A Day Of Rest
Sunday, June 18
A day of rest – sort of. I spent practically the entire day catching up on my blog and publishing everything. Ed learned about his camera and took some photos for me to post on my blog. The only trouble is – they look really good!! Kharkiv actually looks like a lovely city in the photos, and in some respects it is, but the photos really don’t convey the disrepair and dreariness that pervade this city. I’ll have to take some of my own!!
I am really into listening to BBC Radio 4 on the computer. It's great - and also my favorite NPR programs, like Fresh Air and Morning Edition. It's a little weird having the sound so close to me (I'm used to having the radio playing through our bedroom speakers while I work on the computer) but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I don't think I'll ever need the wireless speakers I bought - this place is so small you can hear the computer streaming in any room! At least I was smart enough to leave them stored in Kyiv. Maybe we'll have a bigger place there, although I doubt it - I'd rather have location and niceness than space.
After the blog, I answered many emails, had a Skype conversation with Michael Oliver, and then unpacked all the cases and got everything organized so that the housekeeper can really clean tomorrow when she comes for the first time. I am anxious to have her scrub that oven clean all the kitchen cabinets. We're also going to move all the kitchen appliances and cabinets that are on the floor (each thing is a different piece - the stove, the sink, one cabinet, one set of drawers - and it's filthy between each of the pieces and behind each of them). I don't think she'll have to do this ever again while we are here. Somehow my own dirt and crumbs don't offend me - it's just the leftover grime from others that I can't stand!!
Before we knew it, it was 6 p.m. I took a shower and timed how long the hot water lasted – 5 minutes exactly! We were going to go out for dinner, but it turned out that Brazil was playing Australia in the World Cup, and of course Ed wanted to see that, so I ran out and bought a couple of tomatoes, a couple of cucumbers, sour cream, cheese, milk, water, and a new sausage, along with two different loaves of bread (the bread lady’s stall was practically cleaned out) – one is a typical dark bread and the other is a great sweetish kind of bread that reminds me of a cross between a challah and King’s Hawaiian bread. Quite delicious - and both loaves cost a total of 50 cents. It turns out that there is a little market right next to our apartment, but you have to go down a few steps to get to it. Very convenient, but the selection is not as good as the other two markets I’ve been to. This one is a real market though, in the sense that one person handles all your purchases. In all the other markets each type of food or product is handled (owned, I guess) by a different person – it’s almost like the little stalls that are underground in the metro stations, only they are all in a single space. One lady handles your meat purchases, another your beer and chocolate purchases, and yet another your fruits and vegetables - and the whole market is about the size of a large U.S. bedroom!!
We had a little supper while we watched the game and then had a good read in bed. At midnight we turned out the lights and, before we knew it, we were asleep.
A day of rest – sort of. I spent practically the entire day catching up on my blog and publishing everything. Ed learned about his camera and took some photos for me to post on my blog. The only trouble is – they look really good!! Kharkiv actually looks like a lovely city in the photos, and in some respects it is, but the photos really don’t convey the disrepair and dreariness that pervade this city. I’ll have to take some of my own!!
I am really into listening to BBC Radio 4 on the computer. It's great - and also my favorite NPR programs, like Fresh Air and Morning Edition. It's a little weird having the sound so close to me (I'm used to having the radio playing through our bedroom speakers while I work on the computer) but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I don't think I'll ever need the wireless speakers I bought - this place is so small you can hear the computer streaming in any room! At least I was smart enough to leave them stored in Kyiv. Maybe we'll have a bigger place there, although I doubt it - I'd rather have location and niceness than space.
After the blog, I answered many emails, had a Skype conversation with Michael Oliver, and then unpacked all the cases and got everything organized so that the housekeeper can really clean tomorrow when she comes for the first time. I am anxious to have her scrub that oven clean all the kitchen cabinets. We're also going to move all the kitchen appliances and cabinets that are on the floor (each thing is a different piece - the stove, the sink, one cabinet, one set of drawers - and it's filthy between each of the pieces and behind each of them). I don't think she'll have to do this ever again while we are here. Somehow my own dirt and crumbs don't offend me - it's just the leftover grime from others that I can't stand!!
Before we knew it, it was 6 p.m. I took a shower and timed how long the hot water lasted – 5 minutes exactly! We were going to go out for dinner, but it turned out that Brazil was playing Australia in the World Cup, and of course Ed wanted to see that, so I ran out and bought a couple of tomatoes, a couple of cucumbers, sour cream, cheese, milk, water, and a new sausage, along with two different loaves of bread (the bread lady’s stall was practically cleaned out) – one is a typical dark bread and the other is a great sweetish kind of bread that reminds me of a cross between a challah and King’s Hawaiian bread. Quite delicious - and both loaves cost a total of 50 cents. It turns out that there is a little market right next to our apartment, but you have to go down a few steps to get to it. Very convenient, but the selection is not as good as the other two markets I’ve been to. This one is a real market though, in the sense that one person handles all your purchases. In all the other markets each type of food or product is handled (owned, I guess) by a different person – it’s almost like the little stalls that are underground in the metro stations, only they are all in a single space. One lady handles your meat purchases, another your beer and chocolate purchases, and yet another your fruits and vegetables - and the whole market is about the size of a large U.S. bedroom!!
We had a little supper while we watched the game and then had a good read in bed. At midnight we turned out the lights and, before we knew it, we were asleep.
posted by Susan Spivak at 1:41 PM
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