So what happened to me?

I feel like I dropped off the side of the earth in relation to this blog (for those who don't know, I have another blog to help me track my family history research).  I had a lot of fun in the Ukraine, but I am struggling to finish blogging about it.  In my head I have the entries, pictures, etc. but I just can't get it down.  I think it is in part what I have been juggling since I got home as well as what the Ukraine is.  

Since I got home I have been appointed to two more positions (Secretary of the Children's Sunday School Program in our church and to the GPS Community Budget Committee).  While I feel ready for these opportunities in my life, getting sick and having sick kids is knocking me off my feet.

Then there is the way I feel about the Ukraine.  It is a beautiful and wonderful place and yet it is also a sad hopeless place.  There are so many museums dedicated to remember the travesties of communism/Russia domination (the Museum of the Starvation, etc) that helps you to understand how evil it is, and yet many of the country want to re-instill the former type of government.  It makes me think of the biblical story of the Hebrews being led out of Egypt begging Moses to take them back to Egypt to be slaves.  I mix that with what I see in our country today, and it greatly concerns me the mentality that government is suppose to take care of us, even if that means we become their slaves. 

Having said and felt all this, I would go back to the Ukraine if the right opportunity came up.  I would have a few requirements (like I would have to learn Russian first and I would have to have an opportunity to build up the current situation).  So with that I will leave the history part of this trip undone knowing that emotional part of this trip is completed.  I enjoyed having a week and a half with my sweetheart as well as spent a considerable amount of that time examining the perspective of another culture/society and letting that have sway in my heart.

Locks of Love?

This is a very common tradition in the Ukraine.  They place a lock on the bridges after they get married.  It is difficult to see in the picture with Jeff, but there are literally hundreds of locks in the picture.  Jeff says that once they get a bridge all "filled up" then they come along and cut off all the locks so that more can be added.  What a wonderful tradition.

All aboard!

This was our return trip from Odessa.  A nine hour train ride.  We got a sleeping compartment that we shared with Jeff's parents.  These are his parents infront of us.

This is Jeff following me down the narrow hallway to our compartment.

This is Jeff in their with his mother.  This is not a bad idea.  If you must be on a train for so long, I guess this would be a good way to go.  The trip down was not bad for me other than my nights and days being messed up, but the trip back I started experiencing claustrophobia half way through the night.  We were on the top bunks (mine was on the left here and Jeff's is above his head while his parents had the bottom bunks).  I forgot that for me Claustrophobia gets worse when I am tired or run down.  I was more than ready to get off the train.  I am not even going to try to describe the bathrooms on these trains.  I will just share that I washed them completely before I  used them.

Another bird man

Do you recognize that fedora?  Yep, that is Grandpa Park.  He currently has a huge Eagle on his arm.  Yep, they have the same tourist traps here that we did in Kiev.  Remember our doves?  He got a real kick out of it.  He was at the top of the stairs of Odessa port.  These are literally about 14 flight of about 20-30 stairs a piece (or at least it felt that long).  These are pretty famous stairs although I never heard of them before we decided to come to Odessa.

This was a fun restaurant that had amazing food.  It sits on the beach of the Black Sea in Odessa.  We really enjoyed a delightful dinner with Jeff's parents and some friends of theirs.  This was suppose to be Christopher Columbus's ship.

This is me in "another sea".  So far I have been in the Dead, Red, and Med(itreanean) seas.  I have also been to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  I am afraid that those two are not all that glamorous, but I think the seas may make up for that!  It was chilly.  The weather was probably low 70's, the water was definitately colder than that.  Although after this summer, I have realized that I don't care to go to an (unheated) pool unless it is 100+ degrees or in July or August.  I am just not a cold water girl.

I can honestly say this was the funnest vacation.  It was a lovely opportunity for Jeff and I to relax and enjoy each other.  We got to spend a lot of time alone during the day and in the evenings we had the company of our parents (Park).  It was really lovely.

This is us at the ballet.  I am not really into the ballet, but thought we ought to give it a try since we were going to be in the Ukraine (AKA former Russia province).  It was great.  We got $6 tickets, but I thought our seats were wonderful.  Unfortunately jet lag was still getting me, so I slept through part of it.  It seems that whenever Malicifient came out, I fell asleep.  So I remember everything except her.

Architecture in Odessa

Odessa is on the shore of the Black Sea.  The story says that many years ago when Odessa was first being built up that the town gave land to anyone who would build of building of "interest".  So many of the buildings have fantastic architecture.  Unfortunately that was many years ago, and so we saw many building literally falling apart.  We were also able to discern some of the short cuts that were taken.  For example one building that we saw had dowels, 2x4's and paper to build up the stone looking edifice and then they put mortar on top.  Makes me think a bit of the facades that were famous through out the west in the United States.  The picture above is actually a cathedral.

This is the train station.  One might think it was just a judicious use of an old building, but rather it was designed like this and it's original purpose was as a train station.  I was amazed by how many statues, columns, pilasters, etc there were in these buildings.

No idea what this building is for, but I loved the color of it!  Even in this picture you just don't get how strong and beautiful the color of green was.  Amazing architectural decorations!

This is the side of the Opera house, the front is below.  Now one expects an opera house or cathedral to be this decorated.  You should see the inside, statues everywhere.  It actually made it difficult to get to our seats because a lot of people were posing on the stairs, etc to get pictures of this amazing place.  I guess I was tired of the crowd because I did not take a picture of the stairs or hallway.  Once we got in to our seats I did take a few pictures which I will show in the next post.