Flat Stanley Explores Grocery Stores

We love to go shopping. Here we showed Flat Stanley the frozen foods.

You can buy frozen vegetables and mushrooms 

and frozen fruits---so many different kinds of berries!

These are frozen "pelmeni" and "vareniki" which are like ravioli or dough filled with meat, cheese, or fruits.  Upper left are stuffed green peppers; to the right are stuffed cabbage rolls.  There are cases with these kinds of products prepackaged but these bulk items are more interesting to see and cheaper.  

Ukrainians like fish and here are many varieties in the frozen foods section.

The dairy section is also filled with many new things.  Here Stanley is among the liter bottles of milk, looking at the liter packages of milk.  Milk comes in many percentages of milk fat and is always "ultra-pasterized" so it has a very long shelf life--six weeks.  We buy lots of these green-checked packages of milk at 1.5%

Here are cream, sour cream, and fresh spreadable cheese with different milk fat percentages.

Yogurt also comes in bottles and packages of liquid as well as the small containers we're used to

Many varieties of cheese can be bought prepackaged or cut/sliced to your liking

The deli section is full of many different cold and hot foods to try!

Flat Stanley is hanging around in the varieties of smoked salami sausage.  And here are more kinds of smoked meats that can be bought by the piece or slices.

Smoked and fresh fish is sold here

And if you want it even fresher, every store has at least one tank of live fish for sale to kill and eat!  That means the salesman nets the fish you want and you take it home and clean it!

  

People eat many kinds and parts of meat that we don't normally think would be good

Flat Stanley Travels

People have cars of all kinds here in Kyiv, as the highway that goes by the temple shows.

But most people use public transportation and buses are very common.  This 56D is the bus line we use.

Subways (the Metro) run underground through the center of Kyiv.  

Sometimes on the outskirts of the city the Metro runs above ground like here at the station in Lisova.

Here the Metro becomes a subway again as it heads into the hills above the Dneiper river.

Here is a Metro station entrance marked by the green M.

You go down the stairs into the Metro station, pay your admission, and then go further down into the ground on escalators.  Sometimes it is a very long way.  Here we are coming back up.

When you get to the platform you need to make sure you get on the train going the right direction!  However, if you make a mistake, you just get off at the next station and cross over to the train going the other way! 

Sometimes it is very empty, like this early Sunday morning when the missionaries are traveling.

Sometimes it is more crowded and you have to stand and hang on!

Another place you might have to hang on is in a tram (tramvaui), a street car that runs on tracks, usually down the middle of the road.  It is electric, powered by the overhead power lines.

This is a new fancy tram with ads for the world soccer tournament that will be held in Kyiv in 2012.

Trollybuses are also electric and run off electric wires overhead, but can drive normally as long as the street has the wiring.  

To go to places outside the city, you may take a bus or a 15-20 passenger van.  Here is one going to Chernigov.  Many of these vans are parked outside Metro stations where people will need transportation to an outlying area.  They have signs indicating their destinations in their windows.  The driver waits until all seats are filled with passengers before taking your money and leaving.  Here some of the passengers are waiting outside smoking their last cigarette.

 We waited inside in the front seats.  This picture, taken through the front window, shows the line of "marshrutkas" (translates as ferries) waiting to take people to cities/villages outside Kyiv.

We went to the main train station in Kyiv, which is Ukraine's capital city, so it is the hub of national and international train traffic.  Here is the older train station and the new one nearby.

Trains can also run on electrical overhead lines or not.  Overnight trains have some "sleeping cars" with compartments where passengers can lie down.  You must make reservations and pay more.

My favorite part of our visit to the train station was stopping for a treat here!

Flat Stanley Visits Friends

Flat Stanley is a story written by Jeff Brown about a boy who had a bulletin board fall on him while he slept and he became 1/2 inch thick.  He has many adventures like getting mailed to California or flying like a kite.  Some elementary school teachers use this as a springboard for a project for English/Social Studies.  Each student creates a "Flat Stanley" and sends him to a person he knows.  Jayden sent his Flat Stanley to us and we enjoyed having him with us and taking him on adventures.  He arrived on April 8.  In his instructions, Jayden told us that Stanley was afraid of thunderstorms and would need a night light.  Just after he arrived, we had the first thunder and lightening storm with rain that we have had for months!  I was awakened by the storm and put Stanley by our nightlight on our bathroom counter while I enjoyed the storm!

The next day I took Flat Stan with me to the temple.  The grounds crew were planting the flower boxes with forced narcissus and pansies.

We were invited to visit Pavlina Ubyiko and Yulia Simanovskaya on a Monday afternoon, April 11.  Pavlina Ubyiko is a secretary in the temple office who speaks English and is also a temple worker.  Yulia Simanovska is another temple worker.  Both of them have children but are divorced.  They are very nice. We met and first went to a museum about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. That is a place in northern Ukraine where Russia built several nuclear power plants.  On April 26, 1986 (25 years ago) one of the  plants exploded and burned, sending radioactive particles that were carried by the wind all over.  It is considered the  worst nuclear accident in history so far.  Many cities and towns nearby were evacuated and the people had to live somewhere else.  They never got to go back to their homes or apartments.  In the museum there were lots of pictures of children who had to leave their toys and clothes and go somewhere else.  

The first picture shows Pavlina and Yulia with Flat Stan at the steps going up to the exhibits with signs of cities that were ruined hanging above.  The apples pictured on the steps were reminders that no one could pick the fruit and eat it that year because it was contaminated.  

The next photo shows Flat Stan in a bush in front of a monument for those who lost their lives.  There were some older students waiting to go into the museum and one of them told me she knew a Flat Stanley from Chicago!  Though this might be boring, because of the problems with the nuclear reactor in Japan after the tsunami there, we all are more concerned about the dangers of radiation leaks from nuclear power plants.

Then we went to Pavlina's aparrtment.  This is the school among the apartment buildings where she lives.  Sis Ubiko's apartment in one of the buildings behind the school, an old building and very typical of apartments in Kyiv. 

Flat Stan is having fun with the big sign on a building and Grandpa! 

Here is a picture of Sis U welcoming us to her apartment.  They fixed a wonderful meal.  

Here is Flat Stan by some french bread that Grandma had spread with cheese spreads.  Sis U is frying some potato and cabbage dumplings.  Sis. S is standing by the salad she made.  

Then you can see on the table the yummy split pea soup and salad we ate along with the special cake they bought for our dessert.  

Flat Stan enjoyed meeting the cat, Fluffy, who is old and deaf. 

Grandpa bought the sisters some daffodils as we were leaving to go home.  We were very grateful for their hospitality.