This morning we left the Good
Samaritan Ministry's Community Centre in Pulin for the last time. To commemorate the visit of our all Canadian tour group, I built an inukshuk in their flower garden (see pic). There just happened to be some
rocks there, not very artistically arranged. It was a 2.5 hour ride to Kiev on mostly a four lane highway, but very bumpy. Definitely overdue for resurfacing. In Kiev our first stop was a place with many street vendors selling all kinds of souvenir stuff. I like useful souvenirs, so I bought one of those Russian style fur hats -- should come in handy for those Edmonton winters! After that we went on an hour long boat cruise on the Dnieper river, which flows through Kiev. Great views of the many gold leaf covered domes of the Russian Orthodox churches and a very large statue of Mother Russia. We also visited the Chernobyl museum, which houses many artifacts and displays related to the nuclear plant explosion in 1986. Finally, we had time for a visit to the Lavra, a monastery comprised of numerous Russian Orthodox churches/chapels and other buildings. It was founded in the 10th century and apparently monks still live there, although we didn't see any. Then it was time to check in at the Lybid Hotel where we had also planned to have dinner. However the hotel restaurant was closed for a special event. Alex, our tour guide, didn't know of any other restaurants nearby, so we went traipsing around looking for one. There weren't many around, but we finally found one called the PIzzeria. We expected only pizza, but it turned out they had all kinds of other stuff, and we ended up having our best restaurant meal in Ukraine. The service wasn't great, but the presentation and quality of the dishes was what we'd get at a very high end restaurant at home. But it was relatively inexpensive. My dinner, which included a very large bowl of mushroom soup, a veal dish, potatoes, vegetables and a 500 ml Stella, only came to the equivalent of about $25 CDN. It was good to finish our meals in Ukraine on a high note. The hotel room wasn't too bad either, but I'm definitely looking forward to my own bed and shower at home!