Today was a fairy tale!

Yes I just stole a Taylor Swift song to title this entry! But it is so true. I woke up with the sun at 4am which kinda sucked by I got a chance to talk to some people back home because at home it was 9pm there. anyways today we toured Kyiv. We had a private tour in English in this really fancy bus. The lady that was our tour guide told us so many wonderful personal yet historical things about Kyiv and Ukrainian indepence as we toured. Most of the satues we saw are of important Ukrainians that helped them maintain or get their independence at some point or another over the centuries. She told us about buildings that use to be used for something (like KBG headquarters) that are now used for other purposes. Since she heard we were a group of librarians and library students she pointed out special places on the tour that use to be or still are important or historical libraries. We saw the old University, St. Micheal's Cathedrail, St. Sophia's Cathedrail, a park that over looks the river and has a monument in the shape of a rainbow that symbolizes peace between the Russians and the Ukrainians, St. Vladamir's Cathedral, Outsides of famous museums, Golden Gates, an old Polish Catholic Church, what you could see of the palace from the street (not much) that is now used only if foriegn dignitaries come like our president, a musuem that use to dedicated to Lenon but is now used for other things, and some other buildings. Then we were going to go to the monestary but we didn't have enough time after an amazing lunch. So we hiked it to the metro (subway) and it was a hike to go to the boat tour. Ummm New York, Boston, and any other big subway community has nothing on the Metro here. Think of sardines and that is a Metro here! We took two very very steep fast moving escalaters down far far into the ground. Then packed on with locals into the metro and off to the river we went. The River cruise was amazing. We cruised down the Dnieper River to the Kyiv Reservior. We went through the shipping locks which was pretty awesome. We saw all sorts of wonderful things I wish the internet wasn't so slow so I can start uploading them but sadly the good connection comes and goes. I also took pictures of the money here but it still reminds me of monopoly!