day 2 continues

We have had a great day here!  Dave decided he was hungry at 4:30 am here so made some eggs and was ready to roll.  Luckily, he finally went back to bed so I was able to "sleep in" (whatever that means!)

We walked the streets today for 2 hours.  So interesting...the city seems very international...maybe that's just because everyone is speaking a different language than us.  Overall, no one smiles or acknowledges us...very unsouthern!! The style seems to be "anything goes."  There is definately a lot of high heels and skin showing, and otherwise just casual.  I have no idea how the woman walk in the heels-the sidewalks are cobblestone and very uneven pavement. We tripped along in our casual shoes.

The most interesting thing that happened was that we ended up in the middle of a "tent camp" where there was some sort of protest/rally going on. Altho we could not understand anything, it was very heated and loud with people waving flags and well, protesting!  The streets on both sides were lined w/ police that had been shuttled in on buses.  They all appeared very young...could not help but think of Stas in later years...

We had a great discussion w/our facilitator, Natasha last night at dinner.  She really explained to us the difference of Russia and Ukraine and all the struggles they still have w/ many of regions still wanting to be a part of the old russian ways,  and the newer generation really wanting to support the Ukrainian (less communistic) views.  We feel so fortunate to be learning about and experiencing some of Stas' culture.

Another fun thing we discovered-we went underground to what we thought was a subway.  Instead it was an underground "mall".  On some corners, this is how you get to the otherside of the street. Pretty darkly lit and strange.  To work "underground" all day would be horrible. This is also where many poorer older people set up to sell fruit, cigarettes, just about anything.  On that note-there is A LOT of smoking here...like dave said, coffee, beer and cigarettes available on almost every corner.

We are hoping to meet up w/  Misty's (my sister's) good friends here in Kiev.  They had same flight as we did-a day later, so certainly they will be exhausted. 

Appreciate you all and your prayers for our journey :)