Day 2

This is the living room of the aparment. It is my favorite room. The ceilings in the apartment are 12 ft and very cool.

This little table is in the kitchen. It is very quaint.

This is the kitchen. It is very funcitonal.

The bathroom....Obviously!

Again, the bathroom.

Our bedroom. 12 ft ceilings. The windows in the living room and the bedroom face the street. It is quite a busy street. The living room has the balcony that you can go out. We have sometimes stood out there talking to one of the other couples until they find us.

This is a picture of the front door from the inside of the apartment. It has a massive amount of locks on it.

This is the hallway that leads to our door. We are on the right hand side.

I thought this was a cool picture. It kind of gives you a feel for the streets that we walked down all day. People are everywhere.

This is a cool looking building. It is apartments on the upper floors and retail on the bottom floor. There are many like that.

This is the side of the Golden Gate and this is a statue of a famous man. I heard about many today and couldn't keep them straight. Obviously, he had something to do with the Golden Gate.

Very busy street. You do have to be careful crossing the street. There does not appear to be any speed laws and you hear a lot of horns honking.

This is the Great Golden Gate which was the city gate into Kiev.

We thought this was a neat looking cafe.

Another cool building.

This is a picture of a famous founder of Kiev. His name is Bogdon. I took this picture for a special friend who knows someone even more special with that name!

Again, they park on the sidewalk. Really don't know how they get out though. I really don't want to know. I do know that if you want to total out your car for insurance money....bring it to Kiev!

Department of Foreign affairs. This is a HUGE building.

This is Andrew and I in front of St. Michaels which is to our left.

This is St. Michael's. It is very ornate and beautiful.

Yesterday, well really Saturday and Sunday, felt like one very, very long day and not two days. It was very hard to go to sleep last night. Especially since we skyped our kids before going to bed. We miss them so much. We finally went to bed sometime after midnight and woke up at 3am Hubby was able to go back to sleep but I couldn't. I didn't fall back to sleep until after 5 am. Then we were startled away by an unfamiliar sound. It was the sound of our doorbell. I looked at the time and it was after 1 pm in the afternoon. We couldn't believe it! To top it off, I did not feel rested at all today. I felt like I walked around in a fog all day.

We were taken on the tour by an interpreter named Andrew. Very nice young man. Very polite. He is going to two Universities to study linguistics and film producing. We walked around the city for three hours. It really was great exercise! The city is very beautiful. It is filled with all buildings and a lot of history.

The woman are all dressed up. Most of them wear skirts and at least dress pants. I saw very few woman wearing jeans. They all wear high heel shoes or black books and very nice coats too. I felt very under dressed in my jeans and sweater. The men dress nicely too. Usually we saw them in nice slacks and black jackets. Black is definately the choice of color for most everyone. There were a few people who wore animal print clothes and others that I really just don't know how to describe. Everyone seems quite pleasant. They don't walk around saying hi or anything, they just seem fairly pleasant. There was one mother who was on her knees holding a sign and her young son, probably 6-8 followed us asking for money. We were also approached later on in the day by a teenager asking for money. The waiters and waitresses we have seen have been very, very nice.

The city is very busy with people walking everywhere. People are everywhere. It kind of reminded me of San Francisco. The buildings here are shorter but some of the architecture is the same. We came back to our apartment to rest and then met everyone for dinner. We walked several blocks to dinner which was really great. The whole group of us were there and it was really nice. We ate at an italian place and the food was great.

Our appointment is tomorrow noon. We are looking forward to that. Everyone's appointments went well today. We finished dinner kind of late. There seems to be no rush at mealtime. It seems to be a nightlong event we have been told. You are seated right away but the whole process takes about two hours. It is supposed to be a time to get together and enjoy an evening, not just a meal. It worked out great for us tonight. It was a nice walk back to the apartment. We are all scattered here and there within several blocks, but we know where everyone is.

Here are some pics we took today.