Sunday August 15, 2010

Visited the Golden Gate, a huge arch built in the 10th century. Would have loved to go to ballet but Opera House is closed until September. On weekends the main street, Khreshchatyk, is closed to traffic (except people still park and drive on the sidewalks)so the crowds can walk around. Took the subway for the first time (like 150 ft underground, built to double as a fallout shelter) to a shopping mall that opened about two years ago. The mall is just like home, it has an ice skating rink, bowling alley, food court, indoor putt putt,etc. Notes of the day: pop is cheaper than water, the only pop is Coke, Coke Light, Pepsi, Fanta Orange, 7-Up and Sprite; when you want water they ask you "gas or no gas" (gas is like Perrier); a popular drink is lemonade, but it comes in different colors and does not taste like lemonade; gallons of ice cream come in long plastic tubes and not cartons; we could not find any spaghetti sauce and the one thing that looked like it tastes like ketchup; and there is no "green" economy here. They do not recycle, there are no electric cars or flex fuel vehicles or hybrids, no bottle return deposits, no whole foods markets or organic foods, no LED'S, no motion detecting light sensors. The only energy saving mechanism that we have noticed is that the refrigerator beeps if the door has been open too long. Since we are so near the main churches, we have seen about 15 brides, which Ukrainians say is good luck. We hope that luck helps us and the SDA has our paperwork done tomorrow so we can go to court at 4 pm...