Day 102 - Old Town Village Museum

 

I got my first sunburn of the year on Monday!! :D My Summer can now officially start! :) We (about 20 of us) ILPs were out in the sun for about three to four hours. We saw this whole series of houses that they took from all over Kyiv and preserved there in this huge outside museum! We had to travel quite a ways to get there, but we DID finally make it! There were a lot of really nice and helpful people that we met on the way, and on our way out too! Like these two girls and a guy with a baseball cap that I met on the way in, it was fun to hear their stories and how they came to learn their English :) Anyways here's some pictures of the place, I definitely recommend it as a fabulous experience to have in Kyiv, just make sure to go on a nice day and BRING SUNSCREEN!

Day 100 - Mexican Night!

We went to a Mexican food restaurant this night called the Taquila House. I had a budget of about 40 grivna (About $4.50), but found that most everything on the menu was about 120 ($15) and up. I wasn't too hungry, so I just mooched maybe 10 chips from Mallory's nacho plate (which cost her about 140 grivna) and paid her the 40 grivna that I had budgeted for myself. So I have to say, the place is pretty pricy, but if you've just GOT to go out for some Mexican, the food wasn't bad.

Day 99 - Hedgehogs: Just the cherry on top!

After FHE, a group of us decided to get some ice-cream. We walked over toward Maidan Square; It was ALL lit up and so beautiful! I took some pictures (which I'll have to post later!), but it's definitely better to see it all in person (plus night shots on my camera don't always work out so well :P). There was this big fountain show by Kreshyatik, which a ton of people were all standing around and watching. We just walked by with our ice-creams, but even from across the street it was pretty amazing! We headed toward the Rainbow Arch over by the Dnipro River, but then took the left route up to this big pavilion sort of thing that was overlooking the river. There was this guy throwing fire there, and we watched for a while. It was nice just looking over the city and lights and cars and their reflections in the water. We talked and enjoyed the atmosphere, but all too soon we decided it was probably time to start heading back (some of them had an hour plus of time to commute back home).

As we walked down the sidewalk back down the hill, we saw this little round creature skittering across our path. At first I thought it was an abnormally round rat, but after closer examination, I realized it was a hedgehog! I just had to get a picture of it, so I did. But right as the flash for my camera lit up the night, that little hedgehog just froze. The others came up and were super entertained by it's complete immobility. Poor little guy, I was sure he was going to just keel over and die of a heart attack. Did you know hedgehogs could growl? While we were watching it, this big boom came from behind us! A couple of us jumped (me included) and turned around to realize there were fireworks going off somewhere past the Rainbow Arch across the way. We finally left the little hedgehog alone though and moved on. We walked over to the cement railing to get a better view of the fireworks, and right there just walking on his way, was another hedgehog. He was walking right up against the railing at the edge of the sidewalk; so cute! We only took a couple pictures of this one, then let it be. But what a life for those hedgehogs, finding ways to live in a park in the middle of a city like Kyiv, I wander how they do it? Those are some tough little critters for sure :)

Day 98 - Sidewalk Chalk!

We went to the park again today! This time we brought a frisbee and some sidewalk chalk. For the most part, we just sat at the fountain and enjoyed talking and basking in the sunlight. We got some icecream and people watched, and we sat and talked some more. It was a super chill atmosphere, and I really enjoyed it. Once the sun started setting in the sky, we were going to head out, but decided it would be fun to find a good chunk of sidewalk to decorate with our chalk. We walked a ways from the park over to this long sidewalk that runs right between the street and has a bunch of trees lining that. At first, we were pretty cautious about drawing on the sidewalk, we didn't know how people walking by would react. But then we got super into it, and I began to feel like a true artist. There were a few people that paused to appreciate it, and even kid and a babushka that came and traced their feet with the chalk. It was really fun just drawing and writing and expressing ourselves on the cement. We took pictures, but not on my camera, so once I get those I'll post them up so you can see :) My hands and hoodie and pants were covered with chalk by the end, but it was totally worth it.

Day 94 - Frisbee Man with the Bunny Rabbit Teeth

We had church at a different place today because of Stake Conference, so we afterwards a small group of us decided to go to the park, because it was a pretty nice day outside. There were a lot of cool things happening in the park that day; a bunch of boys maybe around 12 to 13 years old all with yo-yo's just yo-yoing to some music on a stage, little kids on Shetland pony rides, those little electric cars driving by on the sidewalk, bubbles, scooters, roller-blades, weird looking bicycles, a ton of little dogs... it was just a really neat atmosphere. And the kids! I don't think I've seen so many Ukrainian children in one place in my whole entire time being here! You only rarely see a kid with his mom on the metro or the street or market, but here they were just everywhere! Riding the ponies, doing all of those things I mentioned earlier.

We went and sat on these two benches that were pulled up parallel to each other and sat staggered so our feet were on the bench across from us. This old babushka started yelling at us, "Dyevuchka!" (A name I'm very used to being called here in Kyiv) Igor translated later, he said the lady said something like "What are you doing? You're putting your disgusting feet on the place that people sit!" She did finally leave when all of us took our feet down. When the coast was clear, we put our feet back up on the benches (we're such rebels!) and just kept talking.

We met some other cool people too, then there was this guy selling frisbees on the bench across the sidewalk from us. I was wandering if they were any sort of special frisbee, because my dad loves frisbees, and it would be neat to bring him one back from Ukraine. Our Ukrainian friend went and asked, they were just normal frisbees made in China. Later while we were talking I noticed the frisbee-man throwing his frisbee up and catching it. I told the others, "That guy is a salesman who knows what he's doing!" Carly said, "Oh he just looks like an old guy playing with a frisbee!" But he saw us watching him, and once he started talking to us, I knew we were in for a shpeel (sp?). He found out we were American and connected something in his book to that fact, though it was hard to understand completely because everything had to be translated through our friend. He told us all about it, really enthusiastically, but I just enjoyed watching him talk. He had the worst teeth! It seemed all of them were rotted down except his two front teeth, which were really long. It gave him an almost rabbit-like appearance, which sort of added to his effect as a salesman. He said if one of us went really far he'd show us something neat. He just threw his frisbee really hard, but explained that it was really good exercise. He connected that to his book too. Anyways, after his shpeel he asked me if I wanted to buy a book, I said "Maybe tomorrow, I have no money today". He walked away after that :)

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 93 - Helping Hands in a Kyiv Orphanage

My FHE group got to go to an orphanage this morning to volunteer! We were all divided up into different projects; some of us moved wood and branches off of the property, some cleaned up trash outside or planted flowers, some cleaned floors and held the babies. I was assigned to painting the windowsills and doorways in and going to the laundry room. We all got to wear these nifty "Helping Hands" jerseys to; on the back is written "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" (except in Russian or maybe Ukrainian?). We all looked so shnazy in our little jerseys! I felt SO cool being able to represent the Church in that way!  I'll post some pictures later (most likely stolen off facebook, because I only got one or two pictures of the whole event :P). Anyways, it was really a good experience for me for painting too. I didn't think it would be so hard, but I learned real quickly that painting is not something that comes easily or naturally to me. By the end I had paint on my pants, my shirt, my elbow, my hands, the bottom of my shoes, and some in my hair too! I got most of the easy-to-get-out spots cleaned up (like my shoes and shirt), but I have yet to fully scratch the paint off of my jeans and elbow :P. It was fun getting to know some of the others that I hadn't met before too, there are a LOT more people that speak English in my FHE than I thought! We all had a really great experience there, and I'm so glad I was given that opportunity, definitely a recommended experience if you're ever in Kyiv :)