Fireworks in Kiev

I arrived in Ukraine on Thursday as shown by the pictures on my previous blog. That evening about 10 pm; my friends said would you like to go to a fireworks show. I said sure I will go! Vitaliy, Anton, Tanyan and I left the apartment and walked to the metro (kinda like Marta, except really crowded). Apparently the kids in all of Kiev were celebrating something like prom (maybe). So many were dressed up in nice clothes and such. Anyway, we rode the metro and arrived at our stop. Tanya told me to stay close. We all linked arm to arm and it was sooooooooo crowded. There were so many people trying to get out of the metro station. It was extremely close quarters for a few minutes. The four of us held on to each other to try to make it out of the station, pushing our way through all the people. As we were coming up the stairs people were throwing elbows and such but the crowd was moving in a huge clump. It was really pretty funny. When we arrived, the fireworks had started already. They were huge and set to music. They shot them over the Dniper River!! So many people were there. There were four countries competing in the competition and each for 15 minutes or so. After that we met with Dima, Oxsana and Anya to take a riverboat cruise. It was probably about 12:15 or so by then. Way too late for me. And this is after continuous travel since Thursday afternoon. I made it though. We pushed our way on the boat because everyone was wanting to get on there too. We went on this riverboat cruise for about 1/1/2 or 2 hours and it only cost $8. It was a nice cruise! We all had a good time visiting. After the crusie we said our goodbyes to Dima and his friends and then Tanya, Vitaliy and I went back to the apartment. I was really feeling pretty awake but my body was saying:SLEEP!! I made a palet on the floor (they offered the beds but I said I didn't want to kick anyone out). I went to sleep about 3:30 or 4 am. What a long day!! I don't think I have ever been up that late on purpose before. We had eaten cherries for dinner!! They were yummy but needless to say the next morning Little D (another friend) came to visit me. It was 9 am which was pretty early when you had stayed up so late. I enjoyed visiting with him. Everyone else was asleep still so he took me to the bank (to change money) and then we went to the store to buy some sausage, cheese, bread and palmini (kinda like pasta) stopped by the fruit stand for more cherries, tomatoes, cumcumbers, dill; then went to the apartment to make breakfast but it was 12 pm by this time (which I guess was lunch). Everyone was still asleep so Little D woke those that wanted to get up and we had lunch. It was good and I was so hungry by then. Vitaliy was still asleep so the guys had a big pile on to wake him and then a few hours later we left to go to Zhytomyr. This was my very busy day. And I will pick up my story from our trip to Zhytomyr in a minute...