Day 2—May 14—Saturday: Arrival, Kyiv, and a Party

Day was just breaking as we landed at Kyiv's Boryspil Airport just before 5 a.m. This will take getting used to because the sun doesn't come up in Madeira until almost 8. We lost 2 hours on the clock and a whole night's sleep, so when we got to Dima & Natasha's house went to bed as soon as we had a chance and slept from 7:30 to about 9:30.

Contrary to the weather of recent weeks --- and the forecast on the Internet --- the weather turned off perfect. Petro took us into the center of town, first to the central avenue and square, where I saw the VE day parade two years ago (right, the parade in 2003; left, Petro in front of the Portuguese booth) This time the whole avenue was closed off for Kyiv’s Europe Day. The avenue was filled with booths representing each of the countries in Europe, and there were stages for bands and performances. European Day in Kyiv. Lots of noise, lots of people. Ukraine’s neighbor, Poland, just entered the EU, and from what I’ve read, Ukraine would love nothing better than to be included, too.

Odd sight: a human telephone booth. Wish I had taken a picture of the fellow with a sign around his neck. What were they called---sandwich boards? I don’t remember when I last saw one, but we saw several in Kyiv. They advertised different things, but we were already too far past this particular man before I figured out what was going on. He was renting his cell phone, and for x amount of money you could make a phone call for x number of minutes on the cell phone at the end of a tether that was perhaps 6 ft (2m) long. Now that’s entrepreneurship. By the way, Pedro, who left for Portugal 3 years ago, said one of the big changes he noticed was the number of cell phones. Three years ago very few had one, now you see them everywhere.

What will they think of next? McDonald's is internationally known for clean restrooms, a welcome sight when travelling. Went into the McDonald's in downtown Kyiv, and behold! A 4-digit code is needed to get in. I finally translated the information sign by the bathroom door, enough to learn that the code is printed on the cash register receipt. (That was after I came back out---a kind soul let me in---I was not in the proper frame of mind to stand there and decipher a paragraph of Ukrainian when I first got there.) “No tickee, no washee,” as the Chinese laundry man was supposed to have said. Maybe this system is more common than I think, but it was the first time we'd ever seen it.



We visited two of the big Ukrainian Orthodox churches: Mikhaelevsky and Sofia.

Sofia costs 1UAH (US $0.20) to get into the grounds and for another bit you can go in the 1000-yr old church. At Mikhaelevsky (shown in photos here), the plaza in front and the grounds inside were invaded by wedding parties. We actually lost count of how many there were---30 would be a conservative guess. Every conceivable corner was being used as a setting for the wedding photos.
A blind man in traditional Cossack dress earns his living playing the traditional Ukrainian musical instrument in the Mikhaelevsky plaza. At the moment, I can't remember the name of the instrument, but it's obviously not a guitar!

When we got back to the house we took a short nap before the party began. Friends of Petro and Lidiya came to see them, the same ones who had come to meet us at the airport. Several of them are members of the Kiev Central Baptist Church choir, and it was decided that we would go with them tomorrow morning to the small country church where they are to sing for the Easter program. Orthodox Easter was just last Sunday.