Museums, McDonald's & The Night Train

(Please forgive any spelling errors!)

We had a fantastic Sunday morning and then took off to the Metro station to tour the Micro-Museum.  Trude, Collin, three of the young kids and I spent most of the day walking around Kyiv and riding the Metro here, there, and yonder.  After parting ways with our crew, Trude and I left to meet up with Vitali and his family (their house is so cool!).  Vitali and his wife have a 4 m.o. baby girl, Elizibeta, who is the cutest thing I've seen in Ukraine.





After visiting and having another cup of tea (Ukrainians make some phenomenal tea) Trude and I took a bus/metro special back to the apt., all the way up to the 13th floor and packed up to leave.  Then it was back down, walk to the metro with our bags and Dad's guitar, fight for a spot and try not to fall over when the car comes to a screeching halt.  Once Trude finally got a seat, a woman started speaking to her in Ukrainian, so I tuned it out.  I found out later through Trude's jovial tone that the woman was telling her how beautiful she thought Trude's "natural" hair looked.  Needless to say it made Trude's day.

OFF THE METRO! Fight through the mob to get to the escalator and climb climb climb climb climb to the top.  We rushed over to McDonald's for a quick bite and I was absolutely blown away.  The place is HUGE!  And according to my very credible source the restaurant here is considered a classy place to eat and to work.  The quality of the food blows American McD's out of the water - quite a contrast.  After our dinner we crossed the street to the train station and then walked down a flight of stone steps into an underground corridor with lighted blue and yellow numbers above hallway entrances denoting the different tracks.  We ducked into #12 and climbed the narrow stone steps and emerged on a platform with people bustling around everywhere loading luggage on to a massive green train.  Trude and I followed suit and before we knew it we were on our way to southern Ukraine via the Night Train.  We left at 10pm and woke up at 10am at our destination (a night of sleep only disturbed by a drunkard yelling and slamming doors, the train stopping, and the police coming to take him off).

From the train station we took a taxi to the nearest bus station, got on another bus and headed for Mikolayiv. There, a friend of ours picked us up and showed us around the city where I got some new travelling shoes and pants and saw my first Ukrainian supermarket.  I wanted to take a picture inside the store of the lady weighing out bags of flour, sugar, etc and handing them over the counter to customers, so I clicked my camera and heard a belligerent women's voice behind me.  I turned around and the manager of the store was yelling at me.  I called for Trude who translated "She doesn't want you taking pictures in here; she said she won't take your camera away this time..."  Apparently she thought I was a 'business spy', but Trude explained that I was only a tourist.

Now we're back at the apt and settling down for the evening.  It's an early start tomorrow and a long bus ride to Odessa, but I'm very excited to be there!  Hard to believe I've only been here 2 days.  Seems like we've done so much already.