Day 127? - Barbeque, Flash Mob, Souvenir Street

Last night after FHE, Olia invited me to the International School's Barbecue today. We met up at about 12:45 and made our way there. I was expecting kind of a smallish school picnic, but it was HUGE! The school is really nice and they had caterers there with food from sushi to pizza. I really didn't feel like I was in Ukraine while I was there. There were people speaking English and German and Chinese and any number of other languages. It was really neat to be able to communicate with anyone and everyone around! I talked with people in line, I talked with people at the tables we stood at, I talked with people at the booths we went to... all in English! I think that's one thing I'm excited about in coming back home, being able to communicate and talk with anybody I please :) Katya gave us a heads-up about a flash mob that the kids had been practicing for, so we stayed around until 3:30, when all the kids danced to this fun song as a sort of present to the teachers. It was all a ton of fun to watch, and I got some of it on video! Maybe (someday) I'll post it! 

After the picnic/ barbeque/ party, we decided to make our way to Souvenir Street. It was so fun walking and talking and looking at all the paintings and trinkets and toys and decorations and clothes and tablecloths and everything that we found on that Souvenir Street. We were going to stay around until 9:30 for a 3D lazer light show (or something like that) but we were pooped by then. So we made our way to our various destinations home and I spent basically the rest of the night packing and cleaning and getting ready to go for leaving on Wednesday. There's so much to do!! 

(PS I've got a LOT of days to fill you in on from these past couple of weeks, but I haven't time to do that now, I will try to have everything updated soonish though!)

Day 119 - Angry Lady on the Stairs

At the beginning of this semester, I took this big old suitcase of supplies to the school I work at, and today I decided I should probably roll the empty suitcase back home. Rolling it over the sidewalks was way easier this time (before I had to roll a full suitcase over ice and snow. Now all I had to avoid were potholes and the occasional puddle). Carrying it up the stairs out of the metro though, I must have accidentally bumped this old lady, because she got SO mad at me about something. I can laugh about it now, but at the moment I was just scared. I said, "Izvinitye", but she just kept yelling whatever it was that she was yelling (sometimes I'm glad I can't understand these people :P). All I could do was walk faster and hope that all would be well. It was, I just hope that lady finds something happier about her day than me possibly causing her to fall down the stairs to her death (which is about what I imagine she was telling me :P). Anyways, I'm glad I didn't make her die, and I'm glad I finally got that suitcase home :)

Day 116 - Pipe-Cleaner Hats and a Long Walk Home

 

We had fun with pipe-cleaners at school today :) Then after school I decided to walk home (for reals this time). I went down towards the highway and found out that it's ACTually the start of this supposedly famous row of trees that goes right down the highway. I walked down the sidewalk that goes right between them all the way to the end, which is conveniently right in the right direction to the apartment! Here's some pictures, enjoy!

             

Day 115 - Not getting lost

I decided to try walking home from school last Saturday (School was fun! We had a party-day because it was our sixth day of school that week :P). I ended up getting quite lost, but I found some pretty cool sights! I don't know what the statue is below, but that was pretty cool, and right next to it was this big old park/ cemetary that I walked past. I forgot to take very many pictures, but here's a couple of the things I saw! In the end, I hopped on a city bus that took me right back to my home metro station :) That's one thing that I've realized; I'm never really lost in this city of Kyiv. All I've got to do is find my way to a Metro and vuala! I'm basically home already :)

Day 112 - Monopolia with Julia

Last Thursday, Julia got a new game from her Mom; Monopolia! Ha we tried playing by the rules, but between me not knowing what anything meant (it was all in Russian) and playing with a seven year old, I'm pretty sure we didn't get it all right. Anyways it was fun though, I practiced a ton of Russian, and I think Julia learned some new words in English :). AND I found out that a rule we were playing by on Tuesday in Monopolia was the complete opposite. (On the Chance card, when the beginning of a word had the Russian letter "p", we decided it meant you had to PAY the amount given. It actually means you get that much!) So that's why I was going SO into debt! :P

Day 110 - Rainy Day Games in Ukraine

I walked out of the temple today to this HUGE downpour of rain accompanied by some awesome lightning and thunder :) I only had on a t-shirt and a skirt/ shorts, and I did not feel like walking all the way home in the cold and wet :P So me and Larissa decided to wait it out over at the patron housing place just right next to the temple. We found this sort of game-room and looked at some games they had... Scrabble! We talked about how horrible we are at that game, but then we realized it was actually RUSSIAN scrabble :D We decided to take on the challenge, and it was a blast! Soon we were making rules like the "P" could be either be read "Rrr" (like in Russian) OR "Puh" (like in English) and it had to sound like a real word in any language. We forgot the second rule after a while and just made up our own words to go on the board. After a while, some of the people from Romania came upstairs into the game room too. One knew English pretty well, and we all decided to play Russian Monopoly :D It was SO much fun! None of us knew what anything really said but we made our own rules about it all. It ended up being a ton of fun and I ended up not doing so bad! (After going deeply into mortgage and then FINALLY landing on the win-all-the-money-in-the-middle-of-the-board space :) ). Anyways soon we had to go, but it was all a ton of fun! When we walked out of the patron housing, the sun was setting and all the rain had stopped, so the clouds were all pink and purple and grey, right next to the temple; it was a gorgeous sight!

Day 109 - Haircut!

Just kidding, it was only a trim to get all those dead ends off, but it was still exciting to go into a Ukrainian salon all by myself and just hope for the best! The lady cutting my hair knew enough English to ask some simple questions in English, but I'm not sure she understood everything of my answers. "Where are you from?"... "How long have you been in Ukraine?" "What are you here for?" The typical ask-a-foreigner sort of questions :) I enjoyed telling her a five minute run-down of my life's story while she clipped my hair up to focus on the first layer of hair. I made sure to tell her in a few different ways, "I only want a trim... OCHEN choot choot (Very little)" Heh I was so concerned that she might misinterpret and cut like five inches off or something. But she didn't, the lady seemed really nice and even related to me of a few of her friends that live in Chicago (or somewhere like that). Anyways, I came out of the salon looking basically the same as when I walked in (just with cleaner ends to my hair), so I was pretty happy about that. It cost me 40 grivna (maybe 5 dollars) for the hair trim, and then another 35 grivna (like 3 dollars) for something else.. maybe layers? Anyways I thought it was a decent price.

Day 107 - Flea with Gold-Shod Shoes

We went to the Lavra again today! I got to see some cool things again, and some stuff that I totally missed out on before. (A different set of caves for the Saintly Priests, the Micro-miniature museum, the plants and flowers that're all in bloom, and an Orthodox Service (first one I've been to!) Here's a few pictures:

 

 These are just SOME of the things that were on display at the micro-miniature museum. If you look close, you can see the little gold shoes on that flea... weird.

 

Day 106 - May the fourth... be with you! :D

In honor of May the Fourth, me and Maddy educated the kids today on the importance of Star Wars in the American culture :) We made light-sabers and watched a short clip from the original Star Wars movies. It was great :) Here's some pictures of us with us with our light sabers!