More pics around the lavra

The beautiful Kiev Lavra

These are some of the awesome pictures that I took when several of us teachers went to a beautiful area in Kiev called the Lavra. The word lavra means underground monastery. This area of Kiev was founded around the 11th century by spiritual people who wanted seclusion from others. My knowledge of it is rather sketchy so even the small bit I do know can be questionable but this is the output from the small bit of information I was given and my poor memory. The area has several churches and cathedrals and as I was beginning to explain, several tunnels with rooms and small cubby holes. Several people considered highly spiritual or otherwise prestigious or deamed worthy are burried there (or rather mummified, but naturally, not by any chemical means) and can be seen in the tour. It's a really cool place. We carried bees wax candles for light. The women wear shawls and men are to have no head wear. We were only allowed in a small section of the tunnels and unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it because it wasn't allowed. I did however get a plethora of great pictures from elsewhere in the district (or whatever you'd call the area). These posted are just a small sampling but I'll post more. Everywhere I walked was entirely picturesque and I couldn't stop taking pictures and videos until I had used all of my memory card. This may have been fortunate because then I didn't have to feel guilty for not taking any more pictures of which were hundreds more to be taken. I loved all of the architecture, which was accompanied by beautiful paintings and perfect shades of greens, blues, reds, whites which aided in my inability to put my camera permanently in my pocket. I was just as intrigued with all of the people wandering around and tried to sneakily take pictures of countless others without being caught. You'll see that I didn't go entirely unnoticed by the revealing looks of some of those caught in the pictures.

More random goodness at the water museum

Some of the Joys at the water museum.

Sitting on the throne of thrones (forgot to put the seat down) and being put in a bubble at the water museum in Kiev.

My weekend in the castle city

Ukraine the great

This is my first Ukrainian post and it'll have to be really short. I have to teach in about 7 minutes and it's taken me about 15 minutes already to change the language on the websight for my blog into English and then reset my password which I'd forgotten because it's been so long since I've been on here. I'll be attempting to catch up relatively and then stay up on the game while I'm here in Ukraine. I've been here for about three and a half weeks and I'm just finishing up my third week of teaching today. Pictures will be coming soon and should be a staple once they get started. Pictures are better than rambling I do believe. I'll be back for a real update shortly once I deal with the loud group of Ukrainian children tromping around upstairs.