My Adventures Where in the world is ….

Winchester House door to nowhere

Door to nowhere

Tire planters outside our apartment.

Back entrance into school.

The Grand Plaza Hotel

Trampolines in the playland at the Grand Plaza Mall

More of the playland

The second floor of the Grand Plaza Mall

There are three levels in the mall. In the basement is a great bookstore. Although all the titles are in Russian it was fun to look and to see familiar looking covers.

Nice looking alleyway.

Priozerny Mall and the Central Renok

Center Renok and Eva

ATB – a grocery store that is kind of a low end cheaper store – it is where you can buy a packaged ice cream cone (with ice cream) for about 3 grivne about 10 cents

Bowling alley through the glass windows

Playland

More of Playland

This is harder to see as all my pictures were through the glass – if you can see the boy – he is on a zip line. There are trampolines in the back as well.

You can see the domes of this Church from the mall and I have often wondered what Church it was. We found out it is this beautiful “Holy Trinity Cathedral.” An ornate Russian Orthodox Cathedral.

Here is a close up of some of the art work on the front. We did not go in but even if we had we would not have pictures of the inside.

On the corner of the street across from the Holy Trinity Church is this equally beautiful building which is headquarters in Dnipro of Eparchy of the Dnipro Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate

Close up of this building has the words “Christ is Risen.” A common greeting at Easter time in Ukraine – before during and after Easter.

This very interesting “statue” on top of this building is a black horse and chariot. No idea what it means and the building is not marked – not even sure it is in use.

This is farther away and yes that is a “Beer Bank” Bar and the next building is a Sports Center then the unknown building. Notice the cars – new and old cars here and not much in between.

We found an ATB store and went in for ice cream (small cones for just about 3 grivne (about 11 cents) – when we came out I took pictures of the building across the street – it looks like a studio front – you can see the sky behind it through the windows. At one time this was probably an amazing building but now it is falling down.

The other end of the building seems like it might still be in use.

We walked to a bridge that is over a gully where there are people living and old falling down buildings as well.

Beyond the gully you can see the tall apartment and business buildings that are newer in the city.

Some buildings are falling apart – literally.

Close up of one

Then we walked down the hill and went to the Cascade Plaza – buildings on both sides are part of this last mall. The balls on the wires overhead are lights and the wires have hoses that sprinkle mists on very hot days. The balls on the ground are concrete and you can sit on them. You can also see the carousel and the buildings in the center which are restaurants and bars. The upscale grocery (Le Silpo) that we sometimes go to for specialty things is on the second floor of the building on the right.

An interesting sculpure at the mall.

Elder Morgenegg with the statue man on the bench.

Sister Morgenegg with the statue man on the bench.

Since this is Saturday and it is near the synagogue we often see Jewish families walking home. The synagogue is actually in the stair step building on the right about a block from the mall.

A yellow marshrutka bus. We have only ridden a marshrutka twice. Once with Pavel on the way to his apartment to have dinner with him and his wife and once home from his apartment. We usually walk or ride the tram.

After our big snow they shoveled the snow away from the edge and away from the building and it looks like a really big pile – not sure the picture shows it all but it was a lot of snow and I wondered how much stress it was putting on the balcony.

This was the first time Anna cooked for a mission event. She made a torte that was too pretty to cut with a map of Ukraine in Ukrainian blue and yellow and poppies. It was delicious to eat as well. Tortes are very popular here and most cakes have many layers not just two or three.

For our anniversary we went to Black Sheep Noodle Bar. Elder Morgenegg had coconut pork and rice. The pink egg is their trademark. It was really good.

At Black Sheep I had the spicy noodles. The side bowl is extra spicy sauce. I added it. It really cleaned out my sinuses but it was delicious.

A tribute to our mission driver, Aleks, by our very creative missionaries. The sisters wrote a poem and the elders acted it out with lots of adlibing. It was so funny everyone, including Aleks, was laughing.

More of Aleks.

Who knew Aleks could put up both his hands and his feet. Yes, there are actually two missionaries acting out Aleks.

For those who didn’t get the note in the fall last year this tree has what we thought were black walnuts. Turns out they are “conkers” and they are poisonous to us but they fall all around. There are lots of trees with these in the fall. Be careful though as they could cause quite a conk on your head. In the past there was some game using them on a sting. They are very pointy.

I bought this cereal the first time on a chance it would work with some marshmallows I found. Now from time to time I buy it and make the missionaries Rice Krispy Treats – Ukrainian style. It takes two packages to get enough. They only come in chocolate but I never hear complaints. The Ukrainian missionaries love them and one in particular is I think addicted to them. It is a new novelty for them.

On groceries – this is a box of lasagna noodles. Just like home – these are the ones you don’t need to cook first. It is the only kind I have seen here.

This is the only salsa I have seen. It is very inexpensive and fairly spicy. It has good flavor so I keep it on hand to make Mexican dishes with.

For Easter a sweet young woman I know in the other branch made me a little bag of gingerbread cookies.

Here are the cookies out of the bag. They were delicious so I asked for the recipe. She told me it was very complicated and took a long time to make but she sent it to me. It is very complicated and will take time to make but they were so good I want to try it anyway. It has sugar and honey and many spices. You actually cook the sugar until it melts (nothing added – just sugar) and makes a caramel sauce. I will let you know what happens and if I am successful.

Hatuna is a recent convert. She actually has a twin sister named Nastia (short for Anastasia). She always has a huge smile and is so friendly. She understands more English than she will let on though so it is funny to talk to her. She is darling. This was taken before her baptism.

In one of the tire planters outside our apartment they have pussy willows growing. Earlier they were the furry blossoms – I had never seen them later after the paws changed- they are feathery and soon turn to leaves and look like any green branch.  Here the Russian word translates “Kittens.”

A close up of the pussy willows.

Here they have walk signals that have a countdown on them (the traffic lights for cars also have this countdown – and it is for red and green lights) – this is how long til the light turns green.

This is a green walk signal with count down until it turns red. They also have a yellow warning signal with the green light before it turns red and before it turns green with the red light for the cars.

Today it was rainy in the afternoon and again after we got home but then we had a rainbow over the apartment buildings across Polia from us. Here is one side.

Here is the other side. If you look really close (assuming you can make it big enough) you might see a swift or two. We have been waiting for these amazing little birds to return and today we saw them for the first time.

Altered photo – I also corrected the lighting – for some reason the photos always come out very yellow in our chapel.

Before with some lighting change.

Final Photo