kyiv: mosaic park, st michael's, st andrew's, andreivsky sputz

friday afternoon, after i was done teaching, i again met up with bo to wander around kyiv...when he'd seen the city in november, he and ben had gotten a bit lost and had to abandon the second half of the walking tour suggested by lonely planet...this time i wanted to show him the city i've gotten to know over the year i've been here...
we started by taking a look at st michael's, one of the many churches in the city...it's beautiful...st michael's is part of the ukrainian orthodox church, in the kyiv patriarchate...(i do not know the specific differences among greek orthodox, ukrainian orthodox, and russian orthodox)...st michael's is very much an active church as well as being a tourist spot...

from there we walked toward st andrews...another beautiful church...i don't think this church has services as often, but i could be totally wrong about that...there is a bit of a museum feel about it, and several bits of history displayed...when the area around the church is open, you have a great lookout over the river running through the middle of the city...
next to st andrews is a street filled with stalls selling tourist kitsch...in russian its known as andreivsky sputz...some of what is for sale is very soviet, some is traditional ukrainian...bo ended up buying a few momentos for his family...i looked for postcards, and looked at some of the paintings...

after that we went to my favourite park in town...mosaic park...bo told me i should've sent him and ben here in november, they would've spent hours climbing all over and taking photos...hee hee...i love this park!

lviv again...warmer this time around!

The first time i visited lviv, we spent one day in the city, and it was FREEZING...this time, i got to spend three days, and it was spring...lovely...

i took the night train to lviv, arriving at 0745...the train station was being renovated, so the main entrance wasn't open...fortunately, another side door was open...i took a taxi into town, though i figured out later that wasn't really necessary...if i'd had a full map of lviv, i would've walked...oh well...

i'd made arrangements to meet up with a friend at 10, but i was in the city center by 0800, so i just wandered...when cloe and i visited in february we didn't see as much of the city centre...we didn't see all the churches...the city centre is a UNESCO site, but not much was happening at 0800...i supposed most tourist areas aren't busy at that hour...

my friend arrrived on time, and we continued wandering, as our guest house reservation didn't start until noon...the guesthouse was great...really close to the university, quite small...quiet, we never heard any street noise...a garden out back...

after checking in, we wandered again...my friend had also previously visited lviv, also during a colder time of year...it was nice to walk with someone who had some idea of where we were going, but not too much...we both had places we wanted to see, but no real sense of urgency...when you travel a lot, you learn to appreciate what you do see, but not get super frustrated if you don't get to see everything on your list...

we started with a church not too far from our guest house...it's beautiful, but there is no place to stand to get a good photo of the church...the nearby buildings are too close...clearly they weren't think of photographers when the church was built...hee hee...the inside was nice...a bit like an orthodox church, but i'm pretty sure this one was catholic...st george's?

i think that was the day we saw a chocolate shop...i'd seen this chocolate shop during my first visit, but i didn't know there was an upstairs...wow...lviv handmade chocolates...YUM...heaps of truffles, bricks of chocolate, t-shirts, etc...it was awesome...and since i wasn't sick this time, i was able to appreciate all of it...it would've been easy to spend a lot of money in there...

over the three days we visited several coffee shops, and a few chocolate shops...i'm not sure how lviv got to be so big on chocolate and coffee, considering the beans don't grow in ukraine...that being said, they've done a great job...the goodies available in those coffee shops are some of the best baking i've had in ukraine! Our last afternoon in the city we spent a while in a coffee shop just on the corner of the square at the city centre...one of the best chocolate cakes i've ever had:)

Our first majour meal was at a brewery...soooooooo good...not surprisingly, i ordered too much...and that was after taking a long time to figure out what i wanted to order in the first place...the menu was comprehensive, to say the least...

it was awesome, and i'm glad i got to try everything...bo is a chef, so he always wants to try different foods...this is one of three breweries in the city, all three have restaurants attached...we had another meal at another one of the breweries another day, but i didn't think it was quite as good...(and the customer service wasn't nearly as good)

at one point we walked for a while to find a playground cloe and i had seen during our winter lviv trip...it's in the middle of some bigger apartment buildings, and isn't large, but there is something about it that i just love...we ended up walking a lot farther than expected, at one point finding ourselves on a path near a church that had stopping points for the different times of jesus on a cross...finally, we found the playground...we ended up hanging out for a while, watching a few local kids playing pick up soccer...the kid who looked the youngest looked to have the most talent...it was a cement playing surface, but these kids were running hard!

We ate a few meals at a chain restaurant that has cafeteria style food...it's an easy to way to big or small, heavy or light, healthy or not...we also walked around a couple food markets...i don't know why it took me so long to buy homemade pickles in ukraine...made in a salty vinegar...YUM!!

we investigated a heap of churches...lviv could be called church town...it seems like every time you turn a corner, you see another church...they are mostly catholic, but there are a few orthodox as well...most of the churches are easily identifiable as such, but not always...we found one tucked behind another building, i wouldn't have seen it except for noticing a bunch of people coming out to the street...

we explored the jewish quarter, or what is possible to be seen now...lviv used to have a large jewish population...world war two wasn't kind to the jews in ukraine, as in much of the rest of europe...synagogue square is empty...a school that used to teach rabbis now has graffiti all over one of the walls...there are placards in one area, giving some history of this area, showing photos of past and future, as well as listing some plans for redevelopment...

there were a couple surprise rainshowers, thankfully we were only caught outside during one of them...i hate rain...it's the worst kind of travel weather...

our last day in lviv we started by checking out of the guesthouse (which consisted of leaving the keys to our room on the table in the kitchen area) and using a map we'd received from the tourist information centre to walk to the train station...we stored our bags, and walked back to the centre of town...we didn't do much that day, just hang out...the weather was lovely, and watching people was a relaxing activity...the night train that night took us back to kyiv, right on time...as usual, the work day wasn't fun after having slept on the train, but it's always worth it to get out of town for a few days...lviv is one of my favourite places in ukraine...a sentiment shared by many...

chornobyl (чорнобил)

Chornobyl...it's a name that means something to a lot of people...when you hear the name, you tend to have some sort of reaction...the world's worst nuclear disaster, repercussions are still being felt today...the worst part is that it shouldn't have happened in the first place, the entire incident was man made, and completely avoidable...

chornobyl is/was a nuclear power plant in northern ukraine, so named because when the plant was built the town of chornobyl was the closest town of any real size...not long after the plant was built, the town of pripyat was built nearby, basically in order to house all the workers and their families...pripyat became a wealthy city, home to 40,000-50,000 people...in terms of material goods, it was said that if you couldn't get it in pripyat, you couldn't get it anywhere in ukraine...

on 26 april 1986 workers at the nuclear plant decided to run an emergency procedure, and while doing so, ignore all safety precautions...to make a long, technical story short, one of the four functioning reactors (reactors #5 and #6 were still being built) had a melt down, and was on fire for a while...the meltdown and fire released a LOT of radiation into the air, with the winds blowing mostly west and north...firefightors (the initial firefighters in were called liquidators) rushed in to put out the fire...all of them died within two weeks, from fire injuries or radiation poisoning...people who stood on a bridge that has a view of the reactors to watch the fire died as well, as they were exposed to radiation as well...back in those days, not much was known about the specific dangers of radiation exposure...

it was the day after the accident when the residents of chornobyl, pripyat, and heaps of villages in the area were forced to evacuate...they were only given two hours notice, and not told that they wouldn't ever be coming back to their homes...they were only told two hours ahead of time, and only told to pack enough for 2-3 days...the rest of their belongings stayed in their homes...those belongings are still in those homes...

initially, the ukrainian/soviet governments stayed quiet, not mentioning anything about the accident in the news of any country...2-3 days later, the government of sweden said hey, we're noticing a lot more radiation than normal in the air, what's going on? It was only then that the ukrainian/soviet governments were forced to acknowledge (to the rest of the world) what had happened...but to their own people, the severity of the accident wasn't acknowledged for quite a while...

more than half the radioactive material fell on belorussian land...another great amount fell on ukrainian land...russia got some as well, though not quite as much...much of the radiation is still there, it doesn't exactly dissipate quickly...cement holds radiation for a long time, so do trees...one particular area of pine forest downwind of the accident turned red and died just after the accident, it's still called the 'red forest'...no one wants to eat any kind of food grown in the chernobyl region, it still isn't completely understood how radiation transfers, or what long term effects of radiation ingestion might be...people in northern ukraine are still tested regularly for cancer, thyroid cancer in particular...there are arguments now, and have been since the accident as to whether radiation exposure is linked to increases in cancer...

it's not legal to go to chornobyl by yourself...everyone has to be part of a tour...to sign up for a tour, you need to think ahead, as you have to book the tour at least two weeks in advance...signing up for the tour involves giving your passport number, date of birth, etc...your information is given to the government, and your name is put on a list...and it isn't cheap...i'm not going to write the exact cost, as it will likely change, (and there might be some variety in different companies that do the tour) but i'm pretty sure it's the most expensive thing possible to do in ukraine...

we got into our minivan around 0900, and started driving north...our tour group consisted of an american who had taken german citizenship, two brits in kyiv for a long weekend, cloe, dad, and myself...as we got to the first checkpoint, our van joined another van with a large group of swedes, and a czechs...our tour guide did the entire tour in english...as we were waiting for the swedish van (as we came to think of them) our tour guide said she knew why men take the tour, she was curious to know why we (as women) were taking the tour...it never occurred to cloe and i that most of the people taking the tour would be men...for me it's a matter of curiosity, and an interest in history...cloe felt the same way...while waiting we also took a few photos of the signs in front of the checkpoint...the english wasn't exactly, uh, correct...

after joining up with the swedish van, we passed through our first checkpoint...i think this was a 30km checkpoint...the officers manning the checkpoint checked our passports against a list they had...i'm guessing they get a new list each day with the names of those signed up for the tours of the day...our first stop was in front of the town sign for chornobyl, where our guide explained that chornobyl was older than pripyat, and had existed before the nuclear plant was built...

our first stop was in a building, i'm not entirely sure what the whole thing was called...our purpose was to go in a room with maps and photos all relating to the accident...one of the maps showed the areas where the wind had blown radiation...the photos showed the plant before and after the explosion/meltdown...it was in this room that we all signed waivers acknowledging that we would take precautions during our tour, and i think signing away any rights to sue if something were to go horribly wrong during the tour...

in chornobyl itself we stopped at a museum that has great murals on the outside walls...too bad it isn't open, no one knows when it will open, and what is currently inside...our guide explained the murals, i thought they were beautiful...and tragic...people have come back to the town of chornobyl, but not many...not nearly as many as the town once had...the number is in the low thousands, i think...everyone who now lives in chornobyl is somehow associated with the remains of the plant, or the power plant (not nuclear) built years after the accident...i think american money was involved in this, though i don't remember the details of what we were told...will anyone tell me?

we saw a memorial to nuclear disasters, which included mention of the japanese incidents at hiroshima and fukushima...according to our guide, the japanese don't like this memorial, as it lumps in hiroshima (which was deliberate) with chornobyl (which was not)...we saw the post office, which still functions...we saw a memorial to the firefighters (which was paid for with private donations, the government hasn't ever really acknowledged these people) who were the first responders, they attempted to put out the fire...they all died within approximately 3 weeks of the incident...this memorial is next to the chornobyl fire station...which is still active...our guide said they don't get a lot of business, thank goodness...

we saw a memorial to the towns which were abandoned after the accident...this one was probably the most moving for me...when entering towns in europe, there is usually a sign with the town name on the main road going into town...when you leave the town, you'll see that same sign, but the name usually has a red line going through it, or something along those lines...if i remember correctly, 90+ towns/villages had to be abandoned after the accident...in this particular memorial there is now a town sign for each of those towns/villages...one side has the name as if you were entering the town, the other side of the sign has the name crossed out in red...in the middle of it all is the postal memorial...if you send mail to any of these towns/villages, it ends up in the post boxes in the middle of these signs...

we saw the woods around an abandoned kindergarden, our guide wouldn't let us go too far in the woods...we could see some of the toys on the ground...dolls...a toy truck...there is something about seeing those toys, and knowing they haven't been touched in a very long time...i would've liked to go in the kindergarden, i don't know how often that happens...

we stopped at another checkpoint, i think this was the 10km checkpoint...the same as before, we all handed our passports to the officer, he checked our information against his list...how often does someone get that close to this area who isn't on that list? what would happen to that person? why would someone want to try this on their own?

we drove closer to the old plant, stopping on the road at one point for more information and a photo opportunity...our guide pointed out to us where we could see each reactor, including #5 and #6, which were never finished...we drove around to what i think of as the back side of the reactors, which was the closest we got to the reactors...on the back side there is another memorial, though for the life of me i cant' remember what it's for...

i talk about seeing the reactors, but you don't actually get to see the reactors...if i understand correctly, you wouldn't get to see much that is identifiable under the sarcophagus anywho...the heat of the explosion and fire 'melted' just about everything...even cement turned into a lava tube of sorts...it's still incredibly dangerous in there, and no one goes in...i don't know if plans have been made (or even thought about) as to cleaning up the actual sight...ever...

you only get to see the sarcophagus that now covers the reactors...i think it looks like a rusted tin shack...at the time it was built, it was expected to last 30 years...it's now been 25+ years, the government is in the process of building a newer sarcophagus that will last 100 years...from what i could see of the new sarcophagus, it'll look more like a giant airplane hanger...they're building it on tracks, and the idea is to slide it over the existing reactor and sarcophagus...i don't remember when the expected date of completion is...

after this stop, we had to go through radiation detector machines...think of it this way, an ancient version of a metal detector in an airport...you put your hands on either side of the machine, and wait for it to show that you're "clean"...when that happens, you exit the other side of the machine...at this stop, one member of our group beeped "dirty" which didn't thrill our tour guide...she had him do it again, and he still beeped 'dirty'...there wasn't anyone official around, so she ushered him through...

lunch was next...we ate in a cafeteria, i think it serves the workers as well as the tourists...everyone had the same meal, everyone goes through the same line...the lunch experience sortof matches the communist mindset that i associate with old ukraine...

after lunch we drove to the river that goes through the area...the carp in the river are HUGE...they no longer have any natural predators, they've become HUGE...part of the tour involves throwing bread bits into the water and watching the fish come up and eat...to get the attention you have to throw larger chunks pretty hard into the water...cloe loved this...

then another memorial, again i don't remember what it was for...from there we all piled back into the vans, and drove out again...another radiation detector checkpoint...another member of our group beeped dirty, though not the same one as before...again, our guide ushered the man through, as there was no one official looking into the room...i don't know what happens if someone official notices someone beeping dirty...

then the town of pripyat...the ghost city...it's hard to describe the feeling you get while wandering around...giant apartment buildings, completely deserted...cold winds blowing out the doors...when i was close to the entrance to some of the buildings (you're not allowed to go all the way in) i got the heebie jeebies...our guide had photos as to what the city used to look like, the difference between then and now is amazing...there are trees and bushes pushing up through the concrete, graffiti on some of the outside walls...the graffiti wasn't everywhere, just a few 'pictures' in various places...nothing grandiose...

we saw what used to be a supermarket...just outside was an overturned shopping cart...you could see all the shelves, all the lighting that no longer works...the wires hanging down into the aisles...i wonder what happened to everything that was left behind...

we saw an amusement park that had either just opened, or was supposed to open just after the accident...bumper cars being overgrown with weeds...a big ferris wheel...this ferris wheel is one of the iconic photos of pripyat...we didn't get to see the swimming pool, though i've seen photos of that online...we saw street signs that were hardly identifiable anymore, they're almost entirely overgrown...most of the buildings have some vines growing up the sides...or vines hanging over the entrances...nearly all of the wide open areas have weeds and such pushing up through the concrete...

the germanized american in our group said the government should tear down all of these buildings...i suspect that hasn't been done and won't be done until it's known how much radiation is still in them, and how much of it could be released into the air if this happens...it's crazy to walk down the streets of pripyat, and feel as though you're walking on a path through a wooded area...it's peaceful, for all the wrong reasons...
this guy also suggested that if the government really wanted to repopulate the area they should give the apartments away for free to people who are low income...he didn't want to accept that almost no one would accept that kind of an offer, no matter how well intended...first of all, there isn't much industry, or employment opportunity in this area...second, the name chornobyl will always have some sort of catch...people won't forget...

after pripyat, we stopped at a souvenir shop...t-shirts, magnets, coffee mugs, etc...none of them spectacular, and most importantly for me, NO POSTCARDS!!! what kind of souvenir shop doesn't have postcards?

The ride back to kyiv was uneventful...the driver dropped us off pretty close to our flat, which was great...much more convenient than going all the way into the city, then having to go all the way back out...

kyiv: vydubytsky monastary

 despite teaching a full schedule, i was lucky enough to have two afternoons a week where i finished teaching at 1230...when bo was in town, we took advantage of those afternoons to get out and see some of the town...

our first sight was yet another religious place (there are a lot of them in kyiv)...vidubytsky monastery...to get to the monastery, we first took the subway, then walked...the guidebook makes it sound as if it's quite difficult to get to the monastery by walking, but i thought we figured it out pretty easily...cross a couple streets, take one turn, then walk a bit...ta da!! this was another time when it was super handy to be able to read street signs, as they were nearly all in ukrainian...

the monastery is at the bottom of a hill, the rest of the hill is the botanical garden...after paying the entrance fee to the gardens, we found a map and figured out how to get to the monastery...only one wrong turn!! despite being mid may, there weren't many flowers blooming in the gardens...i don't know when the flowers all bloom...

as we started descending the hill we caught glimpses of the domes of the monastery, it seems to peek out at you without fully revealing itself to you until you're almost at the gates...bo and i couldn't stop taking photos...i love love loved the blue onion dome with gold stars...

this monastery was established between 1070 and 1077, by vsevolod, who was the son of yaroslav the wise; it was originally a family church...according to wikipedia, the monastery and the surrounding neighborhood were named after an old slavic legend of the pagan god perun, and grand prince vladimir the great of kyiv...it's part of the ukrainian orthodox church, in the kyiv patriarchate, though it did spend some time as part of the greek catholic church (1596-1635)

the monastery is small, we only walked into two buildings...one had beautiful frescoes over all the ceilings and walls...i kept bumping into the walls since i was wandering around looking straight up...as we were in this building, we were the only two visitors...it was soooo quiet...

the other building we entered was a tiny church...due to renovations we weren't able to go very far in, but even if we had, it wasn't large...

we saw several graves/memorials as well on the property...

donetsk (донецк)

dad came to visit me! the last family i saw was in september, when cousin bryn came to visit...before that, i saw mom and sister back last may...as far as my family goes, that's seeing a lot of people in a short amount of time:)  (i realize this is not the norm in many american families)
dad arrived friday afternoon, minus one suitcase...not great, but oh well...apparently the suitcase didn't make the connection in warsaw, though dad did...we took the bus back to the city centre, then the metro out to my flat...after hanging out for a while, we went back into town, to the train station...a couple weeks earlier i'd bought train tickets for us to go to donetsk...

donetsk is a big city in the eastern half of ukraine...it's a 'man made city' in that it wasn't a naturally occuring city...that is, there isn't a ginormous body of water where people naturally congregated yonks ago...in fact, the city is only about 150 yrs old...it's not a city with heaps of culture, or history, or well known nightlife...it's a working city...former names of the city have been stalin, stalino, and yuzovka...the city was founded (in 1869) by a welshman, john hughes...(yuzovka is the russian/ukrainian equivalent of 'hughesville')...he started a few coal mines, and a steel plant...those are the industries on which the city still relies today...donetsk is the hometown of ukraine's richest man, and home to one of the powerhouse football teams in the country...donetsk is one of the host cities for UEFA's EURO2012...

even though lonely planet only has about 4 pages dedicated to the city, we figured there must be something going on...when dad suggested the city as a place to visit (in our family, we like to go to places we haven't seen previously, we rarely repeat) i thought "why not?"...(since living with cloe, that thought was more likely 'pourquoi pas' but that's beside the point)...i checked booking.com for a place to stay, and get this, i found EVA hotel!!! how awesome is that??? it was more expensive than some other places to stay, but who am i to turn down staying at a place clearly named after me? hee hee...(on a side note, i love finding places and products around the world that share my name...i've got an entire album on facebook dedicated to them)...we were only going to be in donetsk one night (taking night trains either way) so one night in a slightly more expensive hotel didn't seem unreasonable...eva hotel wasn't busy...at all...in fact, the only other people we saw during our stay there were the front desk people...we didn't even see housekeepers, though i'm sure they were there...when does that hotel ever get busy?

our train arrived at the newly renovated train station, and it was easy to find the bus we needed to get into the city directly in front of the station...since i'm a map geek, and always love to know where i am, i had the book open to the city map, and paid attention to street signs and landmarks in an effort to figure out where the bus was taking us...though we were hot, it was easy to figure out when to get off the bus, and where to go from there...not surprisingly, the lonely planet map wasn't entirely accurate, but it wasn't too far off...checking into the hotel was easy, and almost immediately i started taking photos of all the hotel products that had my name on them...AWESOME!!!

i'd read the book ahead of time and decided i wanted to see as much as i could of what was listed...(3 or 4 sights i think?)...dad and i started by figuring out where to eat...lunch was good...then we started walking up the main boulevard, back toward the train station...since i tend to be fascinated by churches, we stopped in the church we passed, it seemed to be still under construction...the outside was finished, but the inside most certainly was not...plastic covering over most of the relics and icons inside...
most of what was listed to see was in one spot in the city...donbass arena, a statue of lenin, a park, and a war memorial...the park surrounds the arena, and the fan zone was already being set up in anticipation of the coming event...we wandered and took photos...in the gift store dad bought us both the official team shirt so we'd be prepared when the ukrainian team played...

during that one afternoon of walking and moseying, we saw everything listed in the guidebook...(donetsk really isn't the place to be for tourists)...on the way back to the hotel we found a milkbar type of cafeteria...dinner was early, so was bedtime...
the next morning we decided we wanted to go to soledar...we wanted to see the salt mine near the town...we were able to figure out how to get to soledar (a combination of bus, marshutka, etc) but once in soldar, we had no idea where to go...a couple ladies tried to help us, but i'm not sure they understood where exactly we wanted to go, and we only sortof understood what they told us about where to go...that being said, it was a great example of ukrainian hospitality...total strangers reaching out to ask what we wanted, and trying to help us get somewhere...it took us longer to get to soledar than expected, and once we got to the town we figured we probably didn't have time for a real tour of the salt mine if we wanted to get back to donetsk in time to make our train that evening...note to self, next time i try to do this particular day trip, get up earlier and go with a russian speaker...

after soledar, getting back to donetsk was easy, and quicker than the way out...another dinner at the milkbar cafeteria, then the local bus back up to the train station...the train got us back to kyiv in plenty of time for a mcdo breakfast, and setting dad up for a morning of computer work in mccafe...

padova

We went to padova my last day in italy...again, boyd and mandy each took a day off work, and it was awesome...

before heading to padova, we spent some time in sportler...it's an italian sporting goods store, very similar to an american REI, or australian/new zealand kathmandu...in other words, one of my ideas of heaven...all sorts of sports clothes and equipment...it would've been very very easy to spend a lot of money...as it was, i restricted myself to a rain jacket and a pair of sunnies...i remember having some sort of water resistant jacket when i was a kid, but this was my first real rain jacket...i know it's silly, but i was/am excited...

after sportler, we drove to padova...it was a roman town, and you can still see the outer walls in a few places...one of the highways along the way has been rebuilt, and the GPS doesn't know it yet, so for a while it appeared as though we were driving in the unknown...fortunately, we joined back up with the 'old' road, and everything was fine...it's funny how doing that drops an hour off the expected arrival time...phew!

The fun part was in figuring out where to go in padova, and then finding parking once we arrived...in the middle of an old italian city, with one way streets, it isn't always easy to find what you are looking for...especially because other people have already taken all the parking places you see...every now and again we thought we could see a place, but just as we got closer, we figured out it wasn't a place at all...actually, all of that was boyd and mandy...i sat quietly in the back seat, since i had no idea where we were going, and i'm somewhat lost without a map...

after finally finding parking, our first order of business was lunch...somehow, it took us yonks to find a place to eat...i'm not sure how that happened...we did stop for gelatto along the way, though that should only have taken 5-10 minutes...

we saw the university of padova, which was pretty neat...one stairwell was painted with frescoes, and there was a statue in there...other hallways had crests painted on the ceilings...i'm assuming they were the crests of the families of students who attended the school? We saw a couple other statues, we saw a giant market area...we saw a couple piazzas in the middle of town...it was quite the nice town for wandering...we saw a giant clock tower...

once we finally did find lunch, it was at the very end of lunch time...VERY END...in italy, many restaurants have lunch service, after which they take a break before dinner service...

showing up at the end of the time for lunch service means you don't get served...which is not good if you're really hungry...the idea of doing anything for the customer isn't the same as it is in the states...they simply say no, and you move on...the restaurant that finally seated us only had two iteams of food left...steak, and some sort of lasagna...i hadn't had steak yet, and it's what boyd eats every time he and mandy go out to eat...(he's not a foodie, she is)...the steak was tasty, mandy was okay with her lasagna...

after lunch we wandered a bit more...i found a gelatto place that had (among other flavours) pink grapefruit gelatto...a flavour i'd never had before...as far as i know, it isn't a common flavour...it tasted exactly like pink grapefruit...yum...

during the entire day, i found only one place that sold postcards...i'm usually able to spot places by the dozen, but this town didn't seem to have them...padova is known as a university town, but not so much as a tourist town...the postcards i ended up with weren't the greatest, they left a lot to be desired...

the last place we saw was a park...we didn't end up there on purpose, it was just what seemed to be the specific location of a tree giving off cotton...i have no idea what kind of tree it is, but when it blooms, it floats through the air, and covers everything...crazy...as much as anything, it was fun taking photos...on the way back from the park (and i'm not even sure it was a park, it might have just been an enclosed yard next to something or other) we crossed the "river"...

i put 'river" in quotes because it wasn't big...more like a moat, or canal...back in roman days, this was just outside the city walls, and served as one of the city defenses...

from there, mandy and boyd took me back to the airport...sad...i had a great week with friends, i was sad to leave...great weather nearly the entire trip, gelatto every day, native english speakers, relaxing, new sights, etc...what more could a girl want during holidays?

barcis

a beautiful lake town, surrounded by mountains...barcis is slightly north of pordenone and aviano...it's a small town, and doesn't take long to drive through...the reason people go to barcis is to be around the lake...it's a beautiful colour...
we started the afternoon by trying to keep me up to date on my goal of eating gelato every day during the trip...i'm not sure it was real gelato we had, it tasted an awful lot like ice cream...oh well...i tried...
this was the first town in which i saw magazines named after me...woo hoo!! i wanted to add to my collection of things around the world named after me...it's getting to be a bigger collection than i ever expected!

we walked along one edge of the lake, just enjoying the lovely weather and the beautiful scenery...there is a bridge across the lake, it's a VERY narrow bridge...just barely big enough for a single lane...when i stood in the middle i was almost able to touch both sides!! i hope traffice never gets backed up there, it would take foreva to wait for a queue to cross the bridge...
after walking around for a while, we tried to go to a store to get postcards for me...the sign on the door said it would reopen (after the siesta) at 1600, so we waited...we waited until 1615, and still no one was there...so i didn't get any postcards from barcis...gutted!

mandy decided she wanted to drive back by going a way she'd never driven before...up the mountain on the other side of the lake, and down the other side of the mountain...a very very switchbacky road...i was motion sick pretty quickly...i managed to keep my head up for a while, but then i put my head down, and closed my eyes...that made it all much more tolerable, though i missed out on a few great views...argh...i hate that i'm so susceptible to motion sickness...i envy those who don't have the problem...
dinner that night was home made...steaks on the grill!! YUM YUM YUM...after dinner mandy and i pedaled into town for gelato...after the fake gelato earlier in the day, i wanted the real stuff:)

venice

mandy and boyd took a day off to show me venice...yay!!
we started the day by waking up w/out alarms, which is always nice...we drove about ten minutes down the road to a town called pordenone, which is the nearest train station to their house...the train took about an hour, and the final station was in the middle of venice...you walk out of the train station and there is a canal right there! i wasn't really expecting that, i'm used to having to get to the city centre...there were tourists everywhere as soon as we got off the train! waiting around, posing for photos, chattering away, eating gelatto, etc...

the city of venice is built around canals...before the city existed, the area was basically a malarial swamp...one of the reasons the city was founded was that locals could deal with the mosquitos, but the constant invaders couldn't...a natural protection of sorts...now the city is famous because of the canals, though i can't begin to imagine being there in the middle of summer, when it must be sweltering...one of the most famous things tourists can do is take a gondola ride, though i didn't do so...the lowest price i've heard was 70 euro, and i bet most people pay more than that...it's crazy expensive...sure, it's an experience i'd love to have, but would i really appreciate it that much? i doubt it...
our general plan was to walk to the platz (san marco square, i think it's called?) and find a restaurant nearby for lunch...walking there ended up taking an hour or two, as we had to walk down the same streets and alleys as every other person in the city...i didn't have a map, but if i had, i doubt it would've been very useful...just follow the people...along the way there are heaps of stores, gelaterias, etc...

most of the stores we saw were geared toward tourists...it's amazing that they all succeed in staying open, and making money, because they all sell the same stuff!! venice is known for it's glass, so every third store sells glass...in every way imaginable...jewelry (earrings, necklaces, bracelets, etc) and vases and wall decorations, and plenty more...i loved all the bright colours, and could've spent hours browsing...needless to say, much of what is available isn't cheap...and many of the stores had signs saying they were having a sale...which made me wonder, are they ever not having a sale? i wanted a ring, so i ducked into quite a few of the stores...mandy and boyd tolerated me, mandy was looking for a vase...in some ways it seemed as though there was a huge variety in styles, but when you want something specific, it seems like everything you see is the name, and not what you want!!
we finally got to where we wanted to be for lunch...just outside the restaurant is one of the areas gondolas congregate and take on passengers, which meant it was great for people watching...we ended up having to wait to eat about 30 minutes, so we watched a lot of people...

after lunch we went back to san marco's piazza...(i finally remembered the italian word, not the german word:)...san marco is a big church and museum...i would've enjoyed wandering inside the building, but the queue was long, and i had no desire to wait...neither did mandy or boyd...while walking toward the church boyd said he saw someone famous...mandy and i didn't see anyone we recognized...as it turned out, boyd recognized a couple people who were filming an episode of "an idiot abroad"...a dwarf known as willow, and karl somebody or another...clearly, i still don't know who these two are...
on the walk after lunch, i finally found a ring i wanted to buy:)...yippee:)

from the piazza we made our way to the rialto...it's probably the most famous bridge in the city...considering there are heaps of bridges in the city (it is built on water, after all) this is saying a lot...i took pictures off each side of the bridge, then got (more) gelatto from a vendor nearby...YUM...
after that, we took a water taxi back to the train station, and bought tickets for the next train back to pordenone...it was a slow train, and took over an hour, but i didn't care...
i think i'd go back to venice, but i'd rather be there in the middle of winter, when there are far fewer tourists!!