The Spirit of the Radio

      I'm often surprised how Western Ukraine has become. It shouldn't surprise me because I've been living here for almost nine months now. But today while I was shopping at Novus Express, two songs came on over the sound system that surprised me. The first could best be classified as pop-country or country-lite. It's the kind of contemporary country music that gives the feeling of country music without talking about tractors and beer and old pickup trucks. The second was a hip-hop song that borrowed heavily (read as "stole") from Elton John's Tiny Dancer. I used to enjoy some rap back when I was in highschool. But now I don't care for it at all. Especially when they need to stand on the shoulders of musical giants to get their garbage heard on the radio. Can't they come up with something original instead of riffing on other people's work? OK, rant over.

     Anyways, on to the main point of this post. The one that has no relationship to the title of the post. I wanted to show a few pictures of one of the places I do my shopping. The convenience store behind my apartment building, called Novus Express is like a lighter version of the Novus down the street. This could be classified as a higher-end grocery store. The full-sized Novus is clean, big, spacious, and rarely crowded. It only takes a few more minutes to walk to and the prices aren't much higher. For all that, I've only been in Silpo once since I started going to Novus. Silpo is the store I took my mom to when she came to visit last month. By comparison, it's small, cramped, busy and has less selection. I'll gladly walk the extra distance for the better store. Plus if I feel like it, I can pick up pizza for dinner.

Dairy on the left, frozen and spices on the right, candy directly ahead.

Liquor in all varieties.

      Something my Pennsylvania readers don't get to see often is liquor and alcohol being sold in the same store as food and household goods. Here, in Ukraine, there aren't the same restrictions on who can sell alcohol as there are in my home state. In the land of Penn's Woods, all liquor stores are state-owned. So your average grocery store like Weis, Redners, or Super Walmart can't sell it.

Sugary drinks on the left and chips/juice on the right.

Dry goods are in the boxes in the middle (pasta, rice, flour). Prepackaged dry goods are on the shelves.

     This was only the second time I was in the Novus Express. The name really does say it all. It's convenient but I probably won't be going back. Not unless I need something immediately.
     Changing tracks slightly, last night, I went to a Russian Orthodox church for a youth event. One of the people from English club, Anya, and a few of her friends invited me along. At first I didn't want to go because of not understanding the language completely. But then I thought about it. I'm here in Ukraine. When will I ever get an opportunity like this again? So I went along. Anya graciously translated some of the more interesting and important parts of the talk. The event was held at the Holy Trinity Monastery of St. Jonas. It's located just south of the Rodina Mat in the M. M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden. It's definitely a place I'd like to go back to again when I have more time.
     The talk (what I could understand and what was translated) was somewhat interesting. The monk who spoke chose the topic of money. Since this is a youth event, the makeup of the crowd was mostly people in their 20's. Even though I couldn't understand everything, I did notice one glaring deficiency. The monk and his partner in the presentation didn't use any Bible references. On the surface, most of what I heard was Biblically sound. But without and references, it's nothing more than opinion and conjecture. Despite that, I enjoyed it. By the end I was getting tired of sitting for so long on an uncomfortable wooden bench. 
     To close things out today, here is my latest video on lunches I make. This time was more of an experiment to see what I could come up with. While I was walking around the store, some of the products just jumped into my basket begging to be lunch. Yes, mom, that includes the bag of salad I used as fresh greens.