I just wanted to get these notes down so I never forget them.
Our Kyiv apartment, rented through AirBnB, has been great.
Our apartment
It’s a large studio with high ceilings, lots of natural light, thick walls, galley kitchen with breakfast nook, a sitting area with a vacuum tube TV, small balcony among leafy tree tops, queen bed, and a large bathroom with a tub bigger than our entire bathroom back home. Almost daily, we take our trash, compost and recycling downstairs, and at the end of the day, we carry drinking water back up.
The fountain where we get our drinking water reminds me to be thankful for clean drinking water.
We fill our water jugs at a fountain down on a nearby corner. We walk about a kilometer to the community garden or report for work, on our own schedule, to the nearby workshop, where wood is cut, fitted and stained for the many amenities being installed at Kontraktova Square.
The workshop with all the needed tools has been a great place to work.
We work where we’re needed, meet people, share ideas, connect, then stop at the grocery store on our way home, walking most of the way through a pedestrian only street.
I’ve been saving the inspirational quotes on our store receipts. Maybe someday I’ll write a post just about them.
Along the way, we enjoy the fountain and the flowers in the park.
We climb 90 worn steps up the old stairway in the 1910 building, taking plenty of time to appreciate some of the carefully preserved original fresco wall and the art deco elements.
A preserved fresco in our building.
Decorative designs in the floor, among the 90 steps up.
A local piece of art I appreciate in the hallway of our apartment.
At home, we prepare a simple dinner of pasta, vegetables, precooked roast meat, and pesto. Each night, after showers and before bed, we go through a mental checklist and pack our bags as if we’ll have to run from a fire in the dark, because we might. We cross the drapes over each other, as if that could help. I make sure my bedding is ready to go out in the hall. Bob has the right to feel that good sleep is too important to miss a night of it, so he moves to the side of the bed farthest from the windows.
Sleeping in the very well-lit hallway.
It’s a very simple life, though we do have WiFi and steady internet access, so the world is brought to us through our phones, whether we want it or not. Chop wood, carry water. The people are genuine here, there’s no act, no performance, no judgement, old souls. Get real.
