Tourist in My Own City

Kiev is a beautiful city, on a good day. Like today for example. The weather has cooled, a few clouds linger, and maybe some rain later, traffic's not clogging the streets. One could almost admire me living here. Andrew and I ventured out after his morning routines of eating and playing were complete. We headed toward downtown. I wanted to show him a couple of the famous monuments in Kiev, since he is a Kievite and half Ukrainian as well, he should know a couple of things about the place where he was born.

We got to Sofia's square and looked at the statute of Bogdan Kolmenitski. He sits in the square, which is not square at all, high up on a bronze horse. Old Bogdan is a famous Ukrainian hetman and Cossack and even though he has his own statue smack in the middle of the city he was a betraying bastard. Yes, he held back the invading Turks and managed to keep the Polish imperial armies out as well. But he buckled to Moscow and essentially sold Ukraine to Russia. He is considered a hero but not unlike many of the politicians here today he was just protecting his own private interests.

St Sophia Cathedral is a marvel. It is on the UNESCO cultural heritage list, and it stands large in the middle of the city. There were once 3 Sophia’s. One in Novgorod Russia, one in Kiev and one in Istanbul. The trail of Sophias maps the spread of Christianity throughout this part of the world. Kiev's Sophia is a massive building with old flying buttress support walls. Some famous dead saints are buried there and the interior walls have ancient Ukrainian graffiti of some religious sort. The best part of the site is the leaning bell tower.

On our way home we saw how Americans spend some of their tax dollars. Vice President Joe Biden was in town eyeing up the local beauties and living the highlife at the Hyatt across from St Sophia's where a room can cost upto 500 euro a night. And when you travel with about 200 people, well, you do the math. Andrew really wanted to test the security shield and insisted we get our asses over there. The VeeP was clearly not on site but was likely to be expected since it was nearly lunch time and close to nap time too. We sauntered in through the revolving front door past suited men and women all of whom looked very important with badges and brief cases. To make us look legit I inquired about the restaurant, looked at some hideously expensive watches under glass and then made our way back out the door back onto the street. At the end of the hotel drive cars were being stopped for security checks. We had to walk on the drive and not the side walk since the side walk was full of local police and more men and women in suits with badges and brief cases. As we neared the end of the drive I saw an American looking guy with a great big German Shepherd. I noticed the dog had a badge on its collar and I understood this was a police dog. I did not, however, understand it was on duty. Andrew loves dogs. When he sees one he says, Daddy, awf, awf. So I point to this dog and say, Andrew look! The dog lunges toward me. Thankfully the handler was on duty too and barked a quick NO to K-9 pulling him back to position number one. I apologized,for what, I don't know, nearly getting taken down by a 50 kilogram police dog, but neither the police officer nor the dog batted an eye. Andrew and I headed home.

It's the last time I try to crash the US Secret Service.

That's the news from here.