Work

I've heard from a few of you that all it seems that I do over here is eat and blog.  Well...that does kinda sum things up pretty well.  Todd (my boss) is insistent that I include a work picture or two in a blog, so today is the day you see some of my new clothes.  Let me remind you all again how much I loathe getting my picture taken.  And yes, I'm wearing makeup.
 





Our client is SASII, State Agency on Science, Innovation, and Informatization.  We can actually see our client's building from the 15th floor of our hotel and as I have mentioned before our team is able to walk to work.  We took these first pictures a couple of days ago so it shows up outside the building.  We were told on the first day that there are no pictures allowed inside the building, so I'm going to follow that rule and perhaps at the end, I can get a team picture inside to show our office space.

 

Today we took a different route and cut across one of the side streets which provided more shade (the Sun is very bright here) and allowed us to get a closer look at the yellow and blue church that we can see from the 15th floor restaurant.  I only got a peek at it and a quick snap shot on the way to work but on the way home we walked around it and I took a few more pictures.  I noticed that most of the women (not all) were wearing a head-scarf so I decided not to go in out of respect.  I did bring a scarf and will pop it in my briefcase so one day I can go inside and look, I'm told it's beautiful inside.  Just FYI for everyone...I may take a picture of a church's exterior to showcase the architecture of it, but I don't take pictures inside churches; for me, that is a sacred place for people to practice their faith and take solace in prayer and not a photo opportunity.  So if you're disappointed, sorry, but that's just how I roll.

Lunch was at a restaurant in the park and I'm trying to lighten up on the food intake - it's all so good here.  Soup and a salad and then a stroll around the park.  We noticed a giant statue so we went to investigate.  I took a picture of it and then a close up of the inscription to see if I could figure out later who it was.  Turns out it is Taras Shevchenko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko) - figured that out all by myself - who is a famous Ukrainian writer and is considered to have structured the Ukrainian language.  The garden around the statue is in the process of being replanted and a group of women were planting one flower bed.  I'm going to go back in a few days and see if they have finished and what it looks like.  Needless to say I was a bit surprised to see a women working shirtless, hmmm.. nothing wrong, just different.

I decided to check out the gym today, after all, most of you at work know that if I don't reply on Sametime right away it's a good chance I'm on the treadmill.  So off I went for 30 minutes just so I could indulge later on coffee and cake at a place that Cheryl (Colorado) wanted to try.  Seems bad coffee is universal or perhaps I just don't have an appreciation for coffee in general but the presentation was lovely and the dessert - let's see what adjective haven't I used yet - it was delicious!