We Went For A Walk Today...

It was a beautiful sunny day today. Mel and I walked down to the Dniper River. We took a slightly longer route today, walking down a couple roads we haven't been down in awhile. It is amazing to see all the construction in our 'old stomping grounds.' New construction here or repair work there, new paint and plaster, new facades or facades simply spruced up and made beautiful once more. This older part of town has the beautiful old original construction and people are trying to repair it and keep it as much as possible. Sprinkled in amongst these old buildings are ugly Soviet things and now some brand spanking new glass and steel things. I call them things on purpose. Call me old-fashioned, but the older buildings are much more beautiful.

We made our way over to Suvorova walking street and then by side roads down to Ushakova. At the end of Ushakova is the river. This area has always been a 'used to be pretty, I'm sure' kind of place that is now filled with weeds, broken pavement, cars driving where they should not be allowed and questionable looking people hanging out. This is where I've taken many photos of boys jumping into the river for a swim, boats and ships out on the river, monuments to Soviet heroes, and the occasional bride posing with or without her new husband beside or on the afore mentioned monuments.

Now, this: A fountain where once existed only broken pavement and parked cars and the occasional carnival with broken down rides that needed painting very badly.

And this: Grass!!! Green grass!!! Flowers!!! Benches, many benches, just in front of the flowers, benches to actually sit upon and enjoy the view! You have no idea how much this excites me. :)

And this, too: More benches! And new street lights that are pretty and may actually work! And more flowers! And a boat! Well, the boat is not always there, and actually the view is a lot better when it is NOT there... :)

And this as well: behind the big monument with the ship on top of it (I've blogged that photo before and you can see that monument in the distance in the photo above this one) is this area with more benches to sit upon and enjoy the view. And here we see people walking along the river front, and a boat taxi taking people across the river and an 'almost view' down the river toward the Black Sea, and it was oh so nice to sit there and just talk and enjoy. :)

And these last two photos, taken from the bench upon which we sat, front toward the river and back toward the rest of the park, where in the distance you can see a group of women kind of between two trees. You have to just imagine what we heard - the sounds of pigeons cooing, boats chugging, wind in the autumn leaves above our head and those women wailing out songs at the top of their voices :):(Do you see how GREEN the grass is under all those leaves? And do you see the pen-pigeons? ha ha!)

Those women sounded a LOT like this, only more lively (they were drinking something in plastic cups). Actually, not bad, if you like this kind of music. :)