Day 93 - Catacombs and Candles

Saturday, April 21, 2012

After the service project in the morning, I decided to go hang out with some ILP's who were going to the Lavra. I think this is my second time going now, but I still haven't seen half of all of it. I DID get to see the catacombs this time though, and that was... an experience :). We waited in this big long line where people filed in and through the catacombs. We didn't have to wait long, but when we got to the front desk, this lady tiredly yelled at us about something (it seemed like she was having a loong day). We were all confused, but someone translated enough for us to know that us girls needed to cover our heads. I think it is really important to the people for some reason that the girls do cover their heads, though I haven't really learned why (except a little from Tevia from Fiddler on the roof). This place we went to is a pretty sacred place for some people, and to them, it's respectful that the girls wear something over their heads when they're in those sorts of sacred places. Some of us didn't have anything to cover our heads though, so we had to get creative. Carly wore the wool-scarf I had stashed in my purse, and Hannah wore her extra cardigan over her head. Anyways we went down this really narrow hallway that we could only fit through single-file. Most everyone in front and behind us had candles that were basically our only light source for most of it. There were a lot of candles in the rooms though, so it was pretty well lit. Honestly, I didn't like being down there, it was too claustrophobic for me, and I didn't like the idea of these corpses just sitting right in front of me; even if they were holy people that once lived in those bodies. I think people really do find some sort of peace and comfort from the whole experience, but I was so worried about air-ventilation and the fear of getting stuck down there in those cramped rooms that I didn't really get that. I think if I had more knowledge, understanding and respect for the place it would have been a little bit different of a story. Mostly I can say it was pretty neat, and definitely and experience to be had. But for me, it's probably not somewhere I'll be returning again and again just for fun :P.

Day 78 - On the Run

Just started up running again today! I've been post-poning it because of the cold or because I have a cold or because it's too hot or because of any other number of excuses. But today I set a specific time I would go running, and decided if I was at all up to it, I would go at 4 on the dot. Lo and behold, my alarm went off at 4pm (16:00 o' clock on my phone :) ), and I was out the door with my sweats and tennis-shoes a minute later. It felt so good to run! I was told by some other ILP's that running in Kyiv is a sort of anomaly to these Ukrainians and that I'd probably get a few funny looks. The streets were crowded and there were no other runners in sight. So of course I got a few, but it didn't seem the kind of look that said, "What're you doing?!" as much as, "Hey a runner!". I'm sure I could have interpreted the looks as the former, but I'm happy thinking they meant the latter :). (I hope I've got the definitions of former and latter right, correct me if I'm wrong!) Anyways, I'm definitely going to have to keep up this running business, it feels great and I get to see a lot more of Kyiv that way! Today I got to run past Maydan (where I was on Wednesday). The place makes so much more sense to me now!  Before, all these areas were just that; areas and points in my head. Now I've got lines between at least a few more of those spots, and it is so nice to have better bearings on this place.

Days 65 - 72 - Stories and Pictures!

Day 65 - March 24 - Tour Bus!

Got on the tour bus and drove ALL day. Earplugs were probably the best thing I brought for that, I really slept okay for the night portion of our trip. We were at the border to Hungary for over 6 hours though! That was the night time though, so I got pretty good sleep until the passport people came and had to check our passports. We did make it to Budapest safe and well the next day though.

Day 66 - March 25 - Budapest, Hungary

Day 67 - March 26 - Vienna, Austria

- Pictures- 

Day 68 - March 27 - Dresden, Germany

- Pictures - 

Day 69 - March 28 - Prague, 

- Pictures - 

Day 70 - March 29 - Prague

- Pictures - 

Day 71 - March 30 - Prague/ Bus home

- Pictures - 

Day 72 - March 31 - Bus and Home!

- I'll update this post later :)

Day 61 - FULL Day

I love days like this, I was seriously walking and working and walking and going and being and thinking and walking and riding and talking and pondering and standing and always doing SOMEthing all day yesterday! Maddy was still sick, so I decided to sub for her myself by combining both of the classes and working the full three hour shift that way. I talked with Nelya, my coordinator for a while, then Marie, my head teacher, then food came, then we had Russian lessons, then I had to leave for the temple. I forgot all about food and eating something for dinner until I passed hot-dog stands and babushka's selling fruits and bread and other tasty things like that. I bought a 9 grivna little pizza at a stand near my bus stop, and enjoyed that. I eventually made it to the temple, and there, I met some super awesome people. There were people that had come all the way from Moscow, Russia or further to come to the temple here in Kyiv. They all had amazing stories, and it was fun getting to know those people. I loved being there, but all too soon I realized I had to head out to get to Julia and Anetta's house. The ride there ended up being WAY longer than I had expected (I think there was a car-crash on the road which backed things up quite a bit), but eventually I made it there too and enjoyed every minute of talking with them and their babushka and the sisters and some random others that came by :) I was suuper exhausted at that point though and had to work to keep myself upright and not slouching or yawning as we talked. We had some awesome discussions, funny, serious, confusing (mostly when everyone started talking and laughing in Russian :) ) and thought provoking, but again, I was cut off on time to spend there. We headed out at about 9:30, then I made my way home on the marshutka (little buses) and Metro systems.

Sorry for not a whole lot of detail, but I've only got SO much time in my day to write about it all! Maybe one of these days I'll come back and edit and write more specifically about all the events in my day :)

Day 43 - Snapshots (The Lavra!)

 Holy cow, I don't know what took me so long to come around to visiting this place. It's AMAZING! We went on a really nice day too. Yesterday the sun was out, and it was almost warm! Well, not freezing anyways :) The Lavra is way bigger than I'd ever imagined; and we only got to a portion of it. I could seriously spend a few entire days just going to the museums and stores and everything that they have there. When we went, most everything was closed (even the very famous underground catacombs that we were reeally hoping to see). I was talking to someone later and they said it was because they're preparing for an Easter Fast or something like that, so that's why it all is closing earlier. Anyways, even just walking around outside was amazing. We weren't sure if we were allowed to take pictures though, so we tried to limit the pictures we took to just quick snapshots, so sorry if all of the pictures are terrible quality! We're definitely going to go again :)

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 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 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 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 12 - Lena's Birthday!

Monday was Lena's Birthday! I had no idea what to get her, but on the way home, I decided to get a couple flowers at a flower stand in the market. I had to ask around a bit to find someone that would help me, but eventually I found someone that spoke English that was willing to help. She pointed me in the right direction of the flower stand (which humurously enough was just around the corner from where I was at at the time, and then I went. The people working there seemed really busy, but they let me pick out the flowers I wanted, I payed them to their price (which was cheap, but still I think I could have gotten the price down if I had time and wasn't so hungry), then went back on my way with a trio of flowers in my hand. Lena really seemed to enjoy the flowers, she gave me a hug and thanked me. We even got some pictures of Julia, Lena and me with the flowers.

Later on, we all started getting ready for going to a restaurant. I had no idea what kind of restaurant, but everyone was dressing in their best clothes. We got a ride there in Lena and Sasha's friend's car, and the whole time there I was joking around and playing with Julia. We got there and the table was set full of plates on stands with this really fancy food on them, I wasn't sure what everything was, but there were salads, meat, cheese, bread, fish, vegetables, and so much more I can't even remember. We ate sort of "family style" passing around the plates of food around, I was actually quite full at that point, so I tried to just take a little bit of most everything. It felt just like thanksgiving, except for instead of turkey and cranberry sauce on the table, the food was exotic. Anyways, enough about the food; I had a sort of "aha" moment on Monday. The adults were all sort of on their side of the table, and I was sitting down at the other end with Julia and a few others. I realized that when adults are talking to adults (in Russian) they are very hard to understand. When adults are talking to children, they use hand motions and facial expressions. I often feel like a child trying to learn this new language. I only know basic words, and I read very slowly. But I'm wandering if the reason children learn languages so quickly is in part because of the way people talk with them. They repeat themselves over and over and they make most all of their words into sort of actions. It was especially easy when they were talking to the little two year old. The little toddler could probably still speak way better Russian than me, but I actually understood what they were trying to say when someone was talking to her, which was pretty exciting for me.

One more thought; when Lena told me we were going to the restaurant, I was thinking "Great! We're leaving around 6:30, so if we eat even for an hour, we'll be back home by 8:30." But this meal was not a just-one-sitting event. People came and went (probably to take a smoke or bathroom break) and then came back again, but all in all, we were at the restaurant for around 3 or 4 hours. It was really quite an experience; people toasting every now and then to something (probably Lena, because it was her birthday and all), the kids entertaining themselves with dancing and running, everyone talking in Russian or Ukrainian (at this point, I'm still not sure of the major differences), and an overall very friendly atmosphere. We got home really late, but I was really glad to still be a part of the event.

Day 10 - Host-Family Time!

After the borsht party, I headed home. I was amazed not to have a single issue the entire time I was traveling. My host family and I went to the Cinema. We got there about a half an hour early, so we talked and joked around while waiting. I showed Yulia and Lena the "Crab Walk" which is the one where you shuffle your feet so they point in then out and in again while moving sideways. And some other fun things I learned from back home (Like how to make a dragon/ alligator face out of your hands.) They had a big Christmas tree still set up there (Ukrainian Christmas is in the first or second week of January) and me and Julia got our pictures taken in front of it. The movie was pretty good; they started it in English, so I thought it might be that everyone there just wanted to go see an English film, or that it was just the beginning portion or something. But then a speaker came on and explained something in Russian. Everyone in the old theater yelled and laughed while the now Russian voice-over's started playing over the video for them. The title of the movie was "Melancholy", well the Russian variation of the word, so maybe that gives you an idea of the feel of the movie; pretty much sad and depressing with the occasional touch of humor :) But we actually didn't finish the film, we headed out about halfway through, but that was okay with me. I really hadn't understood most of what was going on except that this lady that was getting married was having a ton of issues with her life. I'm sure it would make more sense if I understood the language, but I could only understand the real simple words like "Harasho" or "Da" (those mean "Okay" and "Yes").

Later that day, I had the opportunity to make some bread with Lena and Julia. We put all the ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and some other stuff) into the bread maker  then set the bread maker to the right setting so it would mix and cook. I got to see the finished product the next day; it turned out a little off and kind of looked like a car if you turned your head the right way, but it was bread, and I had made it, so I thought it was pretty good :)

Day 5 - "Concert" Party

Last night, Lena (my host mom) invited me and Julia to a concert that started at 7. We got picked up by a cab and driven down the street called Kreschatik. There were SO many sights on the way there! We drove past all these big buildings with lights. We drove past the Square with a huge column with an angel (or something of the sort) on top. All of the buildings were so old, and the one we went to was also pretty neat. We went in through this side gate and then through some double doors. Walking in felt like walking into an old movie with people all dressed up and chatting to each other, servers replacing food and picking up old plates and glasses. There was a table full of wine glasses, water, and juice. At first, I really felt out of place, like I had been placed in the wrong setting. But it felt like a truly classic night, we checked in our coats at the corner where we got this plastic oval looking thing with our coat-rack-number on it. We then sort of stood around and talked among ourselves while snacking on the appetizers. There were drinks there too, mostly wine, but me and Julia took Orange Juice and water instead. It was quite the experience, but "Fancy" is the best word I can think of to describe it. There was even this amazing pianist playing on a grand piano. And you have to know that here, real good quality piano's come very sparingly. Even at church last Sunday, all the piano's were electric; even the chapel organ! Anyways, the party was fun; I mostly talked with Lena and Julia, but it was fun getting to know them a little better. Julia was so goofy the whole time, she made up a song about my name, "Gracie not Crazy", except in her slight Russian accent, both words rhyme almost perfectly. Eventually, we went up these grand stairs to the concert hall to listen to this singer. He had an amazing voice, and he even sang some songs that I recognized. I started falling asleep part way through though (it was about 22:00, or 10:00pm, then) so we called a taxi and went home.

Game of Charades

Alright, so first I need to fill you in on some background. My sister's husband is Armenian, and his parents (up until recently) have been living in Moscow, Russia which isn't too far of a distance from Kiev, Ukraine. BUT they're currently here in America, and since last Friday, I've had a ton of opportunity to find ways to communicate with my brother-in-law's Russian-Armenian-speaking parents (Maria and Haroch). It has been a constant game of charades, but I feel like I'm getting better and better at it. Like last night, on our way back home, Haroch and Maria were trying to ask me something... "Blah blah blah fitness blah blah blah..."  At first, I thought they were talking to me about my shoes, because they kept pointing at the tennis-shoes I was wearing. We got home, and Maria told me again, "Blah blah blah fitness..." She made a running motion with her arms and legs, I thought maybe Maria was going to go running outside. I pulled out Google Translate (truly a god-send) on my computer, I typed in "Are you going running?" She read the translation in Russian then told me "No no no, blah blah blah blah fitness..." Then it clicked, I typed in, "You're going to the gym?" She told me "Yes!" So after about 5 minutes of trying to figure out what she was saying I finally figured it out. I went and changed to sweat pants and a t-shirt, then we went to the gym.

Culture Shock

Last week was absolutely crazy. I went to a few ILP meetings where they taught us all about what we should expect when we go to the Ukraine. Honestly, it was quite an eye-opener for me. I realized this trip isn't going to just be all easy and fun for me. The biggest thing that I'm currently worried about is that I could go through some hard-core culture shock after the first couple weeks of being there. The culture there will be completely different to America, I won't have any close family or friends near by, hardly anyone will even speak my own language, and I doubt there will be a whole lot that will feel just like home right away to me. 


The ILP people told us about four phases that we'll probably go through while we're there. I've sort of described them below (with some help from my notes and Wikipedia):

Four Phases of Culture Shock

1. The Honeymoon Phase - During the first few weeks, most people are fascinated by the new culture. They associate with nationals who speak their language, and who are polite to the foreigners. This period is full of observations and new discoveries. 
2. The Negotiation Phase - After a while, culture differences between the old and new culture become apparent and may create anxiety, frustration and anger.
3. The Adjustment Phase - After a while longer, you get used to the new culture and routines are developed. You know what to expect in most situations, and you can have a good attitude towards accepting the culture.  
4. The Mastery Phase- The culture feels almost like home, you are able to participate fully and comfortably within the culture. It's sad that you will ever have to leave.

Culture shock does seem to be a common experience among travelers. At this point, I am simply afraid of having any of the symptoms of culture shock hit me when I get to Ukraine (depression, irritability, anxiety, fatigue, disorientation, etc). I want to do what I can to prevent  and remedy any sort of home-sickness or culture shock I might have. 


Here's a summary of ways I can prepare and prevent "Culture-shock" when I finally make it to the Ukraine:


Before I go - build my appreciation of the culture.

• Learn more about the Ukrainian culture.
• Learn about the language and customs of the Ukraine.
• Find out about upcoming holidays and learn all I can about them.

When I get there - have a positive attitude about the new culture. 

• Get to know my host-family and the native people.
• Find the things that I love about the country.
• Spend time outside doing things.
• Talk with other Americans in the Ukraine that are going through the same things as me.