KYIV

After attending sacrament meeting in Tuapse, we jumped on a train for the approximate 30 journey to Kyiv. We bought the cheap train tickets from Tuapse to Rostov (since this was during daylight hours and we would be sitting anyway). We sat next to a Ukrainian lady. At a train stop in Timashevck (just North of Krasnodar) this lady jumped off the train and bought 4 gigantic halves of smoked fish. She slapped the fish on the table of our little seating area and then wrapped them in newspaper, threw them under her chair, and went to sleep. Margo thought it was pretty interesting.

From Rostov to Kyiv we bought the LUX tickets, which means you're in a compartment all by yourself. As our final and longest train ride, we felt it was a wise purchase. We actually tried to buy these tickets at least 3 times, but kept getting denied because they were "ridiculously" expensive. The cashier lady would just say, "Oh no, you don't want to buy those." Well, it was worth it and they weren't that expensive.

This is the only city we visited that I hadn't been to before, so it was awesome for both Margo and I to discover on our own. Overall, we really loved Kyiv. Everything we saw was very clean and well maintained.

Once again, the Russian (or Ukrainians) know how to build a good monument. The motherland statue is amazing, the metallic version of the stone statue we saw back in Volgograd.

Some amazing ice cream was also a nice surprise. We saw a little ice cream stand outside the main train station when we came into town, so we thought we'd try it. It was so good. I don't know what they put in it, but it was some of the best ice-cream we've ever had. Luckily, there were dozens of stands selling this same ice-cream. We bought ice-cream at least 5-6 times in the 2 days we were there.

Spring was a great time to see the city with the trees blossoming and new flowers. Lot's of people were out on the streets for their National holiday.

A highlight of Kyiv was visiting the Temple. It was dedicated just last August.

This trip was pretty spectacular; truly an unforgettable time together.