Victory Day May 9

Link to pics from today: https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/KievMay9Holiday?authkey=Gv1sRgCOaf_u2u1OvUpwE#

привіт!  Ukrainian for "Hi!"  Today was a national holiday in Ukraine, marked by parades and all the old veterans wearing full uniforms and medals, lots of medals.  It's a holiday left over from the Soviet era.  I walked down to McDonald's to have a language class at 10.  I grabbed an outside table.  The weather was delightfully warm.  It felt good after days of being on the edge of uncomfortable.  Anna arrived and I went in to get us cappuccinos.  Anna feels it beneficial that I learn Ukrainian handwriting.  It is a challenge because the letters are often very different in handwriting than in books.  I hope I haven't burned out all those brain cells needed for language learning.

I have a phone for use in Ukraine so I can have a local phone number for calls and texting.  Just before my lesson finished, I got a text from Rostek "buy bread".  I stopped in the supermarket on the way home and got bread, some drinkable yogurt and butter.  The woman at the checkout asked me a question I didn't understand (basically "do you need a bag")  Bags aren't free here, you pay a small fee for them.  We did the pantomime thing and then I had to choose between a small bag and a big bad.  She had really good humor about it.  I ate when I got back to the apartment.  Rostek and Denis had eaten earlier.  Then we set of for an hour's metro journey to Konstantin's apartment, me carrying a bag with all my dirty laundry.  We don't have a washing machine in our apartment and can't find a laundry in our neighborhood.  There are no self-service laundromats here.  We got to Konstantin's and put the clothes in the wash and visited until they were done.  We hung them on racks.  Hopefully they will be dry by tomorrow.  Mikhail was there.  He's a hair stylist and will cut my hair tomorrow morning.  He's going to try to give me a care free style that makes me look Ukrainian!  Good luck with that!  It will be an adventure finding the correct metro station.  I have to go into the center of Kiev and change trains.
We decided to take a walk along the river and walked through a really swanky neighborhood with a really contemporary Orthodox church.  Then we went down into the park along the river and wandered for an hour.  By the time we got back to Kostya's apartment, my legs were feeling it.  Rostek and Denis went to get something to cook for late lunch/early dinner and we had a feast of pork cooked with onions and a really good grated salad of carrots and turnips and a few other things, flavored with dill and lemon.  Very tasty.  Oh, yeah, and rice.  We drank cups of jasmine tea.  And we visited some more.  Finally around 8, we set out and when we got to the interchange station,  I took the green line home and the boys when somewhere or other.  I got home and handwashed some things and now I'm catching up with this blog.
Oh, just a leftover note from last night:  I think I mentioned the other day that I had coffee with an Orthodox seminarian.  He's one of the happiest people I ever met.  Last night, just as I was getting ready for bed, Dimitri called just to say hi.  We laughed through the conversation and it was a wonderful way to end my day with a smile.  People are so thoughtful.   And one more note:  there was a facebook photo posted of people at church at home waving to me.  I also received several nice emails today.  Each week, I'm sending a two minute video message from me that gets played during worship.   It keeps me connected.  Now, I'm ready for bed.  It's after 11pm.