Random Jumbled Monday

here's a view from the top of the hill where we rented an apartment. If you click on the picture, it's the pink building on the right, and just two doors down (next to that egg shaped wine-colored sign) we are on the second floor. what's amazing is how close this place is to the train station but it's absolutely silent, even with the windows open. Anyway, A wanted to go to a bookstore and we found one right up the street from this picture. It's a Russian bookstore and A was looking for an herb book. You will never guess what  we found...

A wondered if the Russian translation of our book woud be there. I picked up that green one in the back of the shelf up and said, I think our book looks like this one. A took one glance at it and said: that IS our book! They had three hardback copies marked at 26.95 euros, two dollars more than the american original!

after that weird discovery we took a walk into the "new town" but took a wrong turn and ended up in a very residential and rural neighborhood that had no commercial district. I probably should have taken some pictures because it was very different from this more cosmopolitan area of the city but i was too busy gawking at the unfamiliarness of it all. on one corner was a strange structure that looked like a wire bench but the part where you might sit was too narrow and there were several levels making it impossible for actual sitting. on top was a kind of scaffolding for an umbrella or an awning in case of too much sun...A surmised it might have been a place for selling produce to people coming and going from the train station across the pedestrian bridge. this makes sense because many of the houses we walked by before turning back had big gardens and little orchards in their yards. below is a view from the pedestrain bridge over the train tracks that separate the old town (which has all the businesses and the tourist area) from the more rural neighborhood. note the large statue.

an interesting apartment building in a part of town we hadn't been to yet.

A found this local restaurant and we had some of their hearty and delicious fare. A cold beet soup, potatoes, I was going to get the kugelis (a Lithuanian variation on the kugel theme) but they were out so I had a cepelin (not pictured) and A had another kind of herring that looked like it had gone from the net to his plate (also not pictured). The pink juice is kompot which is so good and with an inexplicable flavor. 

another walk this time up a hill with views of the city. not sure what that sign says on the below right. it's backwards because i was standing behind it. there are so many secret alleys and cut throughs and pedestrian bridges and parks with their little cafes. i don't think you could ever get bored walking here, it's just a tapestry, layer upon layer of visual and walkable delights. from here we headed back down the hill for dinner at a ukrainian restaurant called Kyiv.

on the way we passed a few planter boxes with little sprouts just coming up. Today was the first warm day probably in the 60s. I think you can see Lady's Mantle is unfolding on the left side of this planter.

Schav, more herring and cherry blinis.

an after dinner concert rehearsal was noted on the walk back:

there is so much music here. lots of people carrying instruments, sounds of songs wafting from windows high and low. there's just so much creativity here.

we stopped again to take a picture of the ghost of a Yiddish cafe our friend Eva showed us yesterday. Today it is still a cafe but called Gaspar's.

Continuing on to our apartment i saw this figure standing on a corner and said to A "I've seen that guy before". As we got closer Leonard Cohen made an appearance.

I just liked the way this store looked so i took its picture :)