We made it! We touched down safely in Ukraine yesterday afternoon and are catching up on family, food, and good, deep sleep after last week which included very few of those things. Nana-Good-and-True met our daughter at the airport with flowers. "Spaciba, banana!" says Ellie (Spaciba means thank you, and babushka means "nana," but this was the best Ellie could muster after 16 hours of planes). Nana remained unoffended.
We started our day today, like many of you, with a glass of orange juice. Our orange juice, however, contrary to its name, was red -- made from blood oranges! So here you go. I'm giving up a million-dollar idea to you. Blood orange juice is sweeter and smoother than normal orange juice -- and red to boot -- and not currently marketed in the US. You can make it happen.
We took a day mostly just to recoup, but we did make a little trek to the beautiful Kiev opera house to buy tickets for the Nutcracker tomorrow! This involved a long metro (subway) ride, every stop of which Ellie would comment enthusiastically: "Get out!" Dad says she could get a job with the metro department, who makes a PA announcement at each stop which translates: "If you are getting out, get out faster." It feels good as a parent to know Ellie may have future work in Ukraine.
Tomorrow we will hit the ballet and we are prepping for the New Year, which is THE holiday here -- complete with gift-giving, fireworks, New-Years-trees, etc. Kind of like every holiday of the year rolled into one, which I suppose is fitting. We'd love to hear what's happening with you -- share your stories with us and we'll keep you posted on the stories unfolding here!
2 comments:
If Rachel Campbell is taking orders for rugs, are you taking orders for Vanilla Cokes? ;)
Pretty flowers that BaNana got for Ellie!
For New Year's 2002 going into 2003, I was in Romania and we partied for two days straight! I woke up on January 2nd confused because I couldn't figure out what had happened to January 1st. Sounds strange, I know, but I promise that the only thing I was drinking was Coke.
Andrew
I will write myself a note to check for Vanilla Coke -- we're leaving 50 pounds of luggage here, so we have some room on the way back! If not Vanilla Coke, maybe some smoked prune juice? That's one of our Ukrainian favorites...
Post a Comment