Slavutich Kiev

... I don't understand why one has to go through security after leaving a plane!
Lancie is still in the Ukraine and is scheduled to return on Saturday. We are still working on one adoption, but it will take a few months- if it goes through. For personal reasons, I can't discuss it right now. Stay tuned......

It's my last day in Transcarpathia before taking the overnight train to Kiev. I’ve done that several times and rather enjoy and look forward to it. The scenery in the Carpathians is beautiful. The train doesn’t move that fast and sleeping in the sleeper car is OK. The train rocks you and kind of keeps you asleep.

In the morning Ivan and I needed to spend some focused time ...

We are off to look at the Independence Square. We go on the metro and I think we have just done great making our way around the city when all the writing is in such an unrecognizable alphabet. What we did was find where we wanted to go on the map. The apartment had a copy of the metro routes with the stops marked on them in Ukrainian. I would write the stop names down in Ukrainian and then we would match them up on the metro line to make sure we were going in the right ...

... agency officials ov**seeing security ov** the last 12 years said they warned the Peace Corps about increased dang**s to volunte**s, but many of their conc**ns w**e ignored. "Nobody wanted to talk about security. It suppresses the recruitment numb**s," said Michael O'Neill, the Peace Corps' security director from 1995 to August 2002. ONeill ov**saw millions of dollars in security improvements, including hiring security p**sonnel, buying satellite phones and backup gen ...

Babi Yar (Ukrainian: Бабин яр , Babyn yar; Russian: Бабий яр , Babiy yar) is a ravine in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. In the course ...

... of the signs is they're being written in the Cyrillic alphabet and the difficulty of not only reading, but pronouncing and you can see my point. Eventually and with a bit of frustration you can find someone who might be helpful and speak English and you are in the right place, usually late. Georgia/Russia As you may have read, the war in Georgia is pretty dicey. Ukraine is another of the post-soviet split countries. Ukrainian people ...

... starttled, creating a cloud of feathers, but the pigeon escaped, perhaps a little lighter than before. When Lani came back towards me, she was was all flushed. She hadn't been prepared for the pay-per-use toilet, and hadn't changed any money yet. Dima tried to come to her rescue, but that was somehow more embarassing, someone she had just met, paying for her to pee. Ha ha ha ha. Luckily for her, mom had enough change. When we left the grounds, mom asked ...

... after time in the parts of eastern Europe that are now more western than eastern. Traversing about 800km in 34 hours leaves a lot of time for reading and having a slow lunch as an icy landscape unfolds. There were so many little glitches to look out for... multiple instances of washing on the line dusted with snow and seemingly encrusted and mummified into ice (why would you ever try?), houses with lights on and people home yet with every exterior sign of ...

... casket. Over 124 monks are considered miracles, while others apparently decompose normally. We walked through the caves with candles, to see they way they lived and the different chapels they had built underground. Some monks sealed themselves in little underground cells, eating only a slice of bread and water until they finally died. This was a common practice. The other monks knew when they died, because they did not eat the last meal ...

... 13 May A bit of another relaxing morning before we got up and started to get ready. Mary (one of the English girls) went and got some fruit yogurt, bread and cheese for breakfast. Around noonish we set out from the hostel. Passing through Kontraktova square, I couldn't believe that there was no trace of last nights concert left! The first stop was Andrivisky Uzviz street for a museum or two. Ended up just going to one as the guide at the other said it wouldn't be good if we don't know ...