Day 41 - Looking Up :)

Okay, so basically since I got here to Ukraine, there's been this sheet of snow or ice or slush or puddles or something on the ground that causes me to have to watch my feet everywhere I go. But these last few days have been amazing! The sidewalks are clear (or at least more clear) of snow and ice and all that stuff that's been keeping my eyes glued to that grey and white path right ahead of me. Walking around Kyiv, there is SO much that I've been missing on all my daily walks. There are so many old buildings, that look like they've stood through many tests of time (and probably have). But right next to those old tattered buildings, there are these very modern, very shiny buildings that also stand out to me. I wish I could have taken more pictures yesterday on my small exploration of Kyiv, but I felt odd taking pictures of every building and thing that I saw. Anyways, I'll have to post some of those pictures later. (Oh which reminds me, I found my camera!)

Also, about my expeditions. Sometimes I have some time to kill but I don't quite feel like going anywhere in particular. On those days, I'll take the Metro to a random stop, then try to find my way to another stop a ways away. It's fun piecing together parts of this city that way. Honestly, I don't know which direction I'm going usually, but I figure if I stay around the center of Kiev, I'm BOUND to run into another Metro at some point. When I really need to, I ask a random Babushka (old lady), "Izvinitye (Excuse me), Gdye Metro? (Where's the Metro?)"

Yesterday, this one lady totally made my day, she was SO happy. When I stopped her in her walk (to ask for directions), she was looking up at the buildings around her and just smiling.. SMILING :) People around here don't typically smile unless they're with their family or good friends. On the street, it's basically an anomaly to see anyone really smiling about seemingly nothing at all. But she was, and when I said, "Izvinite," to see if she would stop and help, she said, "Zdrasvite!" to me and kept walking. I think she thought I was just saying a happy greeting, but then she realized that I was needing help with something, and she stopped and turned back to me. I asked, "Gdye Metro? Do you know?" She preceded to explain to me with a ton of Russian words (some I even understood!) and hand gestures to explain to me where the metro was. She seemed to be conversing with me, asking me questions or something. I just told her, "Ya ni punimayu.. (I don't understand) ..Ya Americanka," and hoped that would suffice. After talking a while longer, she spoke in English, "You understand?". I said, "Toot-toot" (a little) then I ended the conversation with, "Spaciba, Paka!" Looking back, I probably should have said, "Do svidania" (A more formal goodbye), but I think she understood. Anyways, after talking to her, I just kept smiling. My whole day was definitely worth it for even that one moment conversing with the smiley babushka :)

Day 39 - Root-beer Floats!

Probably the least most Ukrainian treat you could ever have. But Root-beer floats are the BEST. We went to the Page's (a family from our ward) house last night. I think Brother Page works for the embassy, which makes sense because he gets all this stuff from them (Peanut butter, baking powder, and Root-beer!) and they're apartment is reeally nice. I felt like I could really be back home in America while I was there. Maybe it was the pictures up on the wall, how they were set up, or maybe the fact that everyone there spoke perfect English (American English), or maybe the fact that they had Mini-wheats and other tasty cereals lined up in their kitchen. I'm not sure, but anyways, it was fun to talk and laugh and have a bit of an out-of-Ukraine experience for a while there. I wish I could have taken some pictures while I was there, but I seem to have misplaced my camera somewhere. I'll have to go on a die-hard search today for it, and then I can finally post those tour-pictures and then update you with my own pictures on all that's going on here in Ukraine!

Day 38 - Temple Trip!

I stole this picture from yet another website,
 which actually has some cool info; here's the link!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to the Kyiv Temple. It was such an amazing experience! I get to see the temple every time I go to church on Sunday's but it was a whole different experience actually getting to go inside. We went with our ward, which consisted majorly of ILP's, so there were a LOT of us (I think 24 girls and 3 or 4 guys total). It was neat to see little bits and pieces of Ukraine scattered throughout the architecture and structure of the temple. But ultimately what I enjoyed the most was that overwhelming peace and quite that I could find there. It was great to have the time to meditate, and I definitely walked out of that temple being more at peace and in love with life than when I walked in :) I'm so glad I didn't pass up that opportunity! And afterwards, we all walked over to the church for some treats, and THEN we helped clean up the church (which didn't take long at all). After all that, most everyone left for home and whatnot, but I decided to stay back and go find a piano to play for a while. I realized I know so few real songs on the piano by heart, but it was nice to even just play the children's songs (I was in the primary room) or just chords and doodles on the piano. After that, I finally made my way home.  

Day 37 - Gargle and Spit :P

So last Wednesday, I started feeling kind of sickly. I've just been sniffly, sneezy and super drowsy (I'm thinking could just be allergies). But my host-mom has been worried about me like I'm on my death-bed or something. I came home, and she let me nap for a while, which was good for me because I was really tired then. Then when I woke up she gave me some lemon/ honey tea, which was amazing. But then  (after much confusion and trying to figure out what she was saying) she told me that I should gargle this mixture of salt, baking soda, some sort of orange liquid, and water. She filled an entire teacup full of the stuff, and I didn't really have any choice from there. I was so scared to swallow the stuff, it seemed (and tasted) like some sort of floor-cleaning liquid; I was pretty sure it would burn my insides. I took a bit of it, gargled it, and spit it out as soon as I could. She wanted me to take longer gargles, so I took more (so I could get rid of it faster) and gargled it longer. That stuff was SO disgusting, but I eventually finished it off. (Okay honestly, I'm sure the gargling is doing some good, but it really is awful.) Lena said something to the effect that ideally, I should schedule my time right now to sleeping, eating, resting, and ultimately not leaving the house until I'm well again. I've tried to respect that (I missed FHE last night for the first time), but I really don't want to miss out on things just because I'm a bit under-the-weather. It is kind of nice to have an excuse to take it slow, but I think I'm failing at taking it that today (so far, I've been home for just over an hour and in about an hour, I should be leaving for the Page's house for a game night.) Anyways, I hope I get over whatever this is soon; I don't want my host-mom to worry, I want to be more wide-awake-alert, and I am really not looking forward to gargling more of that stuff.

Day 35 - Ballet at the Kyiv Opera House

Picture taken from someone else's blog :)
Turns out they're actually couple
missionaries from Moscow!

My host-family's car is finally able to drive (it was completely covered in snow for the past few weeks), so I got a ride from them to this Opera House where I waited around for a few of the other ILPs (Cami, Kaitlyn, Madeline, and Maddy). As usual, there were a lot of complications for everyone in getting there (they weren't sure which metro stop to get off at, or weren't able to find the metro), but eventually we all made it there. We had gotten tickets for the Ballet of "Sleeping Beauty" last Saturday while we were on our Tour of Kyiv with Tania, our coordinator. The inside of this building is gorgeous; I felt like I was in a castle (or a real legitimate opera house:) ) with all the marble flooring and beautiful architecture. We were directed first down-stairs, where gave our coats to this lady who hung them up and gave us a tag to get them back later (that's how it goes in most any public building here - ballets, museums, operas, cinemas, etc). The Ballet was amazing too. We paid about 30 grivna (just over 3 dollars), but I would have paid upwards to 10 dollars for how amazing it was. The ballet-dancers were so talented, and the music was absolutely amazing. One negative though, we were on the very top balcony, and the seats there were not the most comfortable there. Other than that, I have no complaints, it was definitely worth my time and money :) When the "Sleeping Beauty" Ballet was over, we went back all the way down-stairs to get our coats. The lady was trying to explain something to us, but it was really hard to really understand her. Another lady who spoke some English translated for us. She explained that the coat lady was trying to tell us, which was that there was a'NOTHER performance in 15 minutes that we were supposed to go to. We were all so tired at that point though, and we felt like we had already gotten our days worth of adventures (with everyone else getting lost and such), so we asked to take our coats anyways so we could go. The coat-lady took our tags, and gave us our coats. We thanked her and the lady who had translated for us, then headed out.

Day 33 - Kinder Joy!

I can not believe I have lived my whole life without knowing about these! Today was one-of-the-kids-I-teach's birthday and he brought goody-bags for everyone; which we all got after classes were done. I opened up my little goody bag and there was some chocolate and a juice box and this little egg-looking thing called a "Kinder-Joy". The kids seemed to know just what to do with these toys, but it was all new to me, so I had them show me how to open the plastic egg in half and use the tiny plastic utensil to scoop out the chocolaty treat from one half of the egg. The other half had a "surprise" in it, which was this little toy that I got to assemble together (kind of like a McDonald's toy). Mine was a mini-version of that ant game where you have to get the ants to jump into the pants (I think it's called "Ants in Pants"). Anyways it basically made my entire day :)

Day 31 - Operrra!!

After a long day of touring around and figuring out post office stuff and walking around some more with Tania, I was finally able to go home and take a short break. It felt like just as I finally found some time to sit and relax, I was up and going again to get ready for the Operetta (An opera with talking in it too, like a musical). I was really nervous because I didn't have a phone in which I could call the other ILPs (I could only call Sasha or Julia from Lena's phone), and I didn't even know what time or where we were all meeting up around there. It wasn't too far from home though, so I walked there while constantly asking friendly looking pedestrians "Do you know where the Operetta is?" or "gdye Operetta?" A few didn't know, but the others all pointed me in the right direction, and I was reeally grateful for them. I made it there pretty early, but just waited around for a while until I heard some english-speaking a ways off. Just as I thought, it was the rest of my group :) ...more to come later.

Day 31 - Kyiv Tour, Birthday Package, and PICTURES!

Saturday, we met up with a lot of other ILP's for a tour with Nelya (our coordinator). 

Tania brought me a package sent from my Mom with a ton of goodies inside!

One of my favorites was my cow hat that I got!

This was in the underground mall, there were a TON of things to buy down there, but this section of the mall seemed to have very traditional sorts of items to buy. 

(Most of ) us listening to Tania explain something about Kyiv. There's Cami!

If you squint your eyes real close, you can see a statue in the center of this picture that's supposed to represent a great leader of Ukraine. If I remember right, there're Soviet Guards on post there to make sure people don't trash the statue. 

Us walking on the street that get's closed for Saturdays :)

I don't know why the street gets closed

But we thought it was pretty cool :) 

This is the theatre that we ordered tickets at for the ballet we went to the next week.
(Look at "Ballet at the Kyiv Opera House")

I think something big was happening that night at the Kyiv opera house, because people were setting up this red carpet and lights and camera's while we were walking by. 

These guys were doing something up there, but I'm not sure what, that was right next to the opera house.

Statue of a really respected guy - I think his name is Voladamir? He did a lot for the building up of Ukraine. 

This is the old entrance to Kyiv (If I remember right, I'm feeling too lazy to check the facts on that right now)

Our group looking inside of the gate. 

Proof I was there :)

Proof others were there :)

Clint trying to lift the gate up. 

Adrienne and Maddy smiling for the camera!

From this point, our group could see two aMAZing cathedrals (St. Michael's and St. Mary's)

We could also see this statue from that point.

We also got to go into St. Michael's Cathedral, which has a whole entire amazing story to it. Maybe later I'll fill you in on some actual facts and info that I learned while I was there. Ultimately, the whole experience was great for learning a little more about this place that I'm calling home for the next three months. It really was awesome to understand the history and culture a little bit more.

Day 30 - Valentine's Dance

Friday night I went to a Valentine's dance at the institute building. I didn't get any pictures of the event myself, but here's a few that I stole from some of the other ILPs :) It was super fun, they had almost all the music in English, which was cool because most everyone (even the locals!) knew the songs and were singing and dancing to them. There was only one line dance that I know of, that was "Waka Waka", but it was fun to find almost everyone there at least attempting at the dance. Some of the locals knew it way better than us! (Actually, I hardly even know the dance, I just know it's a super popular song in America.) Anyways, they had games and food too and fuzball in the other room and it was overall just a great time. It was fun even just sitting around in the lounge area and chatting with other ILPs and the locals.

Day 29 - My Birthday!

I feel like I should write some spectacular episode about this oh so important day of my life. But really, it was just about like any other day I've had here in Ukraine. I woke up and hadn't even remembered it was my birthday until I went to my wardrobe sort of thing in the hallway. My host-parents, Sasha and Lena, had made a big card for me saying, "Happy Birthday!" on it with a big present of a picture. It made me smile, and I was determined that I would allow myself to have a pretty good day for the rest of the day. Maddy was still sick, so I had to improvise a lot, but on the way to school, I had this genious idea to do "kitchen" early that week (we usually have it on Fridays), because the kids LOVE kitchen, and they tend to be more well behaved when they know it makes a difference between cookie and no cookie at the end of the day :) Adrienne and Denae came and subbed for the 30 minute cross-over where we have the kids that overlap. The kids were pretty great though that day, and the activities I had prepped seemed to all work out, so things flowed pretty well through the school day.

Oh! And Nelya (my coordinator) gave me a box of chocolates that were SO tasty. The closest thing I could compare them to would be "3 Musketeer's", but they were fluffier and fruitier than what I know. After school, I stayed around a while to hang out with the others/ wait for my daily lunch to come to the school. We got the crepe-sort-of-things that have chicken and other tasty things all inside. I came back home and my host-family (and Julia's Tutor and the cleaner lady) all congratulated me on my birthday (I was thinking about it, it's kind of funny that we congratulate each other on getting a year older, or maybe it's just a Ukrainian thing, I've never really noticed before). I got some art-work from Julia and a really nice dress from Lena. The art work is something like a spider web drawing  with a ribbon to hang it from the middle, it sort of reminds me of a dream catcher. My dress is a gold color and would look really cute with a belt and leggings. But I'm not exactly sure how to wear it at the moment yet, because it's pretty short, and I don't really feel comfortable just wearing leggings with it. Maybe with some dark jeans or slacks? Anyways, its a wonderful gift, and I hope I can find a way to make it work with my standards AND find an opportunity to wear and show it off while I'm still here in Ukraine with my host-family.

At about 7:30, I met up with some people to go to TGI Fridays. As you may or may not know already, my phone is currently lost, and I didn't have any telephone communication devices in which to call people and invite them to come. I don't think the others will be offended though. We had a fun group though In the picture to the right, you can see from left to right Adrienne, Christina, Igor, Madeline, and Igor. The food there was great; truly American stuff, hardly a tint even that reminded me I was still eating food in Ukraine.

The whole time I really wanted to be sung to by the restaurant people. I asked Igor to ask if they do anything for birthdays. When he did, the waitress only asked for an ID to prove it was my birthday, then said, "Happy Birthday!" I felt gypped. I thought maybe they just needed proof to be able to tell me "Happy Birthday" or something. But later there was this whole group of waiters and waitresses that came out from the back. They were all so smiley, and at first I thought they were even singing in Russian. But it was an English song I think (Du Wah Diddy). At the end of the song, Adrienne got the perfect picture of me blowing out the candle on the ice cream they gave to me. We ate SO much dessert, but it was so tasty, and it was my birthday, so I thought it was a good enough excuse to just indulge :)

Day 28 - Domino's Pizza

After leaving Maddy's I went right to the metro stop near her house and made my way towards meeting up with people for pizza. I found Ciara and Clint and took a bus right to the Domino's where we met up with Christina. Eventually Igor met up with us there too. We compared stories and laughed at how awful Christina's day had been. We got barbecue and "American" pizza (the barbecue was my favorite) and then me and Christina decided to split another pizza. I ended up spending 72 grivna there, and looking back I really feel like I should try spending less money on "American" experiences and more on unique experiences to Ukraine and the other places I'll be visiting (Romania, Poland, Czech, and Austria!).

Day 28 - Sickly on the Metro

The day before yesterday, I was headed home with Maddy. She told me she felt really sick, so the trek to the metro was pretty slow. At the metro, she was looking really bad. She asked if there was a bathroom nearby, and I thought I remembered seeing a McDonald's (which always has bathrooms!) on the other side. So we went to McDonald's and looked for the women's bathroom. There was a guy standing next to it, my guess is that it was out of order and he was waiting to be able to go in and fix the broken toilet or something. After a bit of waiting, Maddy said we could just go. So go we did; we got through the doors and down the escalator and onto the metro. It was packed, so there wasn't any spot for Maddy to sit down. She was looking so pale and so out of it, but I really didn't know anything that I could do, so I tried my best to just stand there. It was so scary to me, I wasn't sure if she was going to puke or faint, but I was praying over and over that we could just make it back to her home safe. We got off the first metro but Maddy didn't think she could make it the rest of the trip, so we sat down on a bench for a while. I made some phone calls to let some others know I'd be late (to pizza, which is a whole n'other story) and then to find some taxi's that we could take the rest of the way from there. There was a ton of confusion when I was trying to talk to the taxi people. They told me the taxi would be there in ten minutes on the street (which I couldn't pronounce or remember for the life of me) so we walked up to the entrance of the metro and waited in there. When we got to the top of the escalator, I tried to find somewhere that Maddy could sit for a while. The only thing I could think was the wall, but there was a chair by this kiosk, and the man working there told Maddy she could sit there (through Russian geberish and hand gestures of course). He had really broken English, but he asked, "water?" Maddy nodded her head. I know she was super grateful. He asked aother kiosk owner to watch his kiosk while he ran out of the metro for a minute. I have no idea where he went, but he came back in less than five minutes with an ice-cold water with "gas" (which is like carbonated water). Maddy does not like carbonated water, but she drank it. From my knowledge, carbonation is good for nausea anyways, so I think it helped. It really made my day that the shop owner there was so willing to help. There are really a lot of great people here in Ukraine, and I am constantly amazed by those acts that I see at random most everyday. Anyways, we eventually (like after a few more phone calls and waiting around for what seemed like way too long) got the taxi. He seemed annoyed, I think it was because he had been waiting for us for a while; it took us quite a bit to finally find him on the busy street. Anyways, we got the taxi to Maddy's host-family's apartment. We went up the elevator and finally Maddy was home. She thanked me a ton for waiting around and calling people and talking to the locals; I know she was super grateful.

Day 28 - Lost Phone

Long story short, I know I had my phone when I was on my way to church last Sunday, and I know that when I was leaving the bus on my way home, I did not have my phone with me any more. I was certain that it had fallen out of my pocket at church or maybe on the bus (we were packed in that bus). I'm going back to the church today or Friday to check and see if it didn't make it's way to the lost and found, or if it's still there in the coat closet. As I've talked with some people I've sadly learned that sometimes when you leave stuff in the church coat closet, things tend to "walk" though. I'm pretty sure I just left it somewhere in the church, or dropped it somewhere on my way to and off of the bus. But ultimately, I think it's a good eye-opener for me that I need to be way more careful about where I leave my important belongings.

Day 27 - Post Office, Doughnuts, and Bums

Today was one of my first days being completely on my own in Kyiv. But honestly, it was kind of nice! I had to go to the post office to send some letters and a box. There were some people filming in the post office for some reason. It seemed to be a silent film or something, because all they did was record this guy putting stuff in a box then later him weighing it, then later him paying for the package to be sent. Otherwise, my time waiting there went really slow. The only other real exciting event was when I asked a lady if she had a pen I could borrow. I spent about five minutes trying to recall the Russian word for "pen" (ruchka), which at the moment, I couldn't remember for the life of me. I finally figured I'd just ask in English and try to pantomime what I needed. Turns out the lady I asked could in fact speak some English; she was so nice though, she let me borrow her pen and asked if I needed other help.

On the way home, I decided I should probably get something of a present for my host-family for Valentine's Day. I was thinking chocolate or a cute little card or something, but I saw a doughnut stand and thought, "Sure, that works!" So I got half-a-dozen doughnuts. It was a challenge to carry the box right-side up while not getting it squished on the metro, but I managed to get off the metro and up the escalator with the doughnuts and box all still intact. There was this bum sitting with a sign at the bottom of the stairs. I passed him and went up the stairs out to the street. About half-way up those stairs I had this idea that it might be nice to have given him one of the extra doughnuts, sort of as a Valentine's Day gift; but I didn't. I reasoned that I was too far and it would just be awkward to turn around and go give him one. But I promised myself that if that old babushka was sitting at her spot on the street near my house, I would give her a doughnut. I was secretly really hoping that she wouldn't be there because then I could fulfill the promise to myself and still not have to go through with my awkward action. I made it to the street and looked down the sidewalk; there she was, sitting right on that staircase (where she always sits). My heart beat faster and faster as I took the sidewalk toward her. I knew I had to do it, or I'd forever hold myself guilty for passing up the opportunity. She looked right at me, and then I knew I couldn't turn back. I didn't understand what she was saying, but I pointed at my box of doughnuts and asked "Would you like one?" She replied, "Blah blah blah blah blah, Da Da!" I took that as a yes. I opened the box and let her pick. She said some more stuff I didn't understand. I just said, "Pajalusta, Happy Valentine's!" and took my box of doughnuts the rest of the way home. 

I couldn't stop smiling at myself on the way home; it was SUCH an awesome feeling! I totally recommend it sometime, being awkward and giving gifts to strangers; haha it'll totally make your day :) 

Day 25 & 26 - Songs and Performances

On Sunday, we had a fireside where we had to pull together a musical number at just about the last minute. We had a piano player (my head teacher, Marie, is AMAZING at piano), so all we had to do was get maybe three or four people to sing a song with accompaniment. It wasn't hard at all to find four others to sing. They were SO willing to help out, and I was so glad! (Otherwise I would have had to sing a solo, and that would not be very pretty) We sang all four verses of "How Great Thou Art" (I love that song!)

After the fireside, some of us stayed after and sang around the piano for a while. It was fun singing English while some others sang in Ukrainian. I even tried singing some of the songs in Ukrainian, but I'm still reading like a five or six year old child, so I sort of mumbled my way through.

Okay, and Monday night, we got to go to this event at a Baptist Church. Adrienne and Danae's host-sister was playing in the orchestra there. The performance was in Ukrainian, but it was all about the life of Elijah (which we just happens to be what we're studying in Institute right now!), and they had all the lyrics translated into English. The choir and orchestra were amazing, you didn't even need to know what they were singing about in order to appreciate the music, but it was definitely a plus to try and read along in the Ukrainian and see what their words meant in the translation.

Day 24 - Napolean Cake and good ol' American Food :)

We made Napoleon Cake on Saturday! It was SOO tasty (even though we skipped about half of the steps on the recipe!) I'll put up the correct recipe soon though :) Here's pictures!

<-- Here's some of us watching Tania while she shows us how to make the Napolean Cake! -->

Recipe for this will be coming soon! What I can remember is that we mixed a ton of butter and flour (and maybe some other stuff like salt and eggs) together to make the dough.

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You knead it and roll it and then divide it all into 8 pieces, which your supposed to cool in the refrigerator for maybe a day-ish (so the pieces are tough enough), but we just threw them in the freezer for a while.

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Next, you're supposed to roll the pieces out reeally thin, as thin as you can get them. They should fit nicely on the pan you have too, so remember to roll so it has the right shape. To pick up the thin sheet of dough, we rolled it up onto the rolling pin (right) and then unrolled it back onto the pan.

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Once you've got the dough on the pan, poke it with a fork to make a bunch of tiny holes. Cook it in the oven until it looks like this --->

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There's the sauce too which is really important. But I didn't pay attention to how it was made. I just know that your supposed to mix the dry ingredient first (which we didn't do), or you'll get kind of lumpy sauce to put onto your cake (still tastes good though!)

Between every layer, spread out some of the sauce. Add layers until you've gotten to the last one. Don't put sauce on the very top. You're supposed to have it all sit for a day so the crunchy stuff can soak up all the sauce, but we didn't. It just tasted extra crunchy, but it was still amazing. I very very much recommend making/ eating some if you ever have the chance!





Napolean Cake Recipe!!

Napoleon:

4 cups flour

pinch of salt

500g margarine grated

cut in margarine and flour

2 eggs in the center - mix in eggs

Add up to 4/5 cup of cold water (not necessarily all water)

Knead the dough with the hands

Make a kind of sausage shape

Cut into 8 pieces

Refridgerate (in freezer)

Roll one piece out very thin - like a piece of paper

Roll onto rolling pin and roll onto cooking sheet

Cut holes in the dough with a folk and cook at 350 degrees until golden

(5-10 min)

With the help of a knife put the crust onto the sheet of paper and

cover it with another sheet of paper - you'll have a pile of crust in

the end

Cream

4 cups of milk – boil; add: 2 cups of sugar + 2(or more)  tablespoons of flour+2tb.spoons of starch - mix

2 eggs + vanilla – mix until thick

Cool cream and add 1 cup of butter

Bon appetite

Заварной крем 2

4 стакана молока, 2 столовые ложки муки, 2 столовые ложки крахмала, 1.5 стакана сахара, 2 яйца, 200 гр. масла.

В кипящее молоко влить смешанные с небольшим количеством молока 2 столовые ложки муки, 2 столовые ложки крахмала, 1.5 стакана сахара, 2 яйца. Охлажденную массу взбить с маслом. Масло добавлять не обязательно. По вкусу можно добавить в крем кофе.

Spread cream on each crust and finally press slightly all together with your

Hands

Day 22 - I love Music

Just a tip: when going to a foreign country, remember to bring a music player and a good playlist of songs. Sometimes it is really head-ache proning to not understand most any of the dialogue happening around you. Right now, I'm sitting at home trying to work on lesson plans for next week. Julia's watching "Lion King 3" (Which is the same as Lion King 1 and 1/2 in America) in Russian, her and the lady that comes to clean on Thursdays keep talking to each other, and it's difficult not knowing half of what's going on. I'm currently very grateful for my headphones and some good songs to listen to. Now off to those lesson plans... I've got to get those in to my head teacher by tonight :P

Day 21 - Sister Missionaries!

Last night I got a call from the Sister Missionaries and they asked me to go to a meeting with them to this family that speaks pretty good English. I was SO excited! I basically ran the whole way to the metro (I only had 30 minutes to get all the way across town), and had almost no trouble getting to our meeting point where we walked the rest of the way to the investigators' house. When I met up with the sisters, they gave me big hugs, I felt so welcomed! At the home, there was a daughter, mom, and their dog (Raisin). The daughter reminded me SO much of my cousin, Lexi. There was pie and tea and I really liked the conversations we had. They didn't have any tea we could drink, but the Sisters showed me how I could scoop some jam into the hot water and mix it around. It tasted so good! The family made pie as a surprise for us, it was pumpkin, and that was real tasty too. I was sad we had to cut the time off eventually, but the Sisters have a pretty tight schedule. We all walked for a ways back together. Oh! And I got to try sledding for the first time here in Kiev! The daughter had bought a little shovel-looking sled, and she let me try it out on this pretty steep hill. It was SO fun! I definitely recommend it whether your in Kiev or not :) After a bus and metro and some more walking, I finally made it home. It was such a great experience though. If I get the chance, I'm definitely going out with the Sister Missionaries again!

Day 20 - Toy Museum

Photo from http://my.kiev.info 

I went to the Toy Museum in Kiev with Maddy, Clint, and Mike yesterday. Clint had this paper with a ton of different museums around here on it, and we thought that might be a good choice. It seemed pretty cheap and close by. We had to stop and ask for directions a few times, but finally we found it in the back of this elementary school-looking-place. There was some confusion on the cost of tickets, but after explaining that we were in fact "studient"s (Russian for "student") we only had to pay 20 grivna total for all of us, which we thought was a pretty good deal. But going into the museum, I was a little disappointed. It was a hallway with two smallish rooms branching off with glass cases of toys from various era's in it. There was some pretty cool stuff, but there wasn't anything but my own knowledge and memories of my childhood to add to the museum. At most, it was nice to have the others there, because at least we could compare notes on what we thought of the various toys. Anyways, I'm not recommending this museum for any coming to Kyiv unless you've got 5 grivna and about an hour or less of your time to kill. Still, time and money could be spent way better at a Chocolate Cafe or something instead. :)


PS: Pictures cost 10 grivna to take here AND you can take just about any of them from online! So don't take pictures! 

Day 18 - English/ Russian Party

The guinea pig is in the pink blanket near the right of the pic :)

Sunday, we had planned on going to St. Michael's, but when your with a group of ILP's plans can very easily and very quickly change :) We ended up going to my friend (from Amanda's group) Janelle's host-family's house. She lives right near the church, so we only had to wait for the bus then walk for a while, and then we were there! I hadn't realized this, but I haven't really met anyone else's host-family yet, so it was a neat experience to see the similarities and differences. Janelle's two host sisters didn't speak hardly any English, (besides maybe memorized phrases like "Hi, my name is...") We helped cut up fruits and vegis for dinner and dessert. It was nice spending time with some of the others too. Janelle, Madeline, Maddy, Danae, and Adrienne were all their too. We played this game that seemed to be specifically made for the event of American and Russian-only speaking people being at the same home. We had to try to translate words they had on the cards to English, and then the family tried to translate words we had on cards to Russian. It was fun to see that they sometimes struggled figuring out the word "hair-dryer" as much as we struggled with a word like... Well, I can't really remember any of the specific words. It was really fun though. We had dinner, which we all agreed was AMAZING (though it was fast-Sunday, so that might of had something to do with it :). Potatoes and Chicken with cheese and cooked vegetables, and there was enough for everyone. Afterwards we all chatted, at times the dad (who can speak English pretty well) got lost though, because we would all be talking at once. It was fun getting to know the others there and the family though. Oh! AND they had a huge guinea-pig which the two kids just LOVED. They put it in a backpack and carried it around, or wrapped it up in some blankets. That thing had so much patience for those children, and they'd had it for more than half a year already :)

Day 17 - Circus!

On Saturday, my ILP group all went to the circus! We went with Cami's group too (I'm with Marie's group). It was quite a journey there and back, but the circus was definitely an awesome experience! There was a lazer-light show in the beginning, and a huge variety of acts all in between (acrobatics, comedy, stunts, magic, music, and so much more!) I'll be posting a video soon (or eventually) to show you a bit of what it was like :) Definitely classic circus though! Except there were no elephants.. I was sad about that. But they pretty much made up for it with all the other awesome things I saw there! Anyways, sorry such an awesome event has become so short of a post. Just know that it was great, and that I TOTALLY recommend going to the "CIRK" (Ukrainian) if you're ever in Kyiv!

Day 16 - Cheesecake with Lena

Sorry it's taken me so long! I'm actually gonna just synopsis the last few days, because I've only got so much time to write. In a couple hours, I'm headed to institute for my church, then going to a chocolate cafe with some buddies. But more about that later :)


Last Friday I made "cheesecake" with Lena (The same type of "cheesecake" that I had on my first morning here!). Here's the recipe for it, the measurements all seem relative, but that's probably because they are! A table spoon here isn't an exact measurement, it's one scoop with one of those bigger spoons. A teaspoon is the actual teaspoon too, so these are all round-about measurements. Hopefully it makes enough sense though :) Enjoy!

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Picture by my host-mom, Lena :)

2 Table Spoons (stalova loshka) of Sugar

1/3 Teaspoons (Chinaya loshka) of Salt

1 teaspoon of Vanilla Sugar

3 Eggs

1/2 Kg of Cream Cheese (about a smallish plateful)

First, turn the oven up high-ish (300 - 400 degrees Celsius) to get it warmed up. Mix Sugar, Salt, Vanilla in a small bowl then in a blender add that with three eggs and blend well. Blend in cream cheese until it all looks somewhat like melted ice-cream :) Pour that into a small bread-pan (we used one of those rubbery ones, but I think a metal one with some PAM or something would work too. Turn the oven down to 200 degrees (Celcius), then put the bread pan of the mixture in the middle rack. In 30 to 40 minutes, the cheesecake should be done. Check every once in a while by poking it with a toothpick, when there is no batter on the stick after you poke it, the cheesecake will be read to take out. 

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Saturday morning we had the "cheesecake" for breakfast. It has a pretty egg-y taste, but I really liked it. Actually my favorite way to eat it is warmed up in the microwave with some home-made plain yogurt on it. 

 

Day 15 - "Dream town"

Haha I thought this was a joke at first, the others were talking about how they had gone to "Dream-Town" to go bowling or something where there were these people in gorilla suits and stuff there. Later, I found out that it's actually a place. You can find Dream-Town over by Obolon in Kyiv Ukraine; it's a mall. So me and a few others (Maddy and Clint) decided to go see what it was all about. Really, it's just this gigantic mall (actually a duo of two huge malls) We only went to one, and we could only glance in most all of the stores, but it was quite the experience. On one end on the second floor, there's this "map" of the world. It was fun to see what represented each place. Like Oregon and Washington, they just had a bunch of greens and trees there. I'll have to post some pictures of it later. We switched off picking places to go into; most of the bottom two floors were clothes stores and stuff, but my favorite was the third floor. They've got a theater, iceskating rink, roller-blading, bumper cars, ice-cream, table tennis, and stuff I can't even remember. There were shops with board games, food courts, and a ton of photo-ops, though I only took a few. By the time we made it halfway across the third floor, I was pooped (we started on the second, then went up to the third). I had heard about this soft-serve ice-cream that was just amazing, so we all tried some. It was pretty good, but it didn't give me any boost of energy that I was hoping for. We walked the length of that mall about 1 and times, once for each floor, then decided we should probably head home.

Day 13 - Exploring Kiev!

Sorry it took so long to update! This was a trip I took I think two weeks ago now? So I'll see how good my memory is. The Picture to the left is just the metro we were waiting at when we were gathering everyone together to go.

I thought it was fun that we were all these bright colors among all the browns and blacks and white shades of everyone else.

I thought this was kind of a cool picture.

Kaitlyn's the one in red, Madeline's in pink, Maddy's in the blue, and the crazy one's Clint.

Picture of me to prove I was there :)

Clint being a bum

Some sweet benches :)

I think this is a statue of a poet. Clint's looking up at him, and Madeline's the one taking a picture.

Going into the Russian art museum! (more about that later)