Lots of Walking

We have actually been to the World War II Memorial twice now, and I think Matt is hoping to go one more time. Rich, I’m sure you would love it. I’m not sure that the girls will be up for a third trip, since it is quite a long distance away. We are doing tons of walking and we are really enjoying the exercise. People here walk everywhere, and what is considered walking distance in Ukraine, is definitely not walking distance at home. I think that by the second day here, I had figured out that when Kostya says “it’s right around the corner”, that usually means about a 20-30 minute walk, and when he is in a hurry, I think he can WALK a six minute mile. The unbelievable thing is that the women do tons of walking in 5 inch stiletto heels, and most of the streets and walkways are made of uneven cobblestones – beautiful, but difficult to negotiate, even in flat shoes. I have no idea how they do it. Soon I will try to post some pictures of the fashion here. The first time we went to the WWII Memorial, we walked the entire way, and much of it was up hill. Matt estimated that we walked about 6 miles, but I’m convinced it was more than that. We walked past many of the official government buildings, including the Presidential Palace (posted here), and the Parliament building. I was amazed at how we were able to walk right up to the front of many of these buildings, without encountering a significant amount of security. Then we walked through a beautiful park, where we literally saw dozens of brides walking through the park taking pictures in front of various historical monuments. Ukraine is definitely a country filled with MANY beautiful statues and monuments.
The memorial also had some missiles left over from the cold war. Kostya pointed to one and joked that that one was pointed right at our home city. We had a little laugh about the fact that we both used to hide under our desks during bomb drills, but we are so grateful for the fact that our kids don’t have to live with that fear.