can't get enough

winter here is cold...apparently this is one of the coldest winters ukraine (and eastern europe in general) has had in quite some time...i've seen a number of news articles about the effects of the cold on life in general...some of the statistics in relation to the homeless are disheartening, to say the least...
that being said, i live in a warm flat, and i have appropriate clothing for this type of weather...so i love it...i can't get enough...as far as i'm concerned, if it snowed 3 out of 5 days all winter long, i'd be a happy camper...granted, i'd be happier with a few more days of blue skies, but i'll take what i can get...i love that it snows, and stays cold enough that the snow doesn't go anywhere...the city has been covered in white for three weeks or so...woo hoo...

this weekend cloe and i went out saturday afternoon to take a few photos on the river...the dniester river, which is really close to our flat...it's been below freezing for more than two weeks, sometimes dramatically so...so the river is definitely very frozen...woo hoo...when we were out on saturday, i played in the snow and had cloe take a few photos...then we walked out to the middle of the frozen river and took a few more photos...they don't really show how very white everything is, or how cold it is, or how windy it was that day...(it was snowing sideways)...i made a snow angel in the middle of the river:)...the ice statue from a couple weeks ago was still there, it hadn't melted at all...i wonder how long it will be there...

sunday afternoon i went out by myself to take a few more photos...i figured a lot of the snow from saturday afternoon probably hadn't been moved yet...i made my way to the lavra, stopping first in a park and watching people sled down an awesome hill...another time i really wish cloe and i had a sled...it's fun to sled, and quite the workout to keep climbing back up the hill...there were heaps of people out there, despite the cold...ukrainians are definitely prepared for this kind of weather, which is fantastic...they not only have the proper clothes, they get out and enjoy the weather...
the memorial to victims of the '32-'33 famine (a man made famine, stalin made it happen on purpose) was perhaps more moving with the statue of the starving girl with snow on it...
from there i kept going down the street to the lavra, the monastary complex i know i've mentioned in a couple previous posts...i only entered the lower lavra, the area where you can see the 'caves'...since it obviously didn't snow inside, i had no desire to see those again...buuuut, there is another church, graveyard, and bell tower, and i knew they'd be beautiful...and they were...the upper lavra has some renovation going on, and it's the area where you have to pay an entrance fee, which i didn't much want to do...i've already seen it twice, and will likely visit again anywho...

after the lavra i walked along a main highway to a statue/memorial i'd seen photos of, but hadn't yet seen in person...until a taxi ride to the airport with cloe during the day, i didn't actually know where it was actually located...locals will tell you it's too far to walk, but it wasn't far at all...the photos didn't turn out well, with a gray sky and dark statue...oh well...the statue/memorial is supposed to depict the founders of the city of kyiv...3 brothers and a sister...or is it 2 brothers and their sister? what i know for sure is that the city is named after the eldest brother, and the others got hills in the city named after them...i wonder how that was decided...would i ever want a city named after me? probably not...
from there i walked back up the highway, through knee deep snow...only one person had walked through there previously, so there was no easy way to walk...it's just as much a workout to walk through deep-ish snow as it is to run/walk on a beach!!
my next stop was the botanical garden in the middle of town...snow covered of course...
from there to a roshen store...roshen is a local chocolate brand, you see their stuff ALL OVER the country...in pretty much every store selling chocolate, in every little corner stand...they have chocolate bars, toffees, individual chocolates, etc...i wanted chocolate toffees, and was really excited to get them...the store didn't have them!!! total heartbreak...booooooooooo...oh well, life goes on...i got a couple other types of chocolate instead, though they in no way made up for my disappointment....boooo...
at least i got a few good photos out of the weekend:)