Khreschatyk.

Last week wasn't too thrilling. I honestly do not remember what we did. So I'm pretty sure that must mean that there isn't too much worth posting.

Friday night I went out with the group and we all got shawarmas! And if you don't know what shawarmas are, then you are missing out on life. If you saw the Avengers,  you might remember Tony Stark (Iron Man/Robert Downey, Jr) saying something about eating shawarmas at a little restaurant. Well, if you were one of the smart people, you stayed until after the credits and saw all of the Avengers eating their shawarmas.

When we went out to FHE to the stop and eat Taia got a schawarma. So, of course we had to go back so we could enjoy the deliciousness. And we did. We had do much fun. Oh, and on the way there I touched a Ferrari. I was scared the man was going to get mad at me. But he just laughed. Probably because he couldn't understand what I was saying and I was just a smiling and laughing. I was just another dumb American girl ogling at the beautiful cars.

That's beside the point though. I got a shawarma and it was incredible.

Saturday Cherish and I got locked in again. We really need a key. So we watched a movie and ate potatoes. Then our family came home so we were finally released.

We eventually met up with the rest of the girls and had some delicious ice cream. I want some more of it. Then we walked around Khreschatyk Street and Independence Square. We got to see huge groups of people from all different cities in Ukraine practicing for Maidains which is this TV dance show and you compete and whichever group wins gets something big for their schools or city. It's actually pretty neat. But we got to see that and we walked all around underground and bought some souvenirs.

While we were wandering/exploring we found the bridge of love! It was so pretty! People go on there with their loved one and either tie a cloth onto the bridge or they get a lock and lock it onto one of the bars. It was full of locks and pieces of cloth tied on! When we were leaving we actually saw a bride and groom going onto the bridge to put their lock on it.

After we were done wandering we went to one of the school's and Samantha and I learned the Gangnam Style dance! We are going to make a video. Needless to say it will pretty epic. I'm excited for it.

Sunday I went to church and had a great time there. On the way home I heard a man playing "My Heart Will Go On" on the bag pipes and I think that became my new favorite version of it. The song sounded absolutely beautiful!

 
Welllllll, that's about all I have for now. My birthday is in two weeks! Well less than two weeks. October 21st is the day my parents were graced with my presence. I'm pretty elated to be spending my birthday in Europe. Although we are going to go eat Mexican. I know I should get some European food or something, but it's my birthday and I love Mexican.

 Samantha and I found Ukrainian sweatsuits!!

 The motorcycle we found.

 We got a little bored at ELE.

 We made spaghetti! Using token bags as pot holders. We know how to use our resources.

 Khreschatyk and Independence Square!

The view from the bridge of love!

 I love ice cream too much.

 I made a birdhouse for shop. It got made fun of...

 Sunset over Kiev.

 I WANT THESE.

Independence Square.



i love odessa.

Last week I taught Monday and Wednesday, taught ELE Tuesday and Wednesday, and hopped on a train with my group Wednesday night and was in Odessa Thursday morning. We had our first vacation!!! We had so much fun at the Black Sea!

I rode on a train for the first time. It was so cool! It was a sleeper train, so we had little bunk beds. Cherish, Alexis, and I were in a cart together with a random guy named Sergey. Our few Russian lessons came in handy when asking his name! At first when we got on we had tons of energy, but then we crashed. I slept surprisingly well for being on a moving/jerking train.

We stayed in a hostel in Odessa and at first we thought it was really sketchy, but once we got inside the hostel it was actually really nice. All twelve of us were in the same room on bunk beds, which might not sound very good, but it was a lot of fun! We liked being together. Or at least I liked being with everyone.

Thursday I got in the Black Sea for the first time! It was so cold. But I went in to about my knees. It was an absolutely gorgeous walk to the sea. It was a really long walk. But I am so glad that we walked it.

Later we met up with the other girls and went to a Mexican restaurant. I had been craving Mexican so I was really glad we got to go do that. I was super sad when we didn’t get chips and salsa when we got there, but that’s okay. Oh and that’s when I learned that restaurants take FOREVER to get your order and get your food out to you. And when I say forever I mean forever.

We had some delicious food while we were in Odessa. I ate like a major fat kid. It was bad. They had delicious everything. I spent too much money on food. It was bad. The good thing is we walked everywhere so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Friday we walked around the city and saw some great things. While we were walking around I found some great presents to take back to my family. It is so hard shopping for the people I’m taking things back to. I have so many options and I don’t know what they would rather have! Anyway, that night we went to the ballet! We saw Sleeping beauty. The opera house was beautiful. I can’t even put into words how pretty it was. I wish the pictures could do it justice, but they just don’t. The ballet was really great. We then went to an apartment of a friend and had apple crisp, brownies, and ice cream! It was the first time I’ve had brownies since I’ve been here. It was amazing. I was so happy.

Saturday we went to the beach and this time I went all the way in! It was pretty cold when I first started wading in the water, but then Samantha and I counted to three and went under! A bunch of us were out in the water and we ended up swimming for quite some time. It was so fun. After we finished swimming, Cherish, Hanna, Erika, and I all left to go back to the hostel to shower.

We got back to the hostel and had a dance party since we missed our Friday dance party. Our group came back and we went out for pizza! After pizza, we split into two groups of six and my group was taking pictures in a gazebo and these women came up to us and started speaking in Russian, then they realized we spoke English, so one of them said “Five minutes, crazy fun!” so of course we couldn’t refuse that! All of us went over there and joined the game and we didn’t know what was happening but then we caught on to what was happening so we actually did pretty well with the game. We were laughing the entire time.

After the game, we went out venturing for ice cream, in the process of that I got beat up with a giant ice cream cone. It was hilarious. A drunken guy picked up the giant ice cream cone that normally sits outside of the ice cream stands, and I’m guessing he was trying to steal it. But we were laughing at him and he saw us, so he came at me and he swung the cone at me. If I wouldn’t have ducked he totally would have hit me.

We got our ice cream from McDonalds. Original, I know. But the McFlurries here are to die for. I don’t know what they put in them, but they are different from at home. It’s ice cream, chocolate sauce, and then like a heath bar or nuts or something like that. It is soooo good.

Then we walked the city and Hanna found a Segway. She rode it around and got to check that off her bucket list! Alisha and Cherish found an alligator man and they got to hold the alligator! We eventually met up with the rest of our group and tried to find a karaoke bar. That was a fail. So we made our own music in the park in the gazebo.

The fairy tale came to an end on Sunday. It was so depressing. One of the girls twisted her ankle on the way to the train and Samantha, Taia, Erika, and I helped to carry her to the train station. We felt so bad. She was in so much pain. She is feeling much better now though. We had a great time on the train though. Ya know when you’re stuck in a small area for a long time while travelling and you go crazy? Yeah that was how we were. Nine of us were all in the same cart playing games, and I’m pretty sure the game wasn’t as hilarious as we thought it was. Well, there were some parts to the game that are still hilarious, but we were all a little out of it. Nine hours on a train is interesting.

Now I’m back in Kiev and back to reality. So fun. Just kidding. I really do like teaching these kids. It can get exhausting, but I have fun.

And by the way, Odessa is amazing. Everyone should go there. Not even kidding. I’ve never really heard anyone say that they want to go to Odessa, but now I just want to go back. I could definitely go back and live there

time to play catch up!

Alright, let’s see if I can remember what all has happened this week. I know it has been a fun week, but it has also been an absolutely exhausting week! [Just a side note…this was written September 23, so these events took place about two weeks ago. Sorry I’m behind!]

I taught my kids at school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. From what I do remember Cherish and I didn’t really give out any strikes, which means the kids were fairly decent. Don’t get me wrong, I am really starting to love the little ones, but they can definitely be little rascals sometimes. On Wednesday for one of our activities we did freeze dance. It was hysterical. First I had to show them what dancing was, so I had to dance for them. They got a kick out of that. Then I played the music for them and at first I had to help them dance by moving around their arms and stuff, but then they finally caught on to dancing and watching them was great. They all did their own thing and it was adorable. Next I explained to them that when the music stopped we needed to freeze. That was a little more difficult concept for them to grasp. They like moving around. After a few more times of me playing the music then stopping it and the kids practicing how to freeze I taught them a little dance. The funny part about teaching them this dance was that Cherish had to use the same music for an activity that she was doing later, and as soon as she turned on the music the kids started doing the dance that I taught them! That must mean they are learning something, right?!

I think my favorite part of the day when teaching is snack time. The kids always share their snacks with us and we don’t even have to ask. It’s pretty awesome. We end up eating some pretty delicious treats.

On Tuesday Cherish and I went to another school to talk to the kids and that was fun. We played hang man with the seventh graders and they got a kick out of watching us struggle to figure out the word. The second graders were a little harder to talk to, but we somehow accomplished talking to them for 40 minutes. Wednesday we went with another girl in our group, Taia, to another school to teach and it was fun too. I talked and played games with the 2^nd, 4^th, and 6^th graders. Being with the 6^th graders totally took me back to my year in 6^th grade. It was such a fun year. That was 7 years ago. Oh my goodness I’m old.

One thing I have come to realize since being in Ukraine and watching people on the streets interacting with each other and seeing kids in class interacting with their peers is that all people are the same. We have very different cultures, but when we get right down to it, everyone acts the same. We all laugh, we all cry, we all get mad. The people here just do it in a language I do not understand.

Speaking of the language…we started Russian classes this week! Yay! Our native coordinator, Oksana, is teaching us and she is pretty much awesome. I now know the alphabet and I can count to 10! I can sound out most words although I am very slow at it. Now I just need to know what those words mean! Hahah. I also learned a few sayings that are definitely going to be helpful when getting around and meeting new people and buying stuff from the small stores.

Oh and that’s another one of my favorite things about Ukraine! All the small stores everywhere! It’s so easy to buy things. You can walk down the street and go into the small fruit store, meat store, or mini grocery store. It’s so nice. I love it. And the women who run the one’s we normally go to know Cherish, Alexis, and me and they like us and play along with our game of charades when trying to buy something. They are super nice. They probably make fun of us, but that’s okay.

Friday night Cherish, Alexis, and I all ventured off to find FHE (Family Home Evening) somewhere in Kiev. We took the metro to where the green line and blue line intersect. I don’t know what it’s called on the blue line…something long and confusing, but on the green line it’s called Palats Sportu. It took us awhile to finally find where the building was, but we knew we were in the right place when we found the Ferrari dealership. Yes, the institute building/FHE is above the Ferrari dealership. It’s basically amazing. We were late to FHE so we missed the lesson and the treat, but we ran into Hanna, Taia, and Erika there so we all decided to hit the city together. We walked around and found a place called Stop & Eat to eat. The sign and menu were both in English, so of course we had to eat there. They actually had really good food! It was tons of fun. Then we got ice cream and walked around the streets. We adopted the new phrase “document it” because Cherish and I take pictures of everything, so whenever we did something funny or saw something cool we had to “document it”. I just shared an inside joke, so yall better appreciate it. I love those girls.

Saturday Cherish and I got locked in our house. Seriously, locked in. Our host family left and took the keys with them. We tried looking for spare keys and couldn’t find any. There were keys in one of the back doors but we couldn’t get the key to work. We aren’t good at working with keys.  There was a doggy door though, so we escaped through that. Well, we got out of the house and into the backyard. Then we tried to find a gate or a place where we could hop the fence. Yeah, no. There was not a gate and not a place to hop the fence. They have barbed wire and pokey bushes all alone the tops. We went back inside and were devising a plan to go out our second floor window and jump onto the scaffolding being used to work on the house next to ours Then we were going to shimmy down the poles and onto the ground. Then go to the front where we saw an opening where we could get down. Luckily, right when I was climbing out the window we heard someone come in the door. Our host mom finally came home! Oh and if you’re wondering why we were so desperate to get out of the house, we were supposed to be meeting Erika, Taia, Hanna, and Alexis at 1, and it was getting dangerously close to that time.

Well, we were finally free and we went off to go find the girls. We met them at the metro stop and went to the Roshen chocolate factory! Finallllyyy!!!! We got some good sweets then took the journey back to our house. They definitely agree with us that our stairs are super sketchy. We had a ton of fun at our house eating chocolate, talking, and watching movies. Later we even ordered a pizza! Well, Galya ordered the pizza for us, but we had to find the pizza men because they kind of got lost. Hahah. It was interesting. We had a ton of fun that Saturday.

On Sunday morning I went on a run for the first time since I’ve been here. I thought I would have a nice little jog to by the lakes. Well, remember the baths by the lakes for the crazy naked people? I thought that the crazies came out at night. But apparently that isn’t true. They come bright and early. I was treated to an eyeful of two naked old men. Fantastic.

We went to a Medieval Festival later that day with our host family and it was pretty fun. I found a knight in shining armor. Too bad he wasn’t attractive. Hahahaha.