wait, i'm here?

It took me all last week to pack and get ready to fly across the world. It actually took me until I was at the airport to be completely ready. Transferring clothes from suitcase to suitcase in the middle of the airport isn’t exactly fun.

My friends were over at my house until the wee hours of the morning hanging out with me before I jetted off again, leaving them once again. I was really sad I was only home a week, but that’s a week more than I would have spent if I had stayed in Utah. I spent a lot of time with my family, and I tried to spend what free time I had with my friends. We ended up making a pretty good week out of the 168 hours I spent there.

But after all of the preparing and stressing I’m here. I’m really here. And it’s still so hard to believe!

After I took a flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., and then an 8 hour flight from there to Frankfurt, Germany, and then had a 5 hour layover in Germany, I finally slept for the two hour flight from Germany to Kiev!!!

I met up with some of the girls in my group in Germany right before we boarded the plane. Sadly, we didn’t sit together, but after we landed in Kiev we had plenty of time to get to know each other. All of the girls are super nice and we all get along really well, which is great! We all live pretty far apart though, so that stinks. Cherish and I live together with a family that has three children. Our host parents’ names are Nastia and Andrei. Their kids are Danya (8), Marsha (6), and Tonya (3). They are little balls of energy! Nastia runs a kindergarten here at their flat so there are lots of kids here almost all day, climbing up poles, jumping on each other, throwing balls, you know, the usual.

So far we have had pretty delicious food. The night we got here we had potatoes, this meat patty thing, vegetables, bread, eggs, and an “apple pie.” I’m not gonna lie, food was probably one of the things I was most nervous about. Olga is one great cook though! There have been a few things that I have eaten and not exactly loved the taste, but most of the food is great. Today we had pizza at training and it was so different than the pizza at home. It was so scrumptious and light! And yes…I just said scrumptious.

Today we took the mashutka (I don’t know how to spell it) to our school and got to look around it. Then Cherish, Alexis, and I went with Oksana and Galya on the metro to head over to another school where our group was meeting. We spent the whole day there having training, and after that was over we had nap time. Thank heavens! During nap time I got to face time my sister, Kaitlyn! I woke her up and she wasn’t too happy about that, but it was obvious that she was stoked to talk to me. After we got our Ukrainian phones it was time for us to head back home. We took the mashutka and then the metro back to near where we live, then we hopped on the trolley to take us a little closer before Cherish and I walked through the long cobblestone streets and down the narrow broken stairs that brought us back home.

When we got home we had food waiting for us. More potatoes with some gravy and meat, delicious fruit that tastes like cantaloupe but better, bread, vegetables, and baby pears. It was great. Then we played with little kids and we learned a little Russian from Marsha, who kept telling us “No!” every time we would attempt to repeat what she said.

It was a pretty full day. It was really exciting though. I’m so happy to be here and really lucky too. The customs are different and everything is a little intimidating. But I’m learning and enjoying every bit of it!

I also have Ukrainian money now. And a metro card.  And some people talked to me in Russian asking questions, which I’m assuming means I don’t look too much like a foreigner. So I feel pretty good about myself. Oh, and Dad, there are blondes here! So there was no need to fret about me dying my hair. The only thing that makes me stand out is my lack of the Russian language…and maybe my polka-dot backpack.