Our flight from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Kiev,Ukraine was completely uneventful and we arrived at Boraspol Airport at 3 in the afternoon (that's 1500 hours over here). We were picked up by our Directors of Instruction for the elementary and the middle schools who drove us to our apartment via a brief drive through of the school. It was nice to see smiling faces as we exited from customs. Our apartment is rough looking on the outside but nice inside. It is quite comfortable and well equipped.
Our apartment building
The weather has alternated between cloudy and cool with a few good rain showers, and sunny and hot, but overall it has been very comfortable. Kiev is a very green city with hundreds of parks - some large, some small. There is a park on nearly every block in our neighborhood, most with a playground. Pets are big here - dogs and cats. There are, however, packs of "wild" dogs that live all around. I put "wild" in quotes because they seem pretty mellow to us and other than barking up a storm each morning, they have not been bothersome.
The traffic in Kiev is pretty bad. There has been a lot of growth. Further, Kiev is prepping for the 2012 Europe Cup Soccer tournament. They are building a new stadium and a new terminal in the airport. The city is getting a major facelift, so there is work going on all over the place.
We walk to school which is about 15 minutes. We'll take pictures of our walk and post them soon. We enter the back gates of the school - there is 24-hour security posted. Crime is not a big issue - property crimes are rising, but it is a relatively safe city. We have definitely been putting some miles on our feet. It's good exercise and it just feels wonderful to be outside. Air quality is good.
We took a boat ride one day and a bus ride another as a brief tour of the city. There is so much to see and one of our guides said that we could go someplace new every day for a year and still not see all of Kiev. We certainly have our tourist work cut out for us!
AWWII Memorial and a church
"House" along the Dnipro River
The "Second War" (WWII) memorial to the 100,000 Ukrainians (mostly Jews) murdered from 1941 - 1943 in Kiev.
Ken and our Russian teacher from school - Galina
Another church
Downtown Kiev - Russian Orthodox Church
Near the Presidential Palace
Shopping is interesting. Just like in the US, there are small shops, big shops, and huge shops. Everything, of course, is in Russian or Ukrainian. We make most of our purchases by sounding out the Cyrillic letters and figuring out the product and by looking at the photos. We also have frequented little produce stands on the street and a bakery vendor. Yum! We have been to several restaurants and have not been disappointed yet. We are still at the point and nod stage for the menus (it helps when they have photos). We also got to visit the US Embassy and the commissary where we purchased good ole' American food (Log Cabin syrup, etc.!)
Our Russian is improving daily. Galina offers Russian tutoring, and Ken and I will certainly take advantage of this. Angela will take Russian in school. Russian is the predominant language in Kiev, although Ukrainian is dominant outside of the city. They are quite different languages. We have been advised it is best to learn Russian for what we need. It's been fun trying to read all the signs to see how quickly we can pick up the Cyrillic alphabet. Thank heavens we get to teach in English!
We attended church on Sunday at an Assembly of God church in downtown Kiev. We may check out some other churches as well. This one, however, has a youth group and quite a few staff members attend, so it may be our best choice.
We are over our jet lag, and we began work today. We have six days of orientation, and then we get our students next Thursday. We are thrilled to be here and settling in nicely. Angela has already had three babysitting jobs, and we are teasing her that she will soon be supporting us!
All our love!
