The night before Wednesday (Day 76), I stayed up till 1 in the morning. I thought then that I'd just take a short nap and wake up on time (to watch my Mom's wedding over Skype at 4am). As you might guess, my nap didn't end up being all that short. I ended up waking up late (5:30ish). But I made some phone calls and at least got to talk to my Mom for a moment, and that was good. Anyways, everyone in the house started waking up within the hour, so I gave up on getting back to sleep at least until Lena, Sasha and George-o headed out for the beauty-exhibition (explained later). Eventually I ended up giving up on the idea of sleep all together and decided I would probably be able to function all right on the nearly five hours of sleep. I had already set up for a teaching sub at school that day, so I had a full day ahead of me completely free, though it was to be a very exhausting day.
At around noon, I decided to head out to the beauty exhibition that Lena and George-o were working at. It was a GORgeous day; warm, sunny, bright and ultimately absolutely spectacular. I really wished I had had a camera with me so I could capture some of the moments there, but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyways.Going across the river was probably my favorite of the moments. The last time I rode the metro across the Dnipro River, it had all been frozen and cold and I could see little dots of people walking across it on the ice. This time, the sun was shining on the water and I could see the Lavra's gold domes and "Big Mama" (the big statue by the Lavra) looking over the river. It was really an amazing sight.
After getting off the metro and walking some more, I finally made it to the exhibition site. Lena's assistant came and met me outside so I could get a pass to go into the exhibition for free. The whole thing was pretty mind-blowing; It was kind of like the fair back home, except instead of rides and other things, there were just booths and booths of businesses and people selling products and services; anything from hair supplies to nails to cosmetics (it was a beauty exhibition). It was fun being able to see my host-mom at her work, she demonstrated facial-cleansing products on a volunteer's face, and talked about stuff (though I'm exactly sure what) with the people who sat to watch and listen. It was nice talking to George-o there too. I found out (well actually just finally connected the dots) that he's the guy who created/ designed a lot of the products (or maybe all of them?) that Lena's business uses. He told me he would give me a 1% discount if I wanted to buy something there :) I said I would think about it. Lena's Italian tutor, Olea, was there too. She was there to translate for George-o when someone wanted to talk to him (George-o speaks Italian and English pretty well, but not so much Russian or Ukrainian). Olea knows 4 or 5 different languages, and she says she finds all sorts of jobs where they need her as a translator. Definitely something to look into; I just need to become a pro at this Russian-speaking or some other language first ;P
Anyways after a long while at the exhibition, I decided to make my way home. I was starting to feel extremely tired. In fact, on the way home I stopped paying attention to where I was going and ended up getting a little lost. Which stunk, because at that point I was having a hard time even putting one foot in front of the other. I had gotten off at a red-line metro stop, and instead of transferring to the green line below ground, I took the escalator up. I knew how to get to the station from there though, so I just had to walk a little extra ways to get there. Again, the sights and scenery were beautiful; I passed this big statue/ waterfall, and a huge dome coming out of the ground and I'm sure some other awesome stuff, but can't really recall any details like that, because, as you know, I was pooped. I did eventually make it home safe and well though :)
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