The Sun Came Out!

Today the sun came out and lifted everyone's mood!

We had some down time today, so we went to the square in the center of town. We'd driven by it many times and had been told it was the largest square in Europe. There happen to be a festival going on this afternoon. It included several ice sculptures and ice structures, some you could even climb up and slide down on. There were also pony rides, a snowboarding ramp, quads, a wind/sail skateboard thingy to ride, and music of course. Ukrainians seem to really love American music. We hear it everywhere we go including in our Opel. Our driver always has American music playing, everything from Bruce Springsteen to Celine Dion.

After walking through the ice exhibit, we decided to take a walk through town. There are many old and beautiful orthodox churches in the area. As we walked from place to place we saw nine weddings parties! I guess it is custom to take pictures at all the various landmarks. We came across a small craft fair as well. Erin bought herself a nesting doll. The only down side of our tour is that we really didn't know what we were looking at! None-the-less, we took a lot of pictures!

After all the walking we went to lunch at Bella Pizza. This was kind of a big deal because it was the first meal we had to order without our facilitator to translate for us. Luckily, we had been there with her before and the waitress remembered us! She brought over an English menu. Whew! We weren't going to starve!

Some other big events in the last couple of days include a trip to Target (can you believe that?), cooking our first meal in the apartment, doing laundry, and figuring out where to take the trash. Big stuff!

Tomorrow we are moving to a bigger apartment. This will allow our facilitator to stay with us. She is currently at home for the weekend to celebrate her grandmother's 85th birthday. She will return Monday morning and we will get back to business!