If you've lived in Ukraine for any length of time, the following sentence would seem a bit foreign to you, "I've spent the last two Sundays kayaking and biking through nature."
But that's exactly what I've been up to.
Kayaking pictures will be absent for the time being. In this mishap-prone land, I was just too afraid of losing my Uncle-Sam sanctioned Blackberry to the Earl Grey-colored waves of the mighty Dnieper. So, I must rely on my water-borne companions to email them to me. But to sum it up, we met at Hydropark Metro on the Dnieper, sauntered through a gaudy step-right-up booth wonderland reminiscent of the Jersey Shore into the forest and down a ramp to the kayak rental place. And they actually made us wear life jackets. I was impressed.
Out on the water in our kayaks, past the skinny beach, past the crowded beach, past the restaurant log cabin boats, past the club-exclusive beach, past the all inclusive beach, past the yacht club, past the helipad, past the squirming couples-in-blankets beach, the five of us found serenity on the quiet shores of scenes that are quite hidden yet still proximate of tourist-trodden Kyiv.
This theme was to carry itself into the following weekend.
Last weekend I found myself again out in nature, out in the middle of the Dnieper, this time on remotish Myromets Island. The Kyivan-familiar will now gasp as I reveal that I... ...was AGAIN IN SAFETY GEAR in Ukraine! I was wearing a helmet! We all were, in fact, wearing helmets! Every single one of us on the excursion. I know the Kyivan-familiar will now think me over-zealous, but let me be now so audacious as to reckon that one day soon, perhaps as soon as within two years, I will see Ukrainians wearing seat belts and using child safety seats!
It's easily accessible across the Moskovski Bridge, yet dead quiet and a world away from the car horns of the city. Myromets Island is a lovely place. It reminds me of a semi-rural expanse outside Oklahoma City or a meandering pathway deep inside Codorus State Park in Pennsylvania. Just out over the horizon, if one strains his eyes over the distant wall of foilage, one might make out a few stands of concrete tower blocks, or brilliant gold, glowing glints of onion domed churches.
We stopped beside the river bank, went for a series of swims and picnicked in the sun. I watched the river bank scenes of weekending Kyivans: a woman walking through a field, two dogs at tug of war over a discarded shoe, folks playing netless volleyball with a Soccer ball, an older man rowing his umbrella-holding wife in rubber raft down the river...
After lunch, the Ukrainians began playing the pyschological role game "Mafia" and I wandered off barefoot to investigate the sounds of the forest and watch the birds fly sideways, lazily fighting sleep.
