One thing about life in Kyiv- you spend a lot of your time on public transportation. And because of the location of Colin and Elaine's apartment, we spend heaps of time on the metro. And let me just say that this is quite preferable to buses, trams and trolleys. You don't have traffic jams on the metro...ever. What you do have, though, are 'people jams'... yup. Yesterday and today, we literally had to shove ourselves in- sandwich in. And when you're in, you can't fall over, you can't turn, you can't do a thing... you're lucky if you can breathe. And you're downright thrilled if you don't have some big-haired bushy-tailed taller-than-you-chick with her hair drifting around in the same space your mouth, nose, chin, eyes are occupying. We won't even talk about your nose cohabiting with said person's armpits... no, we'll just leave that to everyone's good imagination. Something else you see a LOT of is this phenomenon: each wall has a bench on it which *surprise*

has people sitting on it... and they are often fast asleep... yes, eyes shut tight. How can this be, you ask. Don't they worry about missing their stop? Oh no- no worries. See, they're not actually asleep. It is the height of rudeness to stay seated when someone quite obviously older, more handicapped or 'with child' than you are is standing... but, who wants to get up when you've managed to get a seat, complete with all that uncluttered space for your mouth and nose to occupy? No one, that's who. Sleeping solves the problem, since you obviously aren't even aware- Oh, I'm SO sorry... didn't notice you tottering all over the place there... so sorry... *shaking head apologetically*





Phyllis says she gets a notion to make pie sometimes... just every now and again, you know. And she's been talking about peaches and pies for awhile now... so the other day, coming home from somewhere or other, she sort of sashayed through the market and came back with peaches... and then not long after that, she started in on some pie crust. This particular recipe uses butter (I don't know beans about pie crust; I just know when I eat it if it's good or not.) I helped with the converting from tablespoons of butter to grams and all that. Later, we ate this confection... apparently we messed up the butter calculation... ahem... apparently we had too much... but I'll tell you this- that was one to-die-for crust... *WOW* You want melt in your mouth? Well it did... and the peach filling was not too bad, either! ahhhhh ;)






Why is it a good thing for native English speakers to pitch in and help around here? So that someday in the happy bright sunny future, we can stamp out signs like the one on the left here... photographed by Karen on the window of an upscale shop in downtown Odessa... that's one reason.


ok- that's enough for today. Today was another long day, mostly spent running around this very large city. Tomorrow will be another full day. Time to quit! Adios!