Finally I am back to this thing. I think the last time I sent a message was in Simferople. Many things have happened since then including the end of our official trip and the beginning of my excursion to Prague.

Going back we left Simferople early in the moring for a village in Crimea called Bakchusarai (this is most likely mispelled in english as I only know how to spell it in Ukrainian). The town is where the capital of crimea was for a long period of its history and is home of Kahn Palace (not Ghangus Kahn but one of his cousins). We visited the palace and a place called cave town which is a massive complex of houses that have been dug into the limestone walls. The town is extremely old and was well fortified or protected by having a hiden gate and then a narrow corridor where if enemies did get through the gate they would be easily destroyed in the corridor. It was located at the top of a the canyon which Bakchusarai is in. On the way back down the hill we visited a monestary which was dug into the limestone walls and I drank (refilled my bottle) from the natural spring which was "holy water". We had a wonderfull lunch which was in the turkish style as many things are in Crimea and had an incredible turkish style Baklava for desert. Then we headed to Yalta.

We stayed in greater Yalta in a town called middletown when translated. It was literally in the shadow of Ay Petre (SP?) the most famous summit in crimea. We went to the top of the mountain and had our second shoslike (first was in Dnipro) at a local vendor. The trip to the top was by cable car which basically took us straight up after the second landing. There was one person in our group (Scott) who didn't make it due to his fear of heights. We then visited the Massandra winery which is in the Guiness book for having the largest collection of wine in the world and I believe sold the most expensive bottle of wine ever. We had a wonderfull wine tasting session and purchased some of the goods. the next day we visited the two most famous castles in the area Aluoka and Levadia. Levadia is where the treaty of Yalta happened which ended WW2. We then took the opportunity to jump into the Black Sea even though it was only 13degreesC. We left the next day and went to the Massandra castle and back to Simferople for lunch and some souvinere shopping and spent 4 hours in the airport waiting for our departure back to Kyiv.
Back in Kyiv at midnight. Had a good night sleep and headed out to a bull farm in the area. The farm was extremely high tech and I would say was better than most stud farms in the states. It was a good tour. That afternoon we had a chance to visit with a local veterinarian and he gave us the royal treatment with Kyivski Tortes and Champaign from Crimea. In the evening we went to an organ concert which was the last in a series of American organists. The concert was amazing with compositions of Joplin, Charlie Parker, Bach, and the ever so famous Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin being performed.

Our last day we went to Andrievski street to do our souvinier shopping. Theres a good story here but I will get back to it later due to time constraints.

The group left this morning from the hotel at 4:30 for the airport. We said goodbye to everyone and then Chris, Michelle, and I headed to Chernihiv to see some churches on a day trip. Tonight we depart at 8PM for Shemichel, Poland just across the border then we catch a train for Krakow. We will spend the night there and then tour the next day in Krakow and leave for Prague that night. So we will spend the nights of June 3,4,5 and 6 in Prague (June 2 on the train).

I'll be back soon I hope. I look foreward to hearing from people on my site.