work hard, play hard

May 16, 2010

Yesterday was a really great day!! Like I said before we have the weekend off from the hospital which is a great opportunity to see the city! Caroline and Frank went to the hospital to check on our one patient still left in the ICU (the BT shunt) and they said everything looks great! About 7 of us decided to go out and walk around the old city and try and go back to the market that was closed when Scottie and I walked there before. On our way we saw this restaurant that Alex (the 18 year old nurse) had told us about, so decided to stop in and have some lunch. It was kind of like a self service line so we could actually see what we were getting. They pretty much had any type of Ukranian food we could want. I got some sort of chicken and vegetables and then Katie and I split perogies, yum. It was a really neat restaurant, very authentic. We stopped back by the monastery so we could go in and take a look. This time we came prepared with scarves to wear over our heads. The inside was gorgeous and decorated with alot of gold, couldn't take pics in there though. Then we walked through the little outdoor park with the gorgeous views again where they sold the paintings and matrishka dolls (sp?). It was a lot more crowded with people today and there was even a little string band playing. I love hearing live music outside like that! At this point the sky was threatening rain so we tried to hurry across the river and make it to the market in time. When we finally got there they were starting to close up the outside stands but we went inside and it was soooo cool. It was a big meat and fruit/vegetable market. There were these ladies selling meat that were so happy and all they wanted was us to take there pictures haha. You wouldn't believe the type of meats they had in there…they had whole pig heads, cows hearts and lungs, and some sort of kidneys. They also had tons of fruit, so I bought an avocado to eat when it ripens later in the week. It was really a cool experience walking through the market, it was so different than anything we have at home. After we left the market it was definitely starting to rain so we decided to take the metro to a stop near this park we wanted to go to and find a cafe to wait out the rain. We found this really cool cafe with really comfy chairs and wonderful lattes :) It was all like hot pink in there, really funny. Scottie was trying to figure out how to order some sort of fruity drink so the waitress just made one she thought he would like and gave it to him. It was lit on fire hahaha. He said it was pretty good though we aren't sure what was in it. After we were done at the cafe it was perfect timing because it had stopped raining. We walked on to the park through what I am guessing was their fashion district because there were a lot of clothing stores. The park is called Gorsky park and it is also soooo kid friendly, just like the park near Freedom Square. There are carnival rides, games, cars, and much much more. We walked through the park for a while and then came to the purpose of our journey….the cable cars. I guess some people call them gandalas which I thought was just a boat on a river, haha. We all paid the equivalent of about $2 to ride on the cable car from this park to the botanical garden near our hotel. It was some really pretty views and a whole lot of fun. The baskets that we rode in were pretty small and a little bit scary. Dr.D even rode and he is scared of heights! It was definitely a cool experience. When we arrived at the botanical garden we walked down to the natural springs for the people that hadn't seen them yet. We decided to put our feet in just to see how cold it was. IT WAS COLD!!! My feet felt like they had pins poking in them our whole walk back to the hotel. I won't be dunking myself in there I don't think. Katie is still bound and determined to do it, so we will see haha. For dinner last night we went to a pizza place down the street and then to good old McDonalds for dessert haha. So overall we had a really good day of getting to know the city and sightseeing. It is nice having some time off, but I am anxious to get back to work on Monday.