The rest of Monday

While sitting in the lobby, I noticed a guy wandering around looking anxious.  I had seen him at dinner Sunday night.  I asked if he was all right.  He is a Canadian working at a Canadian gold mine in Burkina Fasso.  He also was stranded and had his wallet in his checked luggage.  After my "what were you thinking?", I realized I could have been more sympathetic.  He had nothing.  I shared my taxi with him to the airport and when he was apologetic about not being able to share the cost, I asked him to pay it forward.

At the airport, my flight boarded on time.  I heaved a sigh of relief.  My seatmate was a Palestinian high school senior on his way to Camp Hope in Maine with a group from Palestine and Israel. A really nice kid who was exhausted after traveling already for over 30 hours without sleep.  He slept.  We taxied away from the gate and headed out to the runway.  Paris is in a heatwave so it was 37 degrees Celsius/97 degrees Fahrenheit.  We baked in the plane.   We taxied for a really long time.  I remarked to my seatmate that I thought we might be driving to Boston.  The captain made several announcements about overheated brakes and "few minutes" etc.  Well, four hours later, they scrubbed the flight.  We were all really uncomfortable from the heat.  It was unclear what would happen.  We thought they would just get another plane and send us off.  It seems there's a mechanics strike going on here. Anyway, although the Air France person who helped me was really a good guy, there were no remaining hotel rooms to give.  He booked me for Tuesday to NY JFK then to ROC.  I wandered the airport and found a tourist office who helped book me a hotel.  Another guy from the flight asked if I'd share taxi cost.  I agreed.  He turned out to be an art professor from a college in St. Louis.  We got to our hotel around 8pm and met to go out for dinner to a little brasserie in the neighborhood.  We sat outside and had a drink and then ordered dinner.  It was 10 when we returned to the hotel.  A taxi picked us up at 5:30 and brought us back to the airport.  I am now sitting hoping that my flight takes off on time.  More later.  Oh, Delta sent me an email telling me that my itinerary is complete.  They don't even know where I am!

Monday morning at the Magic Circus

No one makes croissants like the French.  I had to severely restrain myself at breakfast - an impressive buffet.  The coffee wasn't as good as in Ukraine.

Because so many Air France travelers were stranded yesterday, there were a lot of us at the Magic Circus.  Air France arranged two shuttles to the airport  5:30 and 7:30 a.m.  No way was I going to go that early for a 1:30pm flight.  I'll find a way later this morning.

I realized this morning that I have a really tight connection in Boston, less than 90 minutes to get luggage, clear customs and immigration, reload luggage, change terminals, try to get a boarding pass and make my flight to Rochester.  Digits will be crossed.

I took a few pictures around the hotel which are posted.  Here's the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/MagicCircusParis?authkey=Gv1sRgCJzQ04j438Ot5AE

An evening in Kiev and then one in Paris

My last evening in Kiev saw Rostek, Konstantin and I got to a traditional Ukrainian restaurant where we ate outside (wrapped in blankets because it was cold).  Rostek decided we had to try vodka that had an herb steeped in it.  The herb was horseradish.  It was the most God-awful drink I've ever forced down my throat.  Konstantin and I kept refusing when Rostek wanted to refill our glasses.  It was really really horrible.  We had borsch, of course.  Rostek and Kostya had red borsch and I had green borsch. I only had it once before and liked it.  Then we had the obligatory pig fat (salo) and herring.  Then vareniki: I chose a mix of half cabbage vareniki and half potato; the others had meat filling.  Then Rostek and I had cabbage rolls and Kostya had grilled salmon.  We all split a piece of what they called cheese cake.  It wasn't what we know as cheese cake but was really delicious.

This morning, early, I went down to McDonalds to catch up on email and to drink a cappuccino.  I walked in the rain and it felt good.  When I got back to the apartment, I got fussed over.  Rostek made me drink tea and Kostya fretted over my damp clothing.  The we headed out to the airport.  The lines were long and I was a little nervous when they could give me a boarding pass for the Kiev-Paris flight but not for the Paris-NY flight.  Of course I got to Paris and found that the flight was overbooked (they euphemistically called it "oversold") so I had no way to get home today.  The young woman who worked with me was awesome.  She did a number of things for me:
1) she got me booked into a resort hotel bordering Disney World Paris
2) vouchers for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow included
3) she got me booked to Boston tomorrow and they're still working on getting me to Rochester from Boston
4) she offered me 600 Euros cash or 800 Euros travel voucher for the snafu. I chose the travel voucher because that's about the cost of a round trip ticket to Ukraine!

So, I took the bus to the Magic Circus hotel and was astounded at how beautiful it was! Dinner was a salad of field greens with two kinds of cheese and a pesto dressing.  One cheese was provolone and the other a feta-like cheese with poppy seeds in it.  Really good and baskets of crusty rolls as only the French seem to make.  The entree was duck with asparagus and oven-roasted rosemary potatoes.  Dessert was mango cake.  Nice.

When I finally got to my room, I was, once again, astounded.  It's a huge room with a super king bed, a desk and sitting area and bunk beds in an alcove.  Must be a family kind of place.  I may try all three beds!  I'll take some pics and post them tomorrow before I leave for the airport.

That brings me up to the present and I'm tired and going to bed.  Talk to you from somewhere or other tomorrow.

Friday and first half of my last full day in Kiev

I've been without internet at the apartment for over a week, which means first thing in the morning and last thing at night, I must find my way to McDonald's to access wifi.  Friday morning saw me do just that and then come back to the apartment to begin to pack.  I sorted my stuff into two piles, what would come home with me and what would remain in Kiev.  The clothing I will leave here will mean less that I have to pack when I return in September.  I left around 12:30 to meet Brother Vladimir at Metro Zhitomirska station.  From there, we met another Vladimir and went to the city of Zhitomir which is about 75 miles from Kiev.  We were going to meet with a group there.  We walked a fair distance from the Metro station and Vladimir stood with his hand stretch out to flag down a ride.  It seems that it is common practice to pick up some extra money by functioning as an unofficial taxi service.  So, in our case, a man going to Zhitomir or through Zhitomir can pick up riders.  So we rode like a bat out of hell, weaving in and out of traffic and sometimes for long distances in the breakdown lane for the two hour trip for 75 Hrivnia - less than $10USD.  Then we took a soviet era trolley bus, then we walked to the place we were meeting, with stops at two churches (when you travel with a monk, you stop at every church along the way!)  The group we met with were great.  It was an HIV/AIDS organization and the director was Maxim whom I had met before.  There was good interest and a lot of questions about this new LGBT Christian movement that is being born.  There is immense interest, and I already have meetings lined up for September when I return.  I will then go to a town called Vilnitsa for one of my first stops.

There was a young man at the meeting who never opened his mouth, and seemed sad.  I asked Brother Vladimir to translate for me so I could have a conversation with him.  He works as a psychologist and I wanted to know about internalized homophobia in his clients.  He shyly admitted that he himself has internalized homophobia and doesn't like himself and doesn't want to be gay.  We talked for a while with him.  I hope we helped him.  When Brother V. and I left, we got on a bus.  Turns out it was the correct busline but we were going in the wrong direction, so we got off and crossed the street to wait for one going in the right direction.  While we were with a crowd waiting for a private car to stop to fill up, a Kiev bus came so we took that instead.  Ironically the bus was more expensive than the private car.  We sat in the far back where we got the benefit of every bump in the road.  I fear that I would either crash into the roof of the bus, or get bounced right off my seat into the aisle.  It was a very long bus ride.  We arrived back at the Metro Station Zhitomirska and rode together to the center.  I got off before Brother Vladimir and we said a sad "farewell" on the train.  I switched lines and finally arrived at Kharkivska at 23:30.  I stopped at McDonald's to eat something since I hadn't eaten since breakfast.  I got to the aparment after midnight and crashed pretty much immediately.
This morning, I went to McDonald's for cappuccino at about 8 and to check email.  It was so incredibly good to read that the NY State Senate passed Equal Marriage into law!  What a great homecoming gift!  I also had an email from Delta Airlines.  I had no idea that they had changed my flights.  I was supposed to fly Kiev-JFK directly.  Now I'm flying Kiev-Paris, Paris-JFK, JFK-ROC arriving at 11:20pm Sunday night.  It looks on paper like I'm traveling from 13:30 to 23:30, a mere 10 hours but you have to factor in the 7 hour time difference so I'll be traveling for 17 hours and will have been awake for 24.  I am disappointed at the flight schedule change because I was supposed to spend my layover in NY with my good friend, Yuriy, a Ukrainian who lives in NY.
I am going to leave now to take the Metro into the center to have my final lunch for this trip at Glossary and say goodbye to the waiter and waitress who have become friends during my stay.  Tonight I will have dinner with friends and tomorrow morning will be spent preparing to get to the airport.
My next blogging will probably be from an airport somewhere between here and home.  Ah, I say "home" but here feels as much "home" as there does.  Does that make me a citizen of the world?  Here is my link to very few pics from Zhitomir: https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/Zhitomir?authkey=Gv1sRgCMr81ICF5__B9wE

A Lavra kind of day

I met my friend Brother Vladimir at 9 on Wednesday at Metro Station Teatralna, our usual meeting place, near the bust of Lenin.  We went out to his monastery, Lavra Pecherska.  In Ukraine, a Lavra is a special spiritual center and there are not many of them throughout the Slavic world.  We went to Lavra so I could shop and get things as gifts and stuff for church.  I already have two icons for church: one of Mother Mary,  Panta Nassa - people come to pray for healing to this image.  Another of St. Dorofee or Dorofea, an interesting saint who was born a woman and entered the monastery and lived her life as a man.  Upon her death, she was discovered to be a woman.  Because of her/his holiness, (s)he is revered. Some pray to this saint as a man, and some as a woman.  Perhaps there's greater wideness in Orthodox thinking than previously thought.  We went to numerous churches in the Lavra which is really a walled city and to several shops, including a fascinating shop where metalwork for churches is done - domes, candelabras, communion sets, etc.   I bought an Orthodox stole which came with cuffs also.  An Orthodox stole differs from a western stole in that it goes over the head but is joined down the front instead of hanging as two separate strips.  Cuffs are used in Byzantine and Antiochan rites.  Practically speaking, they could prevent wide sleeves from getting in the way!  I also bought an Orthodox rosary for myself, one with only 3 decades of beads.  I also bought a gold plate censer (called Thurible in the western church).  It has four chains, each chain with three bells.  Vladimir was surprised that I knew how to swing it.  I told him I'd been around the block a few times.  I bought a small icon of St. Pantaleimon (by now you know he's my favorite saint) and bought some triptychs as gifts.  I didn't find the kind of altar cloth I wanted but I have a shop in mind that I will visit today.  After leaving Lavra Pecherska, we walked to Vladimir's grandparents' apartment for borsch, stopping on the way at a church/monastery where a miraculous icon of Mary lives.  We stood in line in a very hot church for quite a while to have our chance to pray in front of the icon.  Many people approach, cross themselves, kiss the glass covering the icon and then rest their foreheads against the glass while they pray.  Then, they wipe the glass with a cloth, cross themselves and bow and make room for the next person in line.  I presented my prayers to Mother Mary, followed the ritual, and made way for the next person.  Vladimir's grandparents live in a small apartment on the 11th floor of a building.  The borsch was vegetarian because Vladimir has been vegetarian for many years.  He served the borsch in the way of his grandmother's village: first he cut up a good quantity of cucumber into the bowls, put a good dollop of sour cream and poured on the hot borsch.  It was great, kind of like having soup and salad all at once.
We then walked to the Metro so I could return to my apartment and unload my purchases and Vladimir to work.  He had taken the morning off to spend it with me.  While we were still at the Lavra, I made a two minute video of him to send to my church.
I went back to the apartment in Kharkivska to unload my purchases and since my legs and feet were reminding me how much I had walked and how many hills and stairs I had climbed, I lay down for an hour then puttered until it was time to leave to return to the center to meet my friend, Anna,  for a beer and pizza.  The pizza was interesting.  The beer was my favorite Ukrainian brand, Slavutich.  Slavutich comes in two varieties.  Regular and unfiltered.  The unfiltered is called "white" because it is cloudy.  I prefer unfiltered but happily drank what they had.  Only one, though.  I returned to the apartment around 10 and crashed.
I'm sending this from McDonalds which is packed with people having breakfast on their way to work.  I'm trying not to think of packing and leaving.  Here's a link to yesterday's pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/revjimmulcahy/Lavra_Pecherska_Monastery?authkey=Gv1sRgCNP2gY_XjqH6wwE

Subway ballet and Type A's

Hi.  It's about 20 degrees Celsius in Kiev (68F) and I'm feeling a little chilly after weeks and weeks of much higher temperatures.  A month ago I put a status on Facebook "have I died and gone to Florida?"  Now I have acclimated.  That's almost scary considering that all my family knows how I've always felt about really hot weather.  A friend of mine told me the other day that last summer was much hotter!  I think I'll have a t-shirt made saying "sweating and stinking - that's my life."

Now, about the metro ballet.  I've probably mentioned before that you can't imagine how deep underground the metro is.  There are two sets of long long escalators to take the throngs down.  The metro moves 1 million people a day with incredible efficiency.  While at first I was taken aback by being shoved into the metro cars, now I'm shoving with the best of them.  I'm told that in Japan, there are metro officials to shove people into the cars.  Here it's do-it-yourself!  Anyway, I digress.

Let's start the metro ballet paragraph again:  On the escalator, the convention is that you move to the right side of the escalator because the left side is for those who want to walk or run down.  The runners usually are young men and women.  To watch them run/skip/dance down the endless steps is beautiful.  I'm sure to them, it's just that they're in a hurry to get nowhere fast.  To me, the observer, it is poetry in motion.  It is beautiful.  They don't know it but they are rejoicing and celebrating their youth and ability and athleticism and the exuberance of young, beautiful, healthy bodies.  Ah, I think to myself, there will come a day when their ankles or knees or hips cause them to step to the right instead of twinkle-toeing down the escalators.

And finally the type A.  I met with a young man who is director of a local activist organizations.  We met, as is usual here, at the exit of a metro station.  Just before he was due, a guy approached me asking where is the square.  I thought of saying I don't know but instead pulled out a useful phrase "na vulitsi"  - outside.   So I got a text saying my friend was running five minutes late.  He arrived frazzled and in high gear.  We walked rapidly to the coffee shop.  He had something called "iced Indian coffee" - there were three globular ice cubes made of frozen coffee in his glass.  I had coffee with cardamom.  Our initial conversation was also in high gear but over the few hours we sat there, everything slowed down.   He sent an email this morning saying that when he left, he felt calm - apparently that was a surprise and a welcome change for him.  I took it as a wonderful compliment.

I've been sitting at Glossary Organic cafe for the last hour.  I had my gassy Morshinska water and a cappuccino and now will order a cabbage salad and cream of mushroom soup.  I may make another stab at being a vegetarian when I come home.  OK, time to order.  Salat zi kapusti, sup-crem zi hribami

Saturday and Sunday - the beginning of my last week

I set out pretty early (around 8)on Saturday morning to walk around Kyiv.  Every day has been in the 90's and, I hate to admit it, but I'm acclimating to the heat.  I'm just used to being wet from sweat all the time and have gotten used to the feeling of sweat dripping of the back of my hair and wetting the back of my shirt.  I walked for five hours up hill and down (remember that Kyiv is built on hills).  I walked to St. Vladimir Cathedral to pray for a while.  I always make a stop to visit the icon of St. Panteleimon in whatever church I visit.  He is a saint of healing.  I wandered all over memorizing my favorite places.  I found St. Sophia and St. Michael's which are at either end of a beautiful square.  I finally ended up at Glossary Organic Cafe to have Morshinska water (with gas), a cappuccino, a cabbage salad and mlini (sweet crepes) stuffed with a creamy cheese and sour cherries) and then another cappuccino.  I wandered around Kreshchatik for a while and then arrived home around 10 at night.  I dropped into bed and sweated my way through the night.
On Sunday I got up early and went to McDonald's to access internet and have a cappuccino.  Then I did a little shopping at Billa (the supermarket chain I also liked in Romania) and went home until it was time to set out to meet my friends from an LGBT Christian group.  We went on an excursion to the far southern end of Kiev to the Monastery of St. Panteleimon which is situated in the Feofania Forest.  After visiting the church, we went into the forest, first to a holy spring to drink water and then to a special bathing spot, also holy, where hundreds of people were in line waiting to submerge themselves in the holy water.  Some of our guys went in and declared it to be VERY cold.  We continued through the forest to a beautiful new park where some of the guys swam and some of us wandered or sat and conversed. It was a really pleasant day.  Late in the afternoon, we had a 5 minute downpour which cooled things off beautifully and we had at least a 20 degree temperature drop.  We headed back to the city and I went home and went to bed.
This morning, I caught up on emails and photos and now will go to get my hair cut.  The guy who cut my hair when I first arrived did a really good job so I thought I'd have him do the same thing before I come home.
Here's the link to my photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/revjimmulcahy/KievAndPanteleimonMonastery?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvRlrrViP7c9wE

On Saturday night there was a gay bashing.  My friend Denys got his jaw broken leaving a club.  In the midst of beauty there always seem to be those who bring hate with them.

The Sparrows of McDonald's at Kharkivska

There is a really nice patio at my local McDonalds at Metro Kharkivska. It's a great place to drink an early cappuccino before it gets too hot. The patio has its dedicated flock of sparrows. They are bold and polite at the same time. Several will land on your table looking at you hopefully but go away when you don't feed them. Many people share their meals with them. I was entranced this morning watching a man, probably in his 30's share his breakfast with them, talking to them the whole while. Did I mention that I love Ukraine?

smells

Almost all communist era apartment building's entrances smell bad.

The whole city is planted in flowering trees. When I came, the smell of the blossoming chestnut trees filled the air with a pleasant odor.  They were followed by the myriad lilacs, followed by the flowering locust, followed by a shrub called jasmine.  It's not really jasmine but smells just like it.  Now the lindens are blossoming and their sweet odor fills the air.  It has been a pleasant  olfactory journey.

And then there's the smell of alcohol.  Former soviet countries have a big problem with alcohol.  Beer and spirits are inexpensive and people, even grannies, begin the day with beer for breakfast.  Among other assorted odors on the metro, alcohol breath is a strong one.

And another thought, not having anything to do with smells.  I want to compare a local chain of Ukrainian fast food cafeterias to McDonalds.  Traditional Ukrainian food served fast, cafeteria style.   Salads, cultured milk products, kvass, borsch, vareniki, okroshka, etc.  These restaurants are always full and they're cheap.  All dishes and silverware and glasses and cups are reusable so there is very little trash generated.  McDonalds is also very popular and reasonably priced.  A big breakfast is $3.00 and a lunch combo (called menyoo) is a little more.  They generate an incredible amount of trash because everything is disposable.  So we have exported earth-unfriendly ways to the world.

Catching up

I seem to have lost the post that I wrote yesterday.  I left you at the end of Sunday in Donetsk commenting that it had been a good visit.

I spent Monday morning resting and drinking coffee and got a phone call from Sasha saying he was leaving Mariupol at 12:30.  It's about a 2 hour bus trip.  I called Roman to tell him and woke him up.  He is a taxi driver night so hadn't been sleeping well.  He was shocked that he was still sleeping at 1 in the afternoon.  He came to pick me up and we went to get Sasha at the bus station.
After we got him, we went to a restaurant owned by a friend of Roman's and had the whole upstairs dining room to ourselves.  We drank tea and ate for hours while having a really pleasant conversation covering the whole range of LGBT needs and religious experiences in the region.  All to soon, it was time to return Sasha to the bus station for his 7pm trip back to Mariupol.  Roman and I went back to my apartment and a friend came over for a while.  Finally, around 10, everyone cleared out and I went to bed setting my alarm for 04:30.
At 3 I was wide awake and got up.  I wrote some emails, packed my bag, drank coffee and when I went to shower - there was NO hot water.  Roman came at 5:30 to take me to the airport.  My flight on Ukrainian International Airlines was on time and I arrived in Kiev at 8:30.  There is a bus that goes from the airport into Kiev with a stop at the metro station near where I live.  As I was walking home, I passed Rostek who was heading out to work.  He invited me to join him for a reception at 6 for Pope John Paul II who they are trying to make a saint.  I declined saying that I hadn't liked him when he was alive and chose not to celebrate him now.  He said, "but there's a buffet!"  Even that didn't sway me.
I slept for a few hours and then, much to my delight, found that the hot water was working in our apartment.  I took a long hot shower and headed out, stopping at McDonald's for lunch (my first meal of the day) and then hopped on the metro to meet a bishop in the city who is establishing a church that is open and affirming.  We had a good conference together and then he took me to visit the National Chornobyl museum.  His neighbor is a staff person there and she arranged a private tour for me in English.  A really knowledgeable man took me through the compelling exhibits.  It brought back to me the memories I had of that time.  It turns out, as Lynne reminded me, that I began my trip to Ukraine on the anniversary of the disaster - April 26, 1979.  After the museum we went to a coffee shop to have coffee and an eclair, then parted ways.
I went over to Khreshchatik St. and watched the break dancers outside McCafe and then wandered to listen to a fabulous full band playing and singing Ukrainian folk music and sat on a bench and watched people watching people.  It was really pleasant.  I had a grand cappuccino and took the metro home to sleep.
That brings us to now.  It is Wednesday morning, just after noon actually and I will hopefully take a hot shower and head out to the city.  I wonder what today will bring.

Sunday Pentecost in Donetsk

I woke up Sunday morning very happy about the video we had worked so hard on Saturday.  Roman and Valera came around 10:30 so we could go find a place to send it.  It was a large file.  We went to a restaurant and thought we'd eat while we sent it.  I decided to make sure their wifi worked before ordering.  It didn't.  We then went to an internet cafe.  Service was not available.  We then went to McDonalds, closed for repairs.  We then went to a mall and voila, service that worked.  We found a cafeteria in the mall that was a wifi zone and started sending the email.  We then ate.  45 minutes later, two-thirds through sending, service went out.  It came back on in a few minutes and I started again.  45 minutes later, two thirds through the sending, it froze up and stopped sending.  We had no choice but to give up because people would be gathering at my apartment for worship and fellowship in 20 minutes.  This is the second time that I've been unable to send a video from Donetsk.  I suggested to Roman that he communicate to the city government that if they are expecting thousands of visitors for the European Cup of Soccer in 2012, they had better get busy on their internet service.  My friend David suggested that next time, I also make a sound file so that if the video file won't send, a much smaller audio file might.  Good idea, David.
We went back to the apartment and people started gathering.  We sent Valera and Sergei to the market to stock up on food for after worship.  Two of the guys at worship, Yuriy and Vlad entered into excellent theological discussions as they add to what they've been taught and begin to see some things in different ways.  During worship, we offered a special blessing and prayer for Sergei that he can overcome some of his life problems and prepare his mind to paint an icon of St. Cornelius for the church.
Folks stayed around for a long time after worship and it was after 8 when the last one left.  Roman and I debriefed and then he went home and I to bed.  We spoke to Sasha by phone and he will be coming to visit from Mariupol Monday at noon or so and staying till evening.  It has been a fruitful trip to Donetsk, as usual.

A slightly tipsy Saturday or two and a half sheets to the wind

So it's 10:30 at night on Saturday and I'm two and a half sheets to the wind.  Two bottles of vodka later, my friends just left.  It was a wonderful day.

I never left the apartment today.  Late morning, Roman came over and then Sergei came over because he wanted to talk to us about the process of making an icon of St. Cornelius.  He is a great guy.  I met him the last time I was in Donetsk but didn't feel I knew him or had a sense of him.  It turns out that he is a very talented artist.  He had a rough youth and got into drugs.  His feels that his art saved him.  He is now 38 but when he was a kid he was heavily into drugs.  He was seeking for something and found the church.  A priest challenged him to paint an icon of Isaiah the Prophet.  The process of preparing to paint this icon saved him, he feels.  The church was an anchor for him until he recognized his sexuality and then he was estranged from the church.  He found the LGBT Christian community here in Donetsk and now is prepared to paint an icon of St Cornelius, the patron saint of this community.  We had a great conversation with him.  Then Andrey called and invited us to the zoo.  We didn't want to go to the zoo so Andrey came over.  That made Roman, Sergei, Andrey and I.  After a while, Andrey went out to shop to cook for us.  He make borsch.  Very good borsh.  We had a salad first and part of a bottle of vodka.  While Andrey was cooking the borsch, Sergei went out to buy another bottle of vodka which he put in the freezer.  We spent the whole afternoon talking and eating and drinking vodka. In the evening, we sang together.  This is something that Americans just don't do.  Andrey has a wonderful singing voice and sang song after song in Russian and Ukrainian.  He is kind of a ham.
In the late afternoon, I made the video for church on Sunday.  It was an interview with Sergei translated by Roman.  My usual video is two minutes.  Today's was six minutes.  I think my church will like it.
We had a wonderful evening of friendship.  Of course as we neared the  bottom of the second bottle of vodka, we were all very very good friends.  Andrey and Sergei headed off to a night club.  I headed off to blog and go to bed and Roman headed off to home.  I will see them all tomorrow. 
I hardly ever drink.  Today I drank a lot and am a bit bleary-eyed.  I had an absolutely wonderful Saturday and I look forward to seeing my drinking buddies (in Russian sobotilniki) at church tomorrow.
Na'zdarovia! (Russian toast - to your health)

Donetsk - Evening and 1st full day

Hi.  After a day sweltering in Kiev Thursday, I packed (dirty clothes) and walked to the bus stop for the bus that would take me to Borispil airport.  All domestic flights take off from Terminal A.  I was about two hours early for my flight, so I went to a local cafe and had a coke and a water and read for 45 minutes.  When I went back check-in was open and I checked my bag and got a boarding pass.  My flight left on time.  It was a Boeing 737, six seats in a row, three on each side.  The plane was full.  Even though it's only an hour's flight, there was beverage and snack service.  The snack was a meat-filled bread that was tasty.  Roman was waiting for me when I arrived and once again baggage was not off-loaded to a baggage carousel but driven up on the wagons while the mob rushed in seeking their own bags.  We drove right to my apartment.  Here's how it works:  sometimes people make extra money by moving out of their apartment for the days that they can rent it out.  One of Roman's friends, Alexander, moved out of this terrific little apartment.  It's small but has windows on two sides so there's a breeze.  It has a washing machine and A/C which is a luxury!  But I didn't need the A/C. It costs about $30/night.  So for five nights I will pay what one night would cost in a hotel.  Donetsk was several degrees cooler than Kiev on arrival.  I think it was 19 degrees when we arrived.

The owner was there when we arrived, as was Viktor, one of the young men I had baptized on my last trip.  When they left, Roman and I walked down to a supermarket to stock up on breakfast food - and laundry detergent, then Roman went home or to work, I'm not sure which.  I finally settled in and went to sleep around 11:30 or shortly thereafter.

This morning is cloudy and cool.  I can't tell you how happy I am to see a cloudy day!  Every day in Kiev has been full of sunshine and heat.  Today here is refreshing and I expect it will rain before the day is finished.  When I got up, I headed to the kitchen to start a load of wash and to make coffee.  While the wash was running, I caught up on email, had coffee and really dense dark bread with butter and sour cherry preserves.  Let me say a word about butter.  All I ever have in the States is sweet cream butter.  In the years when I milked cows and made butter, I often let the cream "ripen" before making butter so that it was sour cream butter.  This kind of butter is standard in Europe and has a richer flavor that I suspect most Americans wouldn't like, not because it isn't good, but because it's very different from what we're used to.  I don't know about you but I was raised to have an abhorrence of sour milk and anything made from it.

Roman will be here shortly.  He had to go to court at 9 for some traffic infraction that he was challenging.  He's quite a scrapper, our Roman.

Since my apartment is in the center of Donetsk, I will walk around later and take some pictures which I didn't have a chance to do on my last visit.  So, until later.
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OK, now it's later.  I feel like I walked 100 miles at a rapid pace.  Donetsk is really a lovely city.  In Soviet times, Donetsk was known as the City of Roses.  This is the perfect time to be here because there are beds of roses in full bloom everywhere, many of them old time roses full of beautiful scent that fills the air.  All along the main street there are areas of gardens and parks.  We stopped in the Orthodox Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel and for the first time in Ukraine, I took pictures inside the church.  Only two but I kept expecting to get thrown out.  We walked to where the owner of the apartment I'm renting was working renovating another apartment.  He came out covered in plaster dust and we walked down the street to get a coffee.  He's the third Sasha (Alexandr) I've met in Ukraine and I've liked all of them.  I've liked all the Sergeis and Andrey's also.  After we left Sasha, Roman and I walked to a restaurant and were there for a few hours.  I had a locally brewed beer, very cheap.  It wasn't the worst beer I ever had.  A half liter cost less than a buck.  We then both had grilled pork chops served with cabbage salad (sic!) and french fries, topped off with dessert.  Roman had tiramisu and I had apple pie with ice cream.  It really was apple pie but unsweetened with apples a bit crunchy.  What should I expect.  It's Donetsk, not New York!  The cappuccino was also not good.  So I shan't return there.

After lunch, it was 5pm so we walked back to the apartment and have been vegetating.  I took my second load of wash out of the machine and draped clothing over every surface.  Sasha hasn't gotten around to putting up lines yet since he just bought the machine second hand.

It's been a delightful day as Roman and I planned how best to conduct a wedding during worship service on Sunday as well as how to maximize my time.  The leader of the Mariupol group will come on Sunday.

Here's a link to some pics I took today.  https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20110610?authkey=Gv1sRgCMS48pHEu-60Gg

Wedding rings, water, and stuff

Ok, so this is a catch-all blog note.  Lots of different stuff clogs my brain and I have to empty it once in a while.

I started noticing people wearing rings on their right hands.  I asked and researched and found that in Ukraine, wedding rings are not worn on the left hand as in the USA (did I tell you that USA in Ukrainian is Seshaa?).  I just presumed (sic!) that to wear it on the left hand was universal.  Do you know why it's usually worn on the left hand?  There is a vein in the left ring finger that used to be called the "love vein" because it was believed that it connected directly with the heart.

Water.  A lot of people drink bottled water here and there are a lot of kinds of bottled water.  There is the standard mineral water which comes with gas or without, then there is filtered, purified water (such as Coca Cola produces in the States).  What is called "mineral water" is probably equivalent to what we call spring water.  Then there is real mineral water.  There is a bottled water that is drunk for health.  It's called Borjomi.  It tastes really salty plus other minerally tastes.  It's so hot here that people are mostly seen carrying bottles of water with them wherever they go.

Personal style.  There is a lot of high fashion to be seen here.  Ukrainians take great pride in wearing fashionable clothes.  I regularly see a much higher standard of dress than I see in the Rochester area.  But there is also an attitude of "wear what you want" and people do that too.  There are a lot of sandals in evidence because of the heat and people feel comfortable wearing socks with sandals, mostly black socks.  In the States, I would never dare be the object of constant ridicule for wearing socks, especially black socks with sandals.  Here I wear what I please.

Personal image.  I think Ukrainians must be more secure in themselves than most people I know.  There are a lot of really fit people, but there are also a lot of really unfit people and a whole lot of  big bellies.  People with big bellies still dress however they want to and don't seem to wonder or worry if they look all right.  Today, I must feel particularly Ukrainian.  I've been taking a reading/relaxing day because it's so hot and just moving causes major sweat outbreaks.  But around 2pm, I got a little peckish, so, without showering or combing my hair, I threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and wandered down to McDonald's to have a "Dabl Chizburger Menyoo" which is a meal combo.  I sat outside with raggy clothes, painfully white legs and feet and didn't give a hoot.  Nor did anyone else. 

Sunday morning

Continuing my restful weekend, I left the apartment at 8am.  Rostek and Danny won't be up for hours.  I took the metro to the center.  On the metro, it's common for vendors or beggars to get on one stop, hawk their wares and then get off at the next stop.  This morning a very bent over old lady beggar got on, when anyone gave her anything, and several did, she'd loudly cross herself and pray for them briefly.   When I arrived at the center, I walked down Khreshchatik St and roamed around the city till I arrived at the Cathedral of St. Vladimir.  I went in for a little while, a bishop was presiding at liturgy and the choir was wonderful.  There is no musical instrument except harmonized human voice.  I made my two minute video outside the church and continued my walk.  During my walk, I had an unfortunate encounter and lost a significant amount of money.  I walked to a metro and went to have late breakfast at Glossary Organic Cafe and sent my video to church.  Of all the things I could have for breakfast, I chose porridge.  Comfort food with nuts and dried apricots.

I'm going back to the apartment as soon as I eat to lie down for a few hours before heading back to the center to meet friends for a gathering. Here's the link to my pics from this morning: https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20110605?authkey=Gv1sRgCK3Q2Yvo3qObIQ#

ending the day on a sweet note

So, I came downtown to have a cappuccino at my favorite place and decided that I wanted to try something like dessert.  So I had mlintsi (in Russian, blini) - thin sweet pancakes rolled around a ricotta-like cheese with sour cherries and topped with sour cream.   Unbelievable!  I framed my mlintsi with cappuccino before and after.  Ah, life is good today.

I have driven my body like a car and yesterday ran out of gas.  I decided to take the weekend a little easy so slept a lot today, and now at 7:45pm will take the 45 minute metro ride to my neighborhood, then walk briskly to my apartment.  I'll read till I sleep.  Tomorrow morning early, or maybe even this evening, I'll make my 2 minute video for my church and try to get it sent.  I'm glad our bodies are smart enough to shut us down when we really need to rest.  I don't have anything I have to do until I meet with a group tomorrow at 4.

Slow, hot days

It's almost noon on Saturday and I haven't done much.  On Friday the heat was really oppressive and I spent the day traveling around the city to various appointments with sweat running down my face and dripping down my back from the back of my hair.  I had a lesson at 2:30 and afterwards went over to Glossary to get something to eat and a lot of water to drink.  People tend to drink bottled water and the question you get asked is "gas or no gas".  I started out drinking non-carbonated but like the taste of a local water with gas called Morshynska so that's what I drink now.  I had a cabbage/cucumber/radish/dill salad with lemon/oil dressing and a bowl of cream of mushroom soup made with fresh finely chopped mushrooms.  Then I had another cup of cappuccino.  I took advantage of their wi-fi for a while and when I asked for the check, my favorite waiter brought me the check and still another cappuccino (on the house).  Instead of taking the metro right across from the cafe, I walked down to the main street and wandered around for a while enjoying the attitude people have as weekend arrives. 

Here's another McDonald's factoid:  McDonalds here only has beef products (and pork sausage for breakfast).  They have another chain called McFoxy's that only serves chicken products.  This morning, I walked down to our local McDonalds (about a half mile) while the heat hadn't risen too much yet, to have breakfast and to take advantage of internet.  I came back to the apartment shortly before Rostek arrived from the overnight train.  He had been on a three day business trip with his boss from hospice.

I decided to go back to bed for a while and just woke up a bit ago when my phone rang.  It was a friend inviting me to go to a group meeting on Sunday afternoon who have questions for me.   At some point today I have to was underwear and socks and get them hung out, hopefully to dry before morning.

A lot of people here wear socks with sandals.  I mostly do too.  It keeps my feet cleaner and prevents sunburn.  I didn't even bring white socks with me because when I was in Romania two years ago, I was scolded by Florin for wearing anything but black socks.  I learned that lesson well.

Rostek went back to bed after he showered also.  Sleeping on the train isn't very restful.  I suppose we'll head out to the center later to meet friends or just to get out of the apartment for a while.

It's really good to have a few days that aren't jam packed with activity.

tastes

I've been branching out into various areas of the city, creating a map in my mind so that the landmarks are set and I can find the areas I want.  Today I met Anna, my language teacher, at Kontraktova Ploshcha which is where we were the other day when we took the boat ride.  We went to a trendy coffee shop and had a little pot of really strong cardamom-flavored coffee.  We decided to have something sweet after the lesson and the menu was an eye-opener.  Terms are so different.  Mousse isn't mousse, it's pudding.  Pudding isn't pudding, it's cake.  Well my pudding was a really tasty thin cake with really good chocolate.   When our lesson was over I walked around Kontraktova Ploshcha and decided that I had to go to Glossary, MY cafe.  I took the blue line two stops, and the red line one stop and walked the exchange to the green line exit to Zoloti Vorota and over to Glossary.  My waitress saw me come in and told me what my order was with a smile that showed she was very pleased with herself to know her "regular's" initial order.   I am such a creature of habit.  I have Mineral Water Morshynska Hazovana (with gas) and a cappuccino.  I then read or surf the net for a while and order something for lunch or dinner from the menu.  She knows to bring and leave the menu.  Today I had a cabbage/cucumber/radish salad heavily flavored with fresh dill.  Dill is the major flavor-maker right now and it's available fresh at every market and at every entrance to the metro stations.  It's kind of an over-powering flavor and I'm a bit tired of it.  I also had a fresh mozzarella, dried tomato, pesto sandwich.  Very tasty, and quite healthy.
I noticed yesterday that my hips and knees don't hurt anymore during the hefty walks each day, even on stairs, of which there are a lot.  I also noticed that if I'm well-hydrated, which is kind of hard to do in the constant heat here, I don't get short of breath or light-headed on the stairs.  So I'm on a hydration campaign.  From a health standpoint, I'd have to say that my stay in Ukraine has been good for me.  It's a relief to know that my body can adjust and even thrive on increased activity.
As I reflect on life in Ukraine, I think that many Americans would find life here difficult.  There really isn't a lot of culinary variety and getting around is sometimes a challenge.  Metro at rush hour is something else altogether.  People are a bit polite queuing up at the metro car waiting for people to exit, but I can only describe entering a crowded car as getting shoved really hard to get into spaces that are not enough.  At first it really bothered me to get shoved.  Now I'm shoving people myself and with vigor.  The little old ladies are the WORST!  Another thing about crowded metro cars at the end of the day is perspiration odor.  It can be pretty ripe in there!  And for some strange reason, I love it all.  The Ukrainian people I call my friends are incredible.  They are as caring and attentive as I could possibly want them to be, and even more.  So my days pass pleasantly.  I have plenty to do to occupy my time, am in constant contact with my people throughout the county, have consulting appointments set up until my departure date, have another trip planned to Donetsk next Thursday, the 9th.  I'm thinking of what I'll want to leave here and what I'll take home.  I'm even considering finding the UPS or Fedex office to see about shipping some of my stuff home to lighten my suitcase.
For the past 11 years, I've been giving a 5 hour summer lecture to the Advanced Human Services Class at Monroe Community College in Rochester.  I just got invited for the 12th year and had to say I wouldn't be home till the 26th.  The prof said "what about the 28th?"  I said 'Yes.'   I can't imagine what jet-lagged shape I'll be in 36 hours post arrival at JFK, but I'll give it my best shot.
Life is grand!