Ukraine, The

Which raises an interesting question.  Why "The Ukraine?"  Why do we always put that little article before the name?  Technically the country's name is "Ukraine."  I don't hear people saying they're traveling to The Germany, or The France.  The USA, but that's different.

Anyhoos...

These...well, they're chickens.  And they live next door to the Lynch family.  And they stare at you as you walk into the house, and they stare at you again as you leave the house.  It's rather comical.  And maybe a little creepy.
This is Thanksgiving dinner.  We had tons of fun helping out, first with the shopping, then with the cooking, and most especially with the eating.  We had not been sure at the beginning of our trip if we would actually get a Thanksgiving while we were out and about (whatever that phrase means), and we were quite happy and blessed to spend it with this wonderful family.
One of the few sightseeing things we did in Ukraine.  This is us with Olya, who showed us around and interpreted for us quite frequently.  She was fantastic.  Here we are taking a lift over a park there.  You couldn't see much of the city from there because of the trees, but you could see the outskirts.
This is a section of one of the hospitals where they keep babies abandoned by their mothers.  These babies lack the necessary paperwork to be adopted, so they have to stay in the hospital sometimes for as long as a year.  One of the women from the church runs a ministry that goes into these hospitals and holds and plays with these babies, as they receive little to no attention otherwise.  This little girl's name is Liza.
Apparently John's uncle creates his own instruments.  He just thinks up different kinds, and decides to make them.  You should check out his website: www.wowmusicalinstruments.com.  This particular instrument is a fretless bass made of just one piece of wood.  It was a beautiful instrument, and I enjoyed playing it a little, even though I don't play bass.  (By the way, yes I got my hair cut.  Tanya's mother is a beautician and was kind enough to give me a haircut!)
Ah, the family.  Here we all are, except for Aaron, the latest addition.  John, Tanya, Ariel, Elizabeth, Igor, Arlen, some girl, and Narco...er, I mean Soombir.  I call the cat Narco because he could just fall asleep at a moment's notice, and no matter how much you moved him, he'd just sort of...flop.  Ergo, Narco, short for Narcoleptic (perfectly fine one minute and then unconscious the next...hee hee!).  Warm fuzzies to anyone who can place that quote!
On our long long long train ride from Kiev to Bucharest, we were fortunate enough to be joined by two boxers named Julia and Svetlana, who were on their way to a competition in Bulgaria.  They spoke a little bit of English, and were so excited to practice with us, so we got grilled with every question they could think of.    :-)=  And I was able to show off my nine Russian words: hello, goodbye, thank you, please, sorry, yes, no, cheese, and my personal favourite, milk.  I would write them in Russian, but you couldn't read it.  Also, I don't have a Russian keyboard.  Also, I don't really know how to spell them.  But we don't talk about that.  Our most exciting bit of fun was when we were stuck at the entrance to Romania for an extra hour.  Unfortunately, there was a problem with the boxing group's visas, so it took a while to straighten all that out.

Did ew know...?

The train tracks in Ukraine are different from the rest of Europe, so they schedule two hours at the border both ways, where they lift the trains and change all of the wheels...every time.

Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

Breaking Into Topkapi Palace...(and other Turkish adventures)

I will do this post with one...well, with just short words.  ‘Cuz I want to.  But names don’t count.  So, we got to Turkey (it’s a name!), and took a bus from Cesme to Izmir, and from there to Kusadasi.  We had a lot of fun there.  Once we checked in to our h...er, our place to stay, we got to walk and shop a bit.  Here are some things we saw and tried in Turkey.

Can't I have just one piece of Turkish Delight?  Or a whole box.  We were told that the Rose taste was the first one made, so we wished to try it.  I thought of Edmund from Narnia with each piece.
My pose here is of Hadassah from the Mark of the Lion books.  She all but died in Ephesus, which is where this is.
Pamukkale, a day trip from Kusadasi, was quite quite cool.  There were a bunch of pools to walk in and rocks to climb on.  This pic does not show the white stuff the wet stuff sits in.  It looks like snow but is in fact stuff like ore, talc, tin, so on.  This was one of the best things I've seen, a far cry from 'some place that's else.' (that's a quote...don't hurt me)
This is Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.  The price to get in was droll, but my plan was to sneak in by way of the wall in back of me, as George did in Broken Sword.  Did it work?  Hah.  Would not you like to know?
Here are we at the Blue Mosque, with the scarves we bought in Egypt.
On a bridge that spans the Bosphorus in Istanbul, lots of men fish all day.  Right next to the bridge are a lot of sites where they sell the fresh fish with bread.  Quite good.
We had to wait for a while for our train to come.  I sat on a bench and a cat ran up to me.  I put my hand down and she jumped up on my lap, curled up, and lay down.  It was so hard for me to leave when the train got there.
The train rides can be quite nice, with a nook to sleep in.  Elizabeth snapped this pic while I slept.  It's a bit blurred, but oh well.
The train rides are more nice if you have food to last the whole time, which we did.  These treats were some of the best from Turkey.  I loved them!  We first had them on a bus ride (they take good care of you on the bus rides in Turkey...with snacks and tea...more like on a plane), and then found them in the store in Istanbul.  I was pleased.
At last, we got fresh Turkish Delight.  This had those nuts I love on the side that is out, and that sweet stuff that Elizabeth loves rolled up on the side that is in.

And that's all for Turkey.  That post was quite hard.  I had to think too much.  Phew.  On to Ukraine!!!!

Did ew know...?

For one to speak with just short words does not show lack of wit, but if they do it for too long their brain might up and split.

Thank you for your choice of Lod's Not Large Brass Tacks, and have a nice day.

Greece Wants to be Finished

Why do I seem to be victimized by technology so much?  I’m no expert, but I’m decently competent with technology, and yet, oh, and yet, it’s always preying on me.  It’s like trying to kill a spider with a feather duster...trying to get my blog site to work, to load pictures...grrr.  And so I growl.  But perhaps I can at least get some of the typing done (while the internet takes a day off and laughs in my face). 

Okay, the current verdict seems to be...make Rebecca load the pictures one at a time.

While on Crete, we took a day trip to Aghia Nikolaos, which is on the east side of Crete.  There was a nice walk along the coast, where we ate our sandwiches and enjoyed the ocean without having to get too close.

From Aghia Nikolaos, we took another bus to Elounda, the peninsula where they used to send leprous people.  Thankfully, it’s just a nice place to walk around now, and I’m pretty sure we discovered Atlantis.

I’d been craving ice cream.  I didn’t think I was, until we almost got some and then didn’t.  A lot of the stores don’t carry ice cream in the winter.  Seriously...it doesn’t get that cold there!  These people have issues.  Anyway, we went to a little restaurant which had big special ice creams.  Not the best ice cream, but it made me happy.

Ah, Heraklion.  We tried so hard to get pictures that made it look like a nice place.  We aimed the camera to avoid the construction and creepy men.  And I believe we succeeded.  Here are some really cool arches that we walked through along the coast to get to our hotel.

Tell me this doesn't look like my kitty.  But don't really tell me that.  Because I know it does.
This was on the island of Syros.  Greece had tons of cats, but this particular area seemed overrun.  Unfortunately, they seem to be bullied by the dog on the left, who unfortunately took it in his head to adopt us.  It was fun on the beach.  Not so fun when he started scaring all the cats away.
Another cannon fiasco.  Here we see that Elizabeth has found more cannons...
...and I don't know where she's gotten to now, but clearly I'm frightened.
This is Ouzo.  It's supposed to be the Greek...I don't know, special drink.  It was nasty!  It was like a cross between black licorice and...nastiness.  Blech.

After surviving the horrible cities of Greece, the islands were a coveted respite.  (Oooh, good words!)  However, with the entire Greek experience a tad bit tainted...well, significantly tainted, even after some great times on the islands I was relieved and excited to get to Turkey.  And so on the island of Chios, we said goodbye to Greece and boarded a ferry that would take us to Cesme...