My Adventures Where in the world is ….

Saturday night We cr decided to talk a little walk (almost a two hour walk) and go somewhere we had not yet been but not far away.  We walked north on the road by our apartment and the river – mostly on the side across the street from the boardwalk (or so they call it).  It was interesting and since it was a cool evening a good evening for a walk.  It was getting dark when we got home.  Here is some of what we saw.  Not as interesting as some walks but still…..

We had looked at the map on line and learned that there was an oil plant on the road we were going to walk – oil as in cooking oil. As we neared it we could smell oil – like McDonalds french fry oil. As we were passing the smell changed and was not as pleasant. The entire plant has high brick walls around it with barbed wire over the walls – guess they do not want an visitors.

Another view with the name in Russian over the building on the right.

These brightly painted storage units seemed out of place with the rest of the buildings all in grey and looking old.

Across the street some businesses – mostly for either shipping or cars. One is a detailing shop for cars.

A Volvo dealership.

We crossed the street as we got closer to home and walked along the river. Here is an interesting fountain. The last time we saw this one it was spraying all over the sidewalk and whoever passed it. This is much more contained – kind of a cool shaped fountain.

St. John the Baptist Church at night. I thought it looked so pretty with lights on it. We actually have seen it many times now.

So that was our short walk on a Saturday evening.  It is the first we have taken in a while.  It has just been too hot.  For the first 22 days of August it was over 90 degrees outside and for 14 of those days it was over 95 – it was just too hot to go anywhere so we had people over and just stayed home.  We do our shopping first thing Saturday mornings before the heat is unbearable and before the stores are crowded.  The store we shop at is open 24/7 and we like to go and get home by 9 or so.  That makes it much easier.  Then we have hibernated in our air conditioning.  These last few days have been so nice to be able to have our windows open and fans maybe going.  So much more comfortable – even if I am cooking.

By the way, I actually bought a muffin pan to make muffins in.  The first ones I made were banana with too ripe bananas.  Wonderful.

Saturday, August 5th.

This morning we went shopping like we usually do. We were out early as it was supposed to be in the high 90s. When we were going to the store it was not too bad but coming home I could really feel the humidity climbing.

Elder Morgenegg took an exercise walk and was gone a while and so I while he was gone I wanted to get our budget and finances caught up so that took some time but all is well and all balances so that is always a good thing. I guess I take it a little too far as I balance the checkbook and then I created a spreadsheet to track our cash as well as our other expenses while we are here. I think we spend more cash here than we did at home.

Then we did laundry and our usual Saturday cleaning.

Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention.

I wanted to make muffins. We had these delicious blueberries and I was so hungry for Andrea’s blueberry muffins but no muffin time available. One day I found muffin papers at the grocery and I bought them. Yesterday I was thinking, why not create something that would hold the muffin papers to create my own muffins. I took a Ukrainian version of a 9×13 pan and used used foil to divide it into three sections lengthwise. Then I put in the papers and they sort of fit. Then I made the muffin batter and topping. I carefully put the muffin batter in the muffin papers and added the topping. They are not exactly round but they cooked all the way through (in a longer time – between the oven and the situation it took longer). We will eat them latter. I am excited to try them.

Blueberry muffin invention

Not so perfect mufins

Do not send me a muffin pan.  I don’t know where they have them here but if they have muffin papers there must be muffin pans somewhere as well.  We will see if I ever see one.

I also made cookies. I had remembered cookies I have made from time to time – kind of like a sugar cookie but not so sweet. You cut out circles and on one circle you put a raison filling and then another circle on top. Crimp it and delicious filled cookies. I had not uploaded or saved my recipe so went looking for something similar. The filling only went for 13 of the 20 cookies so I used blueberry jam in the rest. The look delicious. I hope they are. They are bigger than I would choose so next time I will have to find a smaller cutter. I just used a round container from something we had bought.

After I cleaned up I suggested we take a walk.  It was seven thirty and I thought maybe a little cooler.  It probably was but it was still hot.  I suggested we walk up to the park that is not far from our apartment where the missionaries had their bubble activity.  Elder Morgenegg had been there earlier in the day and I had wanted to see what was called the “Palace of Students.”  The reviews on line were mixed.  Some said it was a must see, a few said it was a typical Soviet structure – beautiful in its day and now run down and falling apart.  It was both.  I was surprised how huge it is though the pictures on line do not do it justice in that way.

This is the entrance gate from inside. The entrance is actually on the street across from the park where the large church we went to a few weeks ago. It is also very near to the upper end renok we have been to. And it is around the corner form where our mission president and his wife live.

Our first view of the palace through the trees.

Here is the front of the palace. I think it is quite impressive.

The words basically say National University. It is another university – there are many here in Dnipr.

Across from the entrance is this garden with an interesting sculpture – no idea what it means.

Close up of the sculpture

A view of the entrance from farther away.

Going towards the back you can see somewhat how big this building is.

A view of the side shows the crumbling exterior

This may be an entrance or just the back. It reminds me of a scene in The Count of Monte Cristo with all the stairs. There is a group of people evidently a dance class of some kind. We watched for a moment before going on.

This is a view going down the hill from the back of the palace.

This is a picture of the lion statue in the back of the palace. I took a picture of Elder Morgenegg by it but it is too dark to see. So you need to imagine it.

As we walked down the hill we noticed that the ferris wheel on the island was all lit up.

We also saw three girls with an interesting looking item. We were not at all sure what they were doing. Two girls were holding a perhaps fabric item that looked almost like a heart. The third girl lit a fire under the fabric and it sort of expanded. I think it was a kind of hot air balloon. The third girl then took pictures of it. Interesting. Perhaps they were students and this was a project of some kind.

In reading about the university later I learned it is a preforming arts university that has lots of activities.   The pictures on line are varied and interesting.  I don’t know if we would ever go there or even if we could.

As we walked home the sun was almost down and there was lots of activity as always across the road at on the river walkway.

We came home and turned the air conditioning back on to cool off.  Thank goodness for air conditioning.  I feel bad for those who don’t have any at all.  It is just plain hot here and the humidity (although not as bad as New York) makes it hard to handle.

All is well and we still have lots to see and do.

Usually we stay at home on Sunday evenings but this last Sunday the Elders asked if we wanted to come and see what they did on Sunday evenings in the park not far from where we live.  What we learned is that there is a whole new world out there we had not seen and another way to get up the hill – kind of round about but still another route.  So we looked at a map and got some sketchy directions from the Elders (near the concert stand up the hill) and we headed off to see what we could see.  As we walked we heard the usual music – well not usual but still music and we looked over to the river walkway and the music stand was set up closer to our apartment.  At that moment there was a man playing the saxophone.  He was actually pretty good.  I stopped and listened while Elder Morgenegg hurried back to our apartment to retrieve my name tag which was sitting on my shelf instead of on me where it should have been.

Saxophone player – kind of in the middle between the screens under the branches of the large tree on the left – he is standing up.

As we headed up the road toward the bridge and walkway on our side of the road we also saw a double line of  hare krishna, mostly young women in long skirts with a few men along.  We have seen them before as well.  I didn’t take any pictures as it didn’t seem right but you can perhaps imagine what it looked like.

This picture mostly just shows how busy the walkway is on Sundays – non stop traffic of people walking along. The leaning tree is interesting as well.

As we headed up the little hill to this side of the bridge overpass you can see all the cars – they are actually parked on the side with the wheels over the edging. We wonder if there are damaged undersides due to the way they park.

After we got up the hill we walked up a very nice pathway we had not noticed the last time we were here and it was wide and nicely pave with stones.  We walked up not knowing if it was correct or not but found the concert hall and there were the missionaries across from yet another playground/amusement park with more blow up play houses.  They are certainly popular here.  We enjoyed watching the missionaries and the few members who were there interact with the children and also with their parents.  There was a lot of smiling and laughing.

Can you pick out the missionaries in these pictures?  Hint:  there are six elders and two sisters.

The little boy in blue actually dumped one bucket of bubble mix on the walkway. He had done that on another Sunday evening as well.

The large group gathered to watch.

This one little girl loved chasing them and her baby sister in a stroller laughed and laughed.

A really big bubble.

The concert hall that is on the walkway.

Inside the concert hall.

View across the river from the concert hall.

This is the island in the distance.

The statue on the island really stands tall over the waterfalls.

You can see the ferris wheel with the arches of the southern bridge behind it.

As we were coming in we saw they were sending supplies across on the overhead zip line.

As we were leaving they were loading up passengers to send across.

And there they go!

And they go over there.

Close up.

As we passed the walkway on the other side going home we heard what could easily have been square dance music. I am sure it was Ukrainian dance music and it looked almost like a Virginia reel type of dance they were doing.

We were not gone long but the missionaries and members were so happy to see us come.  We are glad we took the time to go.  We then made our usual Sunday evening popcorn and got to bed at a good time.

It was a good Sabbath day.

An evening walk along the river was just the perfect end to our Preparation Day this week.

As we entered the walkway I was struck but the brilliance of these geraniums. It was the light that was hitting them – they are a brilliant red but the light really set them off.

We walked south to the bridge that goes over the river to the island.

The sun is just starting to go down here.

I took too many pictures of the sun going down and hoped it would be a brilliant sunset, like the geraniums were so brilliant, but it was not – not enough cloud cover to make that happen but it was nice to watch it progress anyway.  I didn’t take a lot of pictures along the way as I have lots of pictures of what is on the island and along the walkway.

The sun continues to go down.

One of many boats we saw out on the river.

There is a small boat and a much larger one in the distance.

Close up of the two boats.

The sun keeps going down.

A young family was flying a little kite.

We have been to the top of this to see this ball memorial but I like the figures climbing up with the sunset behind it.

So as we walked south past the central area of the walkway there was a section actually at the base of the above ball where they had loud speakers set up with flashing lights and music playing.

When we were going into Manhattan to work at the temple they had a yearly dancing time.  I think it was called Summer Swing or something like that.  At first it was in the central area between the Opera house, the Symphony and the Ballet but later they moved it to an amphitheater outside the central area.  The main part was always enclosed and you had to pay to get in. It was crowded inside and outside and there were always people dancing outside as well as inside – because you could hear the music inside and out.

This reminded us of that as there were people dancing.  I think the music was a combination of ballroom, swing, salsa and other dance styles.  Perhaps on other nights it is rock and roll (as that is what we might hear) but on this evening the people were enjoying music not so loud and there were also a lot of people watching.  When we went by the first time on our way to the island there were two couples dancing.  When we came back there were many more.

Here is a far away picture where you can see how much area is available for dancing and watching.

Here is a close up. It is kind of dark but maybe you can get the idea.  The flashing lights are up in the left.  The other lights are along the walkway.

So now we know what is happening.  I think there are a lot of people who like to dance and a lot of people who like to watch.  There was a woman dancing with her little (like two or three year old) daughter and a little boy (about the same age) dancing alone and having a good time.  So cute.

After we got home we heard fireworks again but there were too far north for us to see them outside our windows and it was late so we didn’t get dressed to go see them – probably would have been done by the time we got there anyway.  Good evening!