you are in mid-sentence in your turn.  It is not surprising then that it takes one and a half to two hours to do what actually takes fifteen minutes. Well we had filled out forms and they were signed and we thought we could leave when we thought we would just have someone say, "Yes, you are complete."  Well we did and found out that we weren't. We were told we were out of time for our residency registration.  We actually weren't but were treated as if we were.  We had gone the previous Monday and had signed a book in another office about an hours drive away\on the other side of the city.  Traffic is not always good here. Now we were asked on the Wednesday where was our proof that we had signed.  Apparently they couldn't just have that office verify that we had signed in due time.  We needed a receipt and we didn't have one. So all we done on the Wednesday was of no effect. We had to redo some forms and we only had until the close of the office on Saturday (today) to do it.

Our letterbox is no. 14.

So forms were scanned and things were done. By yesterday morning we were ready to try again.  We had the added incentive that the office was only open from 10 - 1 pm on Fridays.  As we naively thought, all we had to do on the Friday was go back to the office with our new forms and hand them in and have stamped and as they say, "Bob's your uncle".  Well, no. We went to the office and tried to finish things but they said we had to go back to the office on the left bank, (remember the one that is about an hour away depending on traffic). Remember also, the clock is ticking. Well we arrived and looked around for the right room and happened to see a man from the Baptist Union who had helped us with the documents. We told him why we were there and he said we were in the wrong place.  He said they were giving us the run around.  He said we should be at a third place not too far from the first place.

Our building from across the road at the park

Knowing that this third place closed at 12.00 pm we set off knowing we could not make it in time. We arrived at 12.10 pm to see some of the same people we had seen at the first place earlier in the morning. We found out that the office was open till 1.00 so as you do we asked the assembled people there who was last in the non-existent queue and then we became the last until someone else arrived,and so on.  We still knew with the number of people there that we wouldn't make it by 1.00 but you wait anyway.  We were about eighth in line. At about 1.05 pm the young man in the office came out and locked the door and went off, but someone knew that he was on lunch and would be back from 2.00 till 4.00 pm.  We waited. By now we were about fourth in line so hope sprang up.  Then Bill and Terry (our landlord) found out that we were missing a stamp on one of our documents and they had to go to room seven for that. Fortunately that didn't take as long.  However there was a fee charged for that.  In our money about ten cents (85 kopiyki).

The park across the road.

That sounds like an easy thing to do.  Think again! It requires a trip to the bank. Yes, Bill and our landlord had to drive to a bank (which is a story in itself) and deposit ten cents in the departments bank account, show our passport and receive a receipt to take back for proof of payment.

Can you find the little squirrel?

Eventually it was 2.00 pm and the whole process started up again. While lunch was on some more people had arrived and were standing near the door but hadn't asked who was the last person in line.  I just hoped they were not people who were really ahead of us. Finally at about 2.40 pm the person ahead of the person ahead of us disappeared through the door,so Bill and Terry went to stand behind the person ahead of us.  The new people who had come during lunch started to protest that they were queue jumping.  Fortunately the other people there stood up for us and said we were the next in line.  At 2.50 pm Bill and Terry went into whatever was behind the door.  At about 3.05 pm Bill called me to come in as well It was a room about three metres by six metres, with a young man at a desk.  The person ahead still was not done.  At 3.15 pm she left (I checked) and the young man without a word came and took our documents and wrote things and stamped things and without a word came and gave them back. If Terry had not asked him a question it would all have been done in complete silence.  I looked at the time when we came out of the door.  It was 3.19 pm.  It had taken five and a half hours and ten cents to accomplish something that took less than four minutes.

A 'fixed route taxi' (marshrutka) outside our building.

Now we may stay in Ukraine till July (my papers but not Bill's, for some reason, say I can stay a month longer). If for some reason we changed our address we would have to register our residence again.  It is not difficult to see why local landlords do not want to rent to foreigners because your landlord has to be present for the registration process. When I asked Bill why we had to register our place of residence he said (tongue in cheek) it is because the government does't want a tent city of homeless Australians on the outskirts of Kyiv.  The government can now sleep easy knowing we have a roof over our heads. I am glad it was explained to me. I thought we would include some pictures of the area we live in after all the time to register just where that is.

Four means of transport in one day

Two days ago Charise left Kyiv to return home for work. It was very sad. On that day we used  four different types of transport so I thought I would tell you of them.

The first was the marshrutka.  We use this transport to go to school.  In tourist information here they are often referred to as fixed route taxis.  There are taxis as we are used to in Brisbane here in Kyiv, but a marshrutka is not like that at all.  A marshrutka is (in our case) a small yellow bus. There are also white ones and blue ones but not on our route.  When we wait for a bus we wait for the little yellow ones.  The bus stops are also interesting.  They may be distinguished by a bus seat or shelter but often you recognise one because for about fifty metres along the edge of the footpath you see people standing and looking to the right or left as appropriate. There are no timetables (or at least none that we have been able to discern so far).  You simply turn up and wait.  Generally you do not have to wait very long - maybe ten minutes at most.  Some routes however have more services and others have less.  From our  flat we can take a 465 which stops within a few metres of the school.  However this is ones of the less regular services.  There is a 455 we can catch which comes maybe every 5-10 minutes but the closest stop is either one stop away on the Metro or one stop on the trolley bus or about a twenty-five minute walk. The walk is not a bad option right now but in the winter it may not be so good. Mostly so far we have caught the 465 right outside our unit block but it comes so irregularly we may change to the 455 more permanently.  Coming home when timing is not important we will often wait for 465.

Early in the morning, hoping the 465 will arrive soon

Well about the marshrutkas themselves.  They can vary in size a little but usually carry about twenty seated passengers and as many as can fit standing.  One we travelled on not long after we arrived had a sign that said licenced to carry fourteen seated and eighteen altogether but at one point there twenty

On a marshrutka

on the bus. These little buses can be of any age and most would be described as ancient at best.  They rattle and bounce along and few would pass a road-worthy at home but we always arrive at our destination. The state of the roads here does not help either for a smooth ride. There is lots more to tell about riding marshrutkas but I will save it for another time.

Waiting for the metro

Our second use of transport on that Friday was of course the metro.  You come to love the metro.  It is so very convenient with a service every three to five minutes, and when you live across the road from a station it makes it even more convenient. The metro has a sign at the end of each platform telling you how long since the last service left. Since we have been here I have not seen it go over 3.22 minutes before the next train arrived. We had to be at the airport outside Kyiv at 9.20 for Charise to leave.  We wanted to be at the airport two hours before her flight left, so we decide to leave the flat at about six o'clock. Being that time on a Friday the trains were packed. We squeezed on. We have often been told that Kyiv is empty right now because the state schools and the universities do not start till after the first of September.  It is hard to imagine at times that the trains and marshrutkas can be busier. We caught the metro for just one station and then had to walk for about five to ten minutes for a bus to the airport. The bus to the airport is very close to the main train station in Kyiv so the were people everywhere with bags of various sizes. Getting off and on the escalators was fun.

Close to saying goodbye

This brings us to our next form of transport.  As we were approaching the bus and  carrying a large bag a man recognised that here were people off to the airport. So, he spoke to Bill and asked if we would  like to hire him to drive us to the airport.  I don't know what work he does now but for thirty years he was a helicopter engineer in the military. Anyway he lives out near the airport, so why drive home on your own when you can do the same trip with paying passengers . We have read that this is a fairly common practice here but just be careful that you don' t get 'taken for a ride' as the saying goes.  This man was driving a quite new Audi and looked and sounded all right and was asking the same as the bus fare and said he would be much faster. Well I am glad I was in the back seat.  I think he changed lanes every  minute and often drove in two lanes at once.  He couldn't drive fast because the traffic was just creeping a lot of the time. When we finally left the city limits the sign said  there was sixteen kilometres to go  he was able to do about 100 km/h or a little over then. We arrived at the airport at about 7.30, which was good.  When we were about three quarters of the way there we passed an airport bus that he pointed out to us and he said we had caught up to the one that had left before the one we had been going to catch. So we had time to organise everything for Charise and then watch as she disappeared off into the boarding area.

Time for us to return to Kyiv and our last form of transport for the day.  Once again we were approached by a man.  As we left the airport terminal (but the tears had not been left behind) a man asked us if we were looking for transport back to the city.  Upon being being told yes he said we could go on a mini-bus. He called over another young man who told us to follow him and off we went.  After about 150 metres or so we came to a very nice, very new van that seated nine.  There were already five people in it. In we climbed and the man disappeared back to the terminal and reappeared a few minutes later with another passenger and off we went. This time the trip was much faster because the traffic had reduced quite a deal. He was fairly typical Kyiv driver.  You see almost nil signs about speed limits here and I think most drivers drive above what it is anyway. Lane changing is a real art form here. Well we arrived back safely and then it was a metro ride and we were home.

So now we are here on our own really feeling the break from home. It is already becoming colder here and the leaves are starting to drop and change colour. So in the not too distant future I will be experiencing my first real autumn. We should be able to include some lovely photos next time.

A Day in Lviv

We spent Friday in L'viv in Western Ukraine not all that far from the Polish border. We came by fast train from Kyiv on Thursday night. The train takes five hours with speeds up to 160 km/h but there were delays last night so we were an hour late. We had let our accommodation know that we would be arriving about 11 pm but it ended up being almost midnight before we arrived at the hostel.  Fortunately someone was still awake to let us in.  Today we have explored the old part of L'viv.  Charise commented that Kyiv is like Sydney and L'viv is like Brisbane.  There is less hustle here and it is perhaps more western. Not that Kyiv feels eastern just a bit more different from home.  We saw many beautiful sights. We climbed to L'viv's 'Mount Cootha' , went to an historical museum  and saw lots of other things.  I think I will let a picture say a thousand words. The train leaves in the morning at 5.50am and we are walking to the station so we plan to rise at 4.00am to be sure of everything so an early night is called for.

This is the main railway station in Kyiv. It is a magnificent building.  You can see the vaulted ceilings and the murals on the walls. You can pick out Charise and me in about the centre of the picture. I have a blue back at my feet.  This is a time when the station was fairly empty. 

This a view from our hostel room in L'viv. if you were on the far balcony and looked back at our room the picture would look the same. 

Charise is standing at the end of the passage way we went down to reach our hostel.  The street outside the building was completely closed because they were taking up the cobblestones and appeared to be replacing them with new ones. This fact did not deter either pedestrians or cars who simply walked or drove around the work site and went on their way or parked their car and left.

 

As I have said Ukraine is place for enormous statues.  This is one of Ivan Franko a famous Ukrainian writer. Bill wrote an extended assignment on him so it is special to have this photo.  It is out in front of the Ivan Franko University.

Just to show the beautiful parks and huge trees. When you are high up and overlook L'viv you can see their policy of putting a ring of parks around the city to make for green space.

This statue is of Taras Shevchenko.  He is Ukraine's most noted writer.  This was erected after the collapse of the Soviet Union and a lot of the money needed was provided by Ukrainians living abroad.

The Opera House in L'viv.  It was a fairly hot day when we were there - about 33 degrees, so later in the day we saw people standing in the water of the fountain. When the Opera House was built it was decided by the architect that it be interesting to build it over a small river which flowed there.  So they did.  Apparently the building began to subside as soon as it was finished, but it soon went no further.  The tourist information says the only ill effect of the subsidence is sink holes near the building which catch out unwary tourists.

I don't know how recently these seats were put in this street making it into a mall, but motor-bikes were still happy to use it as a thoroughfare.

The view of the old town from their version of "Mount Cootha"

These two photos show the way up to lookout over L'viv. There were over two hundred steps and then a reasonably long steep walk  from the top of them.

A typical street scene in the old town part of L'viv. 

This is very usual in both Kyiv and L'viv to have flower boxes on the footpath.  Perhaps not quite as many as in this spot.  The flowers will often be petunias or geraniums but these were begonias.

I 

This was about 7.30 pm.  It is light here at present till about 9.00-9.30.  There was a whole row of older men playing chess and as you can see they could draw a crowd.  Many of them were using timers for their moves.


I had to add to this blog. We left our hostel  at about 4.15 am on Saturday morning.  and walked for about thirty minutes to the station. We found out two things   within a few minutes. One is that there is almost nil street lighting in L'viv,and the other is that  it is completely dark at 4.15 am. The next thing is, that you know from the last week you have spent in Ukraine,  that the footpaths can be very problematic.  Many of the footpaths in L'viv are cobblestones and uneven. Also there are often broken cobbles and completely missing ones.  So we made our way alone, for the most part, through the dark early morning  of L'viv.  We made it without incident but I can tell you my toes were very concerned the whole way. .

By this time we arrived at the station and it was much brighter and there were lots of people around, but it gives you an idea of how it was.

The Metro

On Saturday we made our first venture into the under ground rail system here in Kyiv.  I have basically lived all my life in Brisbane and we don't have an underground so I have no point of comparison but the Kyiv Metro just blew my mind.  The first thing was the speed. Here I am talking about the speed of the escalators to go down into the metro.  Charise was ahead of me and as she stepped onto the escalator I saw her stumble and thought she was going to fall. Then I stepped on and I thought I was going to fall.  The escalator moves much faster than the tame ones we have in Brisbane.  These are also much steeper than any I have used before.  We went down about the usual distance and came to the end.  Because you are moving quite quickly it is tricky coming off at the end until you learn the knack.  You are kind of catapulted off the end.  This is so much so that they have a raised portion at the first step off to slow down your exit. Well, ahead of us you could see twenty or so meters and then I expected we would see the trains.  But no. Instead we came to another escalator.  This was a real!!!!escalator.  Unless you have seen one like it is almost hard to describe.  Maybe there are many under grounds like this one in other parts of the world and many of you have seen them but it sure was new to us. The escalator stretched down away from us so far you couldn't see the bottom.  It was incredible!  The escalators are not new so they clank and rattle.  So down and down we went. I didn't think of it on our first experience because we were just so amazed but on our next time ascending I timed our ride up.  Remember this is travelling quite a bit faster than a regular escalator in Brisbane.  We ascended for two full minutes! It is amazing however how quickly you become used to things.  This is Tuesday and we used the metro first on Saturday and already we are quite used to the incredible depth we reach but somehow I don't think you really comprehend just how far down you go.
We have just found some actual statistics about the metro so I thought I would add them for your amazement. So the Kyiv metro has some of the deepest stations in the world.  The Arsenalna station (which we used today) is the deepest metro station in the world at 107 metres deep, and the Universytet station (which is just a couple of stations from us) has one of the longest escalators (87metres long). The site that put up this information then says "Many stations have two long and intimidating escalators in a row,"  They are very correct. They are very intimidating!  When I was in PNG in the 1970s I landed on the world's steepest airstrip a few times and now I have been on the world's deepest underground.

The metro system here is very good. It is very cheap and there are no timetables because trains come every few minutes.  There are three metro lines in the main part of the city and our flat is opposite a metro station so it is very convenient.  We do not intend to have a car while we are here so we see a lot of the metro.  This description may make me seem a country hick but it certainly was one of my first adventures in Ukraine! We also do a lot of walking.  Most days since we have been her we have walked about  ten kilometres.

Today it was even more because we went to a tourist centre where they have built typical houses  from the various parts of Ukraine and put them together on a site that is approximately 150 hectares.  This meant a lot of walking to see most of them.  It really was quite beautiful and the general scenery was beautiful too.  One thing I noticed was that it was very quiet there except for the rustling of leaves in the breeze because there were very few sounds of birds. Tomorrow more sites to see but this should involve a little less walking. As it ended up, today Bill and I walked the furthest of all our days so far (about 15k).

Here are some photos of the houses we saw.

Charise in a traditional Ukrainian headdress.

Trip to Ukraine

On a nine hour flight you do some silly things. One that I did was to watch" Horton Hears a Who". That is not really so silly because I love that movie.  But to get to my point.- as the people of Whoville say,"We are here, we are here, we are here", well we are here, not in Whoville but in Kyiv in Ukraine.  The trip was long but uneventful which is just what you want.  It was nine hours to Bankok then a two hour layover, then about eight hours to Istanbul, a three hour layover there and then two hours to Kyiv. Our body clocks are still trying to catch up. I woke at four this morning and was unable to convince my body that it was not 11.am. Charise went to bed at 6.00pm last night and managed to sleep till 8.00am this morning.  Everything went fine with our luggage and visa entry.

Our apartment is very nice and comfortable and bigger than we expected. We are on the second floor of a six floor building.  We are told that it is a Stalin era building and that is good because building standards dropped considerably later on.  From the outside and the stair wells etc it appears that no money has been spent on the building since it was built,but inside the apartment it is very nice and cosy. Our next door neighbour is the Kyiv Zoo but so far they have been very model neighbours with not a sound from them. We are on one of the main streets of Kyiv but in the flat it is very quiet.

We have been out and about today stocking up our pantry and visiting the school where we will be working.  There are only 150 students so it is quite small but nicely set up. Because we do not plan on having a car while we are here we will be doing a fair bit of walking and this morning we were walking along the edge of  a park which is opposite our flat when Charise caught a movement in the grass quite near to us and there was a little reddish brown squirrel looking very cute.  At the moment it is raining lightly but the temperature has been quite pleasant since we have been here.
The adventure has begun.