Postscript
I've been spending the last week or two trying to proofread all the Blog posts so that I can have it printed and bound in book form to give to Ed and our grandchildren (when they are older). This was Ed's idea, and I've been resisting. But now that I'm finished, I'm glad we're doing this. It really was a great adventure.
The Blog ended rather abruptly - not because anything terrible happened, but because living life left little time or energy for writing about it. We spent another 9 months in Kyiv, traveling much of the time, including a month-long visit to the States where Ed had a knee replacement in August of 2007. We managed to take all the trips I talked about planning in the Blog (Morocco, Barcelona, London, Lviv, St Petersburg and Vienna) and many others too - Budapest, Tblisi and Talinn, Israel and Turkey, to mention but a few. Ed oversaw the opening of a third Public Defender Office in Ukraine - in a city called Khmelnytsky, west of Kyiv. This office, like Bela Tserkva, had an amazing Director, a dynamic and energetic woman who saw what needed to be done, and did it.
Ed was in touch with OSJI a few months ago and was told that the Project is still up and running - a major achievement, considering the political situation in Ukraine (Yanakovich is now President) and Yulia and Yushenko are both out).
We left Kyiv in December of 2007 and spent the next 15 months in London (with Belle, of course), where we managed to see about 130 plays (including a 4 day marathon of Shakespeare's Histories, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Roundhouse), and 70 ballets, operas and concerts. We didn't travel much because we so loved London. We had a wonderful apartment in Knightsbridge Village (on Ennismore Gardens - we even had a key to the private garden!). Every time I walked out of the apartment and onto the street I felt as if I was living in a Henry James novel. We were two blocks from Hyde Park and three blocks from Kensington Gardens. Belle has never been happier - she got to chase squirrels (off leash) for at least an hour on an average of 5 days a week. I fell in the Serpentine on one of those outings, Ed began work on the Great American Novel (aka Great Thoughts), his stab at a murder mystery/courtroom drama, and we both rode the buses and tube EVERYWHERE (we only took a taxi twice - once on Christmas Day when we had dinner with Laura and Portis and had to carry lots of food to the apartment where they were staying - the buses and tubes don't run on Christmas - and once when I had to go the emergency room at about midnight), ate lots of Pie Minister pies, went to the ballet or theater an average of three or four nights a week, stayed home and watched fantastic British TV on the other nights, visited wonderful bookstores, food markets and museums, had weekly private pilates sessions with fabulous Jane Burn, and saw many friends who came to, or passed through, London during that year. And we made some very good new friends whom we continue to see when we stop in London on our annual trip (well, three years in a row make it an "annual" event, doesn't it?) to the Edinburgh Fringe. In short, we had a wonderful time.
We left London and returned to the States on March 7, 2009. I wouldn't have missed our adventure for anything in the world. I can't wait for the next one.
The Blog ended rather abruptly - not because anything terrible happened, but because living life left little time or energy for writing about it. We spent another 9 months in Kyiv, traveling much of the time, including a month-long visit to the States where Ed had a knee replacement in August of 2007. We managed to take all the trips I talked about planning in the Blog (Morocco, Barcelona, London, Lviv, St Petersburg and Vienna) and many others too - Budapest, Tblisi and Talinn, Israel and Turkey, to mention but a few. Ed oversaw the opening of a third Public Defender Office in Ukraine - in a city called Khmelnytsky, west of Kyiv. This office, like Bela Tserkva, had an amazing Director, a dynamic and energetic woman who saw what needed to be done, and did it.
Ed was in touch with OSJI a few months ago and was told that the Project is still up and running - a major achievement, considering the political situation in Ukraine (Yanakovich is now President) and Yulia and Yushenko are both out).
We left Kyiv in December of 2007 and spent the next 15 months in London (with Belle, of course), where we managed to see about 130 plays (including a 4 day marathon of Shakespeare's Histories, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Roundhouse), and 70 ballets, operas and concerts. We didn't travel much because we so loved London. We had a wonderful apartment in Knightsbridge Village (on Ennismore Gardens - we even had a key to the private garden!). Every time I walked out of the apartment and onto the street I felt as if I was living in a Henry James novel. We were two blocks from Hyde Park and three blocks from Kensington Gardens. Belle has never been happier - she got to chase squirrels (off leash) for at least an hour on an average of 5 days a week. I fell in the Serpentine on one of those outings, Ed began work on the Great American Novel (aka Great Thoughts), his stab at a murder mystery/courtroom drama, and we both rode the buses and tube EVERYWHERE (we only took a taxi twice - once on Christmas Day when we had dinner with Laura and Portis and had to carry lots of food to the apartment where they were staying - the buses and tubes don't run on Christmas - and once when I had to go the emergency room at about midnight), ate lots of Pie Minister pies, went to the ballet or theater an average of three or four nights a week, stayed home and watched fantastic British TV on the other nights, visited wonderful bookstores, food markets and museums, had weekly private pilates sessions with fabulous Jane Burn, and saw many friends who came to, or passed through, London during that year. And we made some very good new friends whom we continue to see when we stop in London on our annual trip (well, three years in a row make it an "annual" event, doesn't it?) to the Edinburgh Fringe. In short, we had a wonderful time.
We left London and returned to the States on March 7, 2009. I wouldn't have missed our adventure for anything in the world. I can't wait for the next one.
posted by Susan Spivak at 2:49 AM
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