Friday August 31, 2007

Hello Everyone:
Friday and our last day here. We could not make any internet games work and the servers here do not play DVD's so we spent our entire day walking the city of Kiev. We spent considerable time in the fountain in the square, the only "pool" of sorts we could find. We went to the souvenier stands along the street and looked at all the vendors. These vendors sell things from Western Ukraine. There is no industry in Western Ukraine as I may have mentioned earlier. A few souveniers later we are back at the fountains.

Some more observations about Ukraine:
People in Kiev smoke less than those in Donetsk.
The people in Kiev are heavier than Donetsk maybe because they smoke less and perhaps because of the fast food restaurants that are here - we counted at least six or seven McDonald's
The air quality is better in Kiev than Donetsk since ther are no coal mines spewing dust.
There are lots of banks in Kiev.

To walk across streets in Kiev and in Donetsk, you walk down steps, through a tunnel under the street and up the other side. In the tunnels are myriads of small vendors and shops. The flower vendors have absolutely gorgeous flowers.

Friday must be wedding day. We saw at least five different wedding parties. We saw a couple wedding parties with stretch white limos and one with a black suburban. We also saw one party with an old restored Russian auto. They decorate the cars with flowers for the wedding party. The carillon bells were ringing in St Michael's cathedral for one wedding - beautiful music. The wedding dresses are very elegant - some looked antique and some looked brand new. The men wear dark suits or tuxedos.

Buying property in Kiev is very expensive. Rex observed the property for sale on a realtor's window and saw that most apartments go for 500,000.00 USD to 1,000,000.00 USD. Right now we are in a large apartment by their standards. We have two bedrooms, a large living room with 70's looking furniture, a nice size kitchen with table and stools, and a bathroom with sink, stool, tub, and washer/dryer all in one, also a large closet at the end of the hallway. We paid $170.00 USD per night for this apartment. We enjoyed the space and so did Sergey.

Tomorrow we leave for home at 8:30 AM from the apartment. Hopefully no traffice jams tomorrow.

We will post again once we arrive in the US.

See everyone soon
Rex, Liz, Sergey