A Day on the Town - Dec 30/07

On sunday we headed to church on a marshutka, we passed Tonya and Sveta waiting to catch a bus - kind of fun in such a large city to see people you know just staying outside. Tonya translated Andre's sermon for me and Leina translated for the girls. It was a very good sermon about finding joy wherever God has you in life.

The building Morning Star Church is held in

They rent a military training school building hence the decor.

And no it's not a well heated building

After the service Tonya, Tanya and Leina (who all are english teachers) wanted to take us out of lunch and show us around some of the city. All three of us girls had worn dress pants to church and weren't really dressed for the adventure seeing as we walked pretty much everywhere we went and lets just say...dress pants are not warm!!


Main office of the orthodox church









Some apartments


We went to an awesome buffet type of restuarant that served traditional ukrainian dishes. You go through the buffet and pick what you want and they pay for whatever you take. It was hard to decide - partly because I'm a picky eater but also because there was so much to pick from and I wanted to at least try so many different things. Of course my eyes were much bigger than my stomach but I did get to try a few different dishes. And it was generally pretty good.

The outside of the restuarant


When you first walk in there was a little area to wash your hands!! Cute.



The staff wore traditional outfits as well



Everyone who came for lunch. Back row:Me, Lena, Mom, Sveta (Tonya's daughter), Jolayne. Front Row:Dima (Tanya's son), Tonya, Tanya, Shari.

Oh and the bathroom, what an experience!! My mom had told me about squat toilets the last time I had gone to Ukraine but I hadn't seen one. When we first walked into the washroom my mom went on about how nice it was and they generally you didn't find bathrooms like this. And then I opened the stall door and all there was, was a nice little porcelain hole in the ground. It took me a minute to figure out how I wasn't going to pee all over myself before I got the proper stance...Ukrainians must have strong thighs...I sure don't!! Although these were a little high class - they even flushed (my mom didn't notice that part).



It was almost dark by the time we finished eating. My dad weaseled his way out of the cold adventure (since he had a broken arm - good excuse) and headed home while we headed to one of Dnepro large parks called Globy Park . Ukraine has fair ride even going in the middle of winter, they're a little rusty and ricketty but the kids really wanted to go on one of the rides and they chose the swings...hmmmm...not the smartest thing in the freezing cold...flying around...in dress pants!!! I thought my face and legs were going to freeze right off.









With christmas having passed and Ukraine christmas coming Father Snow and the Ice Princesses were all out. I was taking pictures of them when one of the Father Snow's and one of the Ice Princesses yelled out Paparazzi, turned around and stuck their butts at me (I figured a few minutes later probably because you were suppose to pay to have your picture taken with them). But Tanya was kind and asked one of them to pose for a picture.