Fantastic Friday Fotos

Alliteration. Gotta love it.

We walked over to the Thorntons this afternoon for a team meeting and prayer time. Actually, we walked over to the big bus stop about a quarter of a mile from our flat and took a marshrutka down to the city center, not far from the river. We got off there and walked on over to Thorntons. It's about a 2.33 kilometer walk, according to the map I use to determine distances. For those of us who hear 'kilometer' and think "I wonder what that is in American?" it comes out to apx. 1.45 miles. A nice early afternoon walk in sunshine and cold temperature. I wore just my zip up sweatshirt and was fine walking, but it would have been pretty cold to just stand around in.

We also walked back to that same bus stop and then down the street a ways farther to a pizza place. Chilentanos has great pizza. I also had a very interesting salad - Feta Salad. I wish I'd thought to take a photo of it, but alas, I didn't. It was big chunks of feta cheese (we are talking over an inch square here!) in an oil season with slivers of hot, very delicious garlic (yum!), golden raisins, peppercorns, whole cloves, a few pieces of dried apricot, and a sprinking of fresh parsley. Sounds kind of gross, doesn't it? The feta was swimming in this oil with all the other ingredients. Maybe some kind of flavored vinegar, too - there was a tart taste to it as well. But it was delicious! I would never have ever thought to put those ingredients together. Fresh garlic and raisins?? Never! But I will now. I'll have it again some time - hopefully they will still have it!

It's a good thing we walked on home from there, after all that cheese and oil (no, I didn't eat the oil, but how do you get rid of all of it off the cheese??). Plus pizza. Plus a Nutella crepe. Mel and I split the crepe and he had some of my pizza. I didn't even fill stuffed when we left. It was just right, somehow.

So, all in all we walked over 10 kilometers today (apx 6.37 miles), broken into 3 segments. By the time we got almost home, I told Mel I'd broken off more than I could realistically chew, so to speak. I was trudging the last kilometer, one foot after another, after another, barely lifting them off the ground, in the dark, on very uneven streets, "sidewalks" and dirt paths. I didn't quite look like the Volga Boatmen in the previous post, but I was beginning to feel kind of like that! I came in the house, went in the bedroom, took off my shoes, and just collapsed on the bed for about 20 minutes. My only concern is that when I've walked like that in the past, I often get sick a couple days later. So, I'm praying that God will spare me and keep me healthy. It's kind of like my body uses up all it's energy reserves and caves in to whatever bug is going around. And they are going around right now! Silly me.

So, (why all these 'so's' tonight??). So, while we walked to and from Thorntons I took a few photos. And here is a sampling!

I have no idea who this dude is, and am not going to even try to decipher the fancy font his name is written in from a photo. But I really like the coat. In fact, I told Mel tonight after watching Zorro - there's just something sexy about a man in a long coat...We saw a bazillion cats today, out enjoying the sunshine and clear weather, I'd guess. These two were 'speaking' to each other in that amazing cat language that consists of "I'll stare at you harder than you can stare at me, and the one who stares the hardest wins." But mostly I took the photo for the road. I'll have to go back and get better photos of this road, I'll be there again without a doubt.Can you find Miss Kitty in this photo? ...Reminds me of the old televison program, Gunsmoke. I met Chester one day at a rodeo and got his autograph, but I digress....Ah! Here she is!As Mel and I walked over to Thorntons and then especially on the way back to the center, we kept getting black curls of ash dropping on us. There were black curls of ash all over the street, blowing in the breezes, skittering here and there. Some of it was up to 3 or 4 inches long. There were a few times when white ash landed on my dark blue sweater and I had to blow it off. Where did all this ash come from, you ask? Well, we have two seasons in Kherson, in all of Ukraine actually. Spring burning season and fall burning season. They have already decided that it is Spring burning season. Due to all the smoke in the air allergies are really bad right now, and people with asthma oftne have a very difficult time breathing when the wind blows in their direction. Here is a photo of the view across the river. And the say America has a pollution problem and needs to reduce her so-called 'carbon footprint!' Seriously - this happens every year and for several weeks Kherson is covered in black ash from burned reeds and grasses across the river.I really like the added ambience of the beer bottle in this photo - it just adds a certain pizazz to the whole scene.Not only were couples like the one in the above photo there watching the fires across the river, there was the traditional "wedding photos at all the war monuments" going on. I will never in all my born days understand why a woman would want her wedding photos to be taken beside tanks, canons, monuments to dead soldiers, and so forth and so on. I can hear Mel now - something about "today is our wedding day - the war has just begun!" :) :)I don't know who they are, but they do look happy, don't they, standing there in front of the eternal flame that was and now is not.As we were about halfway home, Mel pointed out this beautiful conjuction of the moon and Venus to me. I'd read about it at SpaceWeather.com - earlier this week there were 3 planets and the crescent moon. We didn't see that - but this was absolutely beautiful.

And finally, a photo that asks a searching question that seemed fitting after all the other photos today. I'll leave this with you to think about tonight - :