Spring Break: Istanbul!

I feel like when people typically hear the words "Spring Break" this image of beaches, drinking, and scantily clad women come to mind. Well get your minds out of the college gutter! When your Spring Break occurs during March in Ukraine, you kind of forget beaches exist since it is still pretty cold at that point in time and getting to any place with a nice warm beach was just out of my budget. I am not quite sure how we came to a consensus on Istanbul as our destination (because I am pretty sure we worked on planning it while still in Budapest back in October), we were pretty happy we did. We were lucky enough to find round-trip tickets for under $120 from Pegasus which helped to seal the deal on where we would go. There was only one thing my travel buddies and I were unhappy about: arriving back to Ukraine. More specifically, Donetsk. I'll explain about this more later.

Getting There

I have come to learn that living an hour away from my oblast center, and by extension the train station, is the most convenient in the summer time. Not so much in March. You see, there aren't many cheap flights from airports in Ukraine and when they are cheap, you probably don't live nice and close to the town with an airport. So begins my story.

Proper train food.

There is not a direct train from Nikolaev to Donetsk. This meant I had to venture outside of my little oblast to get to my needed airport. Since there was a train to Donetsk from Vinnytsya (the oblast center of one ofmy travel-mates, Elyse) we decided to take that train. My route involved a 1 hour bus to Nikolaev, 2.5 hour bus to Odessa, then a 6 hour train ride to Vinnytsia. One I got in, I met up with Kristin and Elyse and we ventured to the nearest supermarket to load up train snacks for our nearly 16 hour train ride.

We made it into Donetsk a little after 4 in the afternoon and had time to kill until our flight left at midnight. Since none of us had ever been to Donetsk and couldn't get into contact with anyone who lived around there, we did what most Americans would do in a big foreign city they didn't know much about: we searched for the local McDonald's. We tried to ask a taxi driver where it was, only to have him not understand our pronunciation of "McDonald's," so we tried many variations since none of us could really remember how it is said by Ukrainians. Once we got past this mild language barrier, he told us we shouldn't go there. The food is bad. You should go to that cafe over there. It is very cheap and tasty. But alas, our need of wi-fi, warmth, and familiarity won out. Since we still didn't know where it was located, we jumped on the bus we saw the most of and figured that it MUST go down main roads and therefore, we could see McDonald's from the window. If this plan didn't work, at least we could say we saw a small bit of town before going to the airport.  We were glad this plan worked and then we proceeded to spend the next few hours in the warmth and wi-fi-iness. After getting our fill of unhealthiness, we made our way back to the train station to collect our bags and then hopped on the marshrutka that would take us to the airport! 

Kristin and Elyse showing off our handwritten boarding passes

The airport was pretty uneventful, aside from being told that my Ukrainian visa had never been validated (I was missing a stamp! All I needed to do was make sure they stamped it when I re-entered the country. I found this funny since I had left and come back into Ukraine TWICE before and no one had said anything about it.) The airport was extremely Soviet and tiny. We hung out for a couple more hours in the cold waiting area before boarding our 2 hour flight to Istanbul!

Arrival

The flight was pretty uneventful and I pretty much slept through most of it. Once left the plane, we made our way to passport control, but not before stopping off to buy our visas. Oh, you didn't know that's how it works in Turkey? Well now you do! Basically you hand over your passport to the man on the other side of the window, pay your $20, and BAM! A visa just for you. Once we hit passport control I was held up yet again by the person who checked mine. I don't know, maybe I was looking particularly attractive during this 24 hour period to men working passport control. After a bit of teasing from my friends, we found our one checked bag and headed for the bus that would take us to town which was about 45 minutes away.

Elyse doing nothing out of the
ordinary for her.

We decided to hostel up in the Taksim neighborhood since most of the stuff I had read online said it would be cheaper to eat and go out if we wanted to in that neighborhood. Not to mention the hostels tended to be cheaper. We stayed at a place called Galata West where we wound up in a private room and enjoyed an awesome view from their top floor kitchen and dining room area. We were lucky enough that the people working were nice and let us check into our room WAY early without charging us (seriously, it was like 6AM!). I believe we napped for a bit, ate some free breakfast, and then headed out into the world to meet up with some other PCVs for a free walking tour of Old Istanbul.

The walking tour itself was okay. I mean, I've had better. It was nice to hear about the history of somethings that just appeared to be random, but something was lacking. What kind of made up for it, however, was when we convinced the tour guide to show us his favorite place to eat. It was delicious! It was a cafeteria style place with tons of options and not particularly touristy. We took note of its location for later in our trip :)

To be honest, I am not quite sure what else we did this day, but here are some pictures!

The oldest wall in town!

In the courtyard of the Blue Mosque

Going to Asia!
One of the PCVs we met up with, Linda, was really excited to visit this huge bazaar... on the Asia side of Istanbul. I have to say, it was a cool place, even if it wasn't super easy to find. To get there we took a boat across the straight and asked some people to point us in the right direction. What we learned in the process is that far less people seem to speak English on this side of town! Luckily, Linda had the name of the place written down and we showed to a couple of girls we stopped on the street. They we so nice! They walked us to the bus we needed (which was a couple minute walk in the opposite direction of where they were going), talked to the driver about where we needed to go, and sent us on our way. The driver, luckily, didn't forget about us and let us off in the right spot.

The place was huge and sold so much stuff. Food, clothes, jewelry, antiques, odds and ends, and shoes. While there, I totally invested in some homemade olives and a tasty spinach pastry.

Some pictures from this little adventure:

The Galata Tower from the ferry boat.

The Blue Mosque from the ferry.

Bazaar!

Going to the Hamam
So what is a hamam? It's a bathhouse! If you search for them on the internet while focusing your search to Istanbul, you will find some glorious picture of hamams. I mean, damn are they fancy. That's not the kind we went to. We avoid the tourist ones and did it local style! Basically, no one there really spoke much English aside from the ability to tell us numbers, so it made for a more interesting experience to say the least. We arrived after what felt like the longest walk in the world and were each given our own little changing rooms before being taken back to the bathing area. From what I knew about hamams, I knew the process involved laying on a big hot rock and getting scrubbed and rubbed down by someone who worked there. The woman demonstrated to us that we need to pour water all over ourselves and lay on the big hot stone in the center of the room. She came in about 20 minutes later with another woman and looked at us with a "Who's first?" look.  Did I mention they both came in wearing only bottoms? That happened. Elyse and Helen were first up only to lay on their stomachs and immediately have their bathing suit tops ripped off, prompting another volunteer to say "I am NOT taking my top off!" She wound up topless. It happens. We were all rubbed down, washed, and massaged. Not going to lie, it was a pretty cool experience, though next time I would love to test out one of the more touristy ones now that I've done it local style.

Istiklal Caddesi and Other Stuff
There was one day where we discovered the huge shopping street in the Taksim neighborhood, called Istiklal Caddesi. While here we noticed some movie theaters, bought some Turkish delight and baklava, and indulged in some American fast food. Arby's and Popeye's, to be exact. They day before we left, Kristin and I decided we needed to take advantage of the movie theaters so that we could see a movie in English (Ukraine dubs ALL films) and we wound up seeing Hunger Games.

This big street was also where we met up with someone Kristin contacted via Couch Surfer where he showed us a little tapas restaurant down one of the many alleyways. We all talked and enjoyed little bit of food and raki (mixed with water, of course.)

In addition to this street, we made it to the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, Topkopi Palace (oh my goodness so many freaking people!), and the Basicilica Cistern (way cool).

More photos, you ask? Oh, okay...

Inside the Blue Mosque.

One of the palace courtyards.

So many options for tea!

Preeeety.

Galata Tower

Topkopi Palace

Topkopi Palace

Topkopi Palace

Bacilica Cistern 

Medusa's upside-down head in the Basilica Cistern

Back to Ukraine
Our flight back to Ukraine was around midnight which meant we'd be spending a few hours in the freezing airport in Donetsk. Sleep on the plane was, once again, not great. I mean, how much sleep can you really get on a two hour flight anyway? We left the airport around 6AM via taxi since we just wanted the hell out of there and back to the train station to check our bags into the luggage area. Our train would leave at either 4 or 6PM, I don't quite remember which, but I do know that it probably made for the longest day of my life.

Memorial in Donetsk

Once our stuff was safely in the luggage area, we made our way to the American home-base: McDonald's. We hung out there eating and drinking coffee (at this point we had been up about 24 hours) and abusing the internet. We determined that if we sat around any longer, we would probably pass out. We ventured to the new football stadium where some Eurocup games would be held. It was pretty impressive, but we kept walking behind it only to discover a huge war memorial. We also found a little art gallery that was showing off photos related to HIV and TB. It was a great little free exhibit and I am glad we found it. There were some moving pictures for sure.

We kept moving on, willing the exhaustion to cut it the hell out and found an old Soviet Era fairy tale park that was pretty nifty and rather quiet. By this point I was getting grouchy, cold (it had started to rain), and hungry. We found shelter in a pizza chain and ate. After that I decided to head solo back to the train station to see if I could find a corner to sleep in while Kristin and Elyse did some more exploring. Instead of getting some sleep (which I couldn't do because of how cold the train station was), I started to feel sick from being up so long :( Eventually the girls showed up and we drank some tea, bought some food for the train, got on the train, and passed the hell out until Kiev.

Thanksgiving: American, Ukrained Styled

Yeah, I suck.
I string you along and get your hopes up with a string of posts where I update from memory, only to disappear again without a peep.

Sorry about that. I'd say that it won't happen again, but let's be honest: it will. We'll say it is in my blogging nature.

But hey, now that I am here, rather than taking the time today to look way back at what has happened (which I still plan on writing about), let's talk Turkey Day, shall we?

Just like last year, I was put in charge of organizing the Thanksgiving feast for my oblast despite the fact that it was held at another PCVs house in a nearby village. The only thing I really didn't have to worry about was finding the turkey for this year's celebration, that fell to Anne who brought one from her village last year. Two days before our dinner was to happen, I got a call from Anne telling me that she wouldn't be able to get one this year. They were all too small in her village and, therefore, not really worth the kill or money. I called my counterpart and Ukrainian friend and was told by my Ukrainian friend that her mom would find me a turkey and deliver it to me on Saturday morning. A 6-7 kilo turkey. I said it HAD to be that size or not one at all. I relayed this message to Anne that I was 80% sure it would happen. To be one the safe side, Anne would go goose hunting in her village in case turkey didn't work out. On Friday morning, I had my counterpart call my Ukrainian friend to find out for sure, in Russian, about turkey. We determined that it would all work out and that Anne didn't need to find a goose before leaving her village.

Jump to Friday night when I am walking to Josh's house from the bus stop with other PCVs and I get a phone call.

3 kilo turkey. Will be delivered 10AM Saturday morning to my apartment by my friend's mom.

Ukrained!

This was a problem. A 3 kilo bird for 10 people would not cut it. But it was too late. The bird was dead and set for delivery! When we got to Josh's house he made a couple phone calls and found someone who would sell us a goose the next morning at 8AM. Now that our meat plan was settled, we settled in for the evening with a party game and a bit of vodka chased with pickles.

Scene of the crime.

Saturday morning. I wake up to Josh in the kitchen getting ready to be picked up by his Ukrainian friend for the start of The Goose Diaries. The deal was that we could buy a goose, but we'd have to kill and clean it. A task that fell the Josh and Anne since I had to go back to my apartment and wait for turkey. While making pie crust and filling before leaving for the bus back to my place, I hear Josh and Anne's voices and think "that was fast!" Erin, another PCV, comes in and says "there is a goose in a bag outside." And sure enough, there is a live goose waiting for his end. Apparently, Anne had the task of actually catching the thing at the farm. The man we had bought the bird from did the actual killing with the chopping off of its head. Poor little guy. Sadly, I don't have more pictures of the cleaning since I had to leave, but when I returned the bird was feather-free and being blow torched by Josh's host mom over the kitchen stove.

While the last of the little feathers were being burned away, I put together a tasty cherry pie and came up with a plan of action for cooking two birds for dinner. I would put in the turkey first, then the goose would be cooked after. I was left at home with my counterpart who came over just before everyone else left to buy bleach for cleaning and to play football with Josh's students. A bit later, two other volunteers showed up, one of which was with his Ukrainian girlfriend. We now had almost everyone who would be with us for dinner! Once the turkey was done, I was slightly filled with terror since I had not heard/understand (she was speaking Ukrainian) how we should cook the bird. So I went next door and asked her to help me, which she did. After rubbing the bird down with salt and pepper and bringing me and apple for me to cut up and put inside of it with potatoes, she disappeared for a little while. She soon came back with a glass of beer and announced that home was boring. Josh's host mom is pretty awesome and loves me, so she was a welcomed addition to the kitchen (especially since she was helping to keep an eye on the bird!)

The rest of the day was pretty much just a cooking party. I made green bean casserole from scratch and assigned mashed potatoes to one PCV and gravy to another while I rested my back on the couch. We also had some stuffing made from scratch as well. Desserts consisted of my cherry pie, a pumpkin pie, and some chocolate chip pumpkin bars. And, of course, wine was involved. Everything was very good and we all wound up stuffed with food. Both of our Ukrainian guests liked the food, with my counterpart wanting the recipe for green bean casserole. Lilly loves my cooking and baking skills :)

All in all, it was a pretty good holiday!

February Fo'sho with a Mashing in of March.

I think I am just getting silly with blog titles now, but really, just typing the name of the month is so boring.

TAG Meeting
So I may or may not have said this before, but I am the TAG (Training Advisory Group) rep for TEFL Group 41. This means I get to have a hand in preparing PST (pre-service training) for incoming groups. February was my first TAG meeting where I met with all staff who have their hands in creating a PST program and other PCVs reps from both my group and earlier ones. So again, for the 3rd time the span of a month, I was off to Kiev! At this meeting, I (along with the Youth Development and Community Development reps from Group 41, Matt and Pete) had to present the results of our Post-PST surveys as well as recommendations for the upcoming PST for Group 43. We discussed Language, Safety, Cross-Cultural, and Technical training over the course of a few hours and developed a list of changes to be implemented. It was a really great knowing that we were being listened to and our opinions being considered and utilized by PC Staff. Our Training Manager, Iryna, is amazing and really cares about PCVs and doing what is best for them.

At the end of the meeting, Iryna invited me, Pete, and Matt to attend Group 43's arrival retreat in March so that they could meet and hear from current PCVs before heading off to their training sites.

PEPFAR Training

Me presenting our HIV-related project
idea.

Alas, a mere few days after returning back home from Kiev, I was on my way back again. This time I had my counterpart, Lilly, and one of our 10th form students in tow. We were on our way to a PEPFAR Training in Kiev. PEPFAR stands for "President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief" and the focus of the training was "HIV Risky Behaviors Prevention" and covered everything from biology to stigma and discrimination to how to create HIV awareness and prevention projects in our communities. Unfortunately, Ukraine has the highest HIV infection rate in Europe and there is a lot of stigma and discrimination associated with a positive HIV status. It was a very interesting 5-day training and I was glad I had the opportunity to attend with people from my village. It was especially great hearing positive feedback from my student and counterpart, especially in regards to hearing from HIV positive people themselves.




Working Groups
I am involved with two working group here in Ukraine in addition to my TAG duties. Working groups are groups of PCVs that meet a few times a year to discuss and exchange project ideas, create materials, and organize Ukraine-wide initiatives. I am involved with the Multicultural Awareness Council (MAC) and Safety and Security Council (SSC). I attended the MAC meeting right after PEPFAR where I got myself involved with our working group's camp, Camp Unity, as a part of the Lesson Planning Committee.

Sad blurred picture :(

One great benefits of working groups is being able to meet with people who share similar goals for projects, not to mention it is a chance to hang out with people you may not have seen for awhile! A few of us MAC-ites tend to find ourselves out to lunch post-meeting. This occasion called of pizza.

Closer to the end of the month I headed to Kiev for the 4th time in 2 months to attend the SSC Meeting.
So. Many. Trains.

Group 43 Arrival Retreat!
Arrival Retreat happened in March and since it is the only thing that really happened in March (aside from a trip to Turkey which gets its own post) I figured I'd squish it in here!

Once again I found myself in Chernigiv where my own Arrival Retreat happened. I hitched a ride from Kiev with the PCMOs, Matt, and Pete which got us there in time to settle into our rooms before the arrival of all the new PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees)! I totally lucked out with a re-modeled room that I got all to myself, whereas the boys had the joy of being roommates.

The reason for our presence there was to help answer questions and to sit in on sessions to give a PCVs point of view in our respective fields and our lives in general as PCVs in Ukraine. The only downside to this was we all sat in on the same 45 minute talk three times since YD, CD, and TEFL group were divided up!

I was excited to be there and meet the new trainees, one of which I had been talking to for awhile before her arrival. I was told by a PCV friend in Uganda to keep an eye out for her since they have a mutual friend. Diana (the new PCT) was nice enough to bring me a bag of peanut butter cups while another newbie brought me a couple new pairs of flats I ordered with her TEVAS discount and had sent to her house. Which was beyond awesome since I know what a pain packing can be and how precious space is! It made my feet way happy to have new homes.

Over the course of our time there, we did our best to teach the PCTs the game of Durak. It is such a great way to integrate in Ukraine and since pretty much everyone plays it is a valuable game to know and also very hard to learn if you don't have anyone to teach you the rules in English!

My ride back to Kiev as with our two Safety and Security Coordinators and Pete. It involved Pete, Papa Sergei, as he is affectionately known (he is also PC Ukraine's Chuck Norris), and I telling jokes. Mostly of inappropriate nature.

Remembering January

Jeez, I just keep on failing at this whole blog thing and creating more work for myself in the world of back-blogging. Meh.

Let's continue with this journey, shall we?

So a few things happened in January:

• Visit to the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer for those of you not in the know)
• Trip to Lvov (I learned Russian. We don't say "L'viv"! That's a lie, I call it Lviv when I speak the English)
• Russian Language Refresher
• Birthday Shenanigans

My trip to the PCMO was a follow-up I needed in regards to a pre-departure medical issue. I was glad to receive and e-mail from the doctor a few weeks later saying "You have a healthy cervix!" Gotta love the best PCMO in Ukraine's way of giving good news.

It's like the streets of Lviv knew my
birthday was in January

Львов!
The day same day I visited the PCMO in Kiev, I planned on meeting up with 2 out of the 4 other PCVs that I would be going to Lviv with. Thanks to cell phones, that didn't quite happen. One PCV backed out of the trip while the other one (who happened to have my train ticket to Lviv) found herself stuck in Paris one her flight home. What did a cell phone have to do with the story? Well, someone on one of her flights in the states decided they didn't want to turn off their cell phone while in the air. The plane took off, discovered this fact, then turned around. This resulted in a domino effect of her missing connecting flights and me being stuck in Kiev without a train ticket.

Okay, so I wasn't really "stuck" in Kiev, but I seriously thought it was a possibility. The reason I thought this was because it was January 3rd and Ukrainian Christmas (aka Orthodox Christmas) was on the 7th. Typically, it is hard to get last minute tickets at this time of year. With this in mind, I walked to the train station with some volunteers I had been hanging out with that day figuring that if I couldn't get a train ticket to Lviv, then maybe I could get one the following day or a ticket back home. To my surprise, I lucked out. There were no platzkart (3rd class) tickets left, so I had to go with kupe (2nd class). I further lucked out since rather than there being 4 people in my compartment, it was just me and one other girl. Hooray for non-cramp quarters!

Google the Masoch statue in Lviv and
you will learn why she is smiling
with her hand in his pocket...

I got into Lviv pretty early in the morning and waited at the train station for Davi and Elyse to arrive from their journey through Serbia and Romania. By the time they got in it was still dark outside. We checked our bags at the train station since we couldn't go to our hostel until one and then we headed for the refuge of all PCVs in need of shelter early in the morning: McDonald's. We didn't quite know where it was, but we figured if we could get to the center of town, we were bound to find one. This gamble worked out after less than 45 minutes of walking around. We hung out, drank coffee, and interneted for a few hours before deciding it would be a good idea to locate our hostel and get a bit acclimated with the city before grabbing our crap back at the train station. We stayed for a few days, saw some sites, met up with near-by PCVs, and enjoyed some donuts at Lviv's annual donut festival.

My trip ended with an 18 hour train ride with Davi back to Nikolaev where we had conversations with other passengers in English, Russian, and Ukrainian while playing a ton of Дурак ("durak").

Winter Language Refresher- Russian Style!
So twice a year, PC Ukraine holds two language refreshers: one for Ukrainian learners and one for Russian learners (not that that means you can't go to one if you learned the other..). One set happens in winter while the other occurs in summer.

Volodiya demonstrating how to get into the bomb shelter
under the building. (Pic credit to Beth!)

The Russian Refresher took place in Chernigiv at the same place we happened to have our arrival retreat. One thing we Group 41 participants noticed was how our perceptions of the venue had changed since being there last. When we first arrived, we were a bit taken aback by the atmosphere, upkeep, and food of the place. Upon our return to the same place, we found it funny that we now considered it a "nice" place and found ourselves excited about beet salad (at least I was excited about it...) It was nice seeing people I hadn't seen in awhile, including my old LCF who taught me Russian in the first place, as well as meeting PCVs I had never met before.

Basically Language Refresher is like camp for PCVs. We have lessons we sign up for as well as a choice of afternoon activities (learning to cross-stitch/knit, Ukrainian traditional dance, basket weaving, etc.) and a nightly movie (in Russian, with subtitles)/activity. I am thankful for it because it gives me a chance to study in a school-like environment, only in small groups, and it forces me to practice and be corrected!

The Birthday Bagel and Ballet That Never Were

Michael and Beth at the best falafel place in Kiev

Fun fact: Elyse's birthday is the day before mine. Fun fact #2: Our birthdays happened the Sunday/Monday after language refresher. This naturally meant we would celebrate in Kiev. We had heard about there being a new place in Kiev where one can seek out the comfort of bagels. True story: Ukraine is not up in the business of bagels. Well, it wasn't anyway until this place appeared. Sure, they aren't up to Safeway or Einstein quality, but they are tasty and can come with cream cheese.

Anyway...
We decided our birthday weekend should involve bagels. We also thought it would be fun to go see a ballet since tickets can be pretty inexpensive. We planned to do these things on Saturday, then Friday night happened.

One of our friends told us about an amazing place for falafel. A little restaurant owned by an awesome Israeli man who had let them take over the place one or two weeks prior. They had their own little dance club as they were allowed to hook up their own iPod to his sound system. Naturally, we decided we must go there for two reasons: tasty falafel and potentially sweet atmosphere. I will tell you right now, that the owner of this place is way cool. Every time I go in there, I am warmly welcomed and remembered and usually sent away with a free shot of vodka.

Birthday drinks. (Pic credit to Beth, again)

Back to the story...
We accomplished taking over the place (and by we, I mean quite a bit of PCVs) and found ourselves having a good time. The owner found out it was my and Elyse's birthday and brought over free drinks for everyone and followed it up with 2nd ones for Elyse and myself.

Flash to the next morning when I wake up at the hostel with a killer headache and a tummy that wants nothing to do with food.

I watered myself up and we made it out the door and to bagels, albeit a bit later than we planned on. It was a bit of a journey getting there since none of us had ever gone, but after the roundabout route, we finally made it and enjoyed our little pieces of doughy, cream cheesy heaven. Bagels happened, but ballet, sadly, did not. Perhaps next year.

And so ends my busy January.

Recalling December

I think I will also recap December using Facebook posts. Some people hate the Timeline feature, I however find it super useful.

December 1: Dear TEFL 41ers: Please take the post-PST survey I e-mailed out.I really want 100% participation! It is anonymous, so be as honest as you want :)
     So back in June at our Swearing-In Conference, I was elected the Group 41 Training Advisory Group representative for TEFL. This basically means that I have a hand in designing and helping to improve Pre-Service Training (PST), In-Service Trainings (IST), Language Refreshers, and PST University by working with the PC Ukraine staff. One of the responsibilities of a TAG rep is to put out a survey 6 months after swearing-in for those they represent. The purpose is to assess the quality of training they received and how it relates to their experiences now. 
December 2: I have spent the last five hours talking to the guy that came to tell me something about the gas line in my apartment. It was a nice opportunity to practice my Russian (which is so not up to par) and meet a cute local.
     It also included a good amount of using my dictionary and Google Translate!
December 3: And today I shall bake my first ever pie!
     It was Dutch Apple all from scratch and it was sooooo good!
December 7: Today my counterpart asked me if the guy I talked to for a few hours last week has come by yet. When I said no, she asked me to give her the thing I was given regarding my apartment's gas to look for his name in it. She found it and said "We'll Google it and find him." Lilly is on a mission!
     Googling people is not just for Americans.
December 8: I just realized how awesome it is to not be plagued by holiday music. Thank freaking goodness.
In other news: Will be watching Vampire Diaries with 10th form tomorrow. Yay for practicing listening skills.
December 10: Laundry day. Ew. Why do I put it off so much?!
     Seriously though. I hated doing laundry in the states with the aide of a washing machine and dryer, so doing it all by hand after putting it off as long as possible makes it a huge task that I dread. It isn't made better by the fact that it is freezing cold outside which causes my clothes to freeze. I typically would choose a few things I wanted to dry quickly and use my space heater to do so (DANGER!), and hang the other stuff in my bathroom or kitchen. That is a whole other ordeal since the wet clothes make my bathroom smell funny. Oh laundry...
December 15: Well, since it had been raining everyday since doing my laundry on Saturday, it is finally time to dry my socks and undies on my PC heater. Pancake.
     See?! Pain in the butt! Also, the use of the word "pancake" is being used as "darn" because in Russian the word they use is блин ("bleen") for "darn" which translates to English as "pancake!"

It is like this in Ukraine, too.

December 17: I finally figured out a way to feel like I am actually doing something at school: Grading tests, copybooks, and HW :) It may not be teaching, but I least I make a method to my madness rather than choosing arbitrary grades for students.
     Grading is a funny thing in Ukraine. There tends to not be a rubric for things and even things graded on a point scale seem to be flexible depending on how much the student begs the teacher. This kind of drives me nuts since I think that students need to be held accountable and be given grades they actually earned rather than grades they/teachers/parents think they should have earned. I am working on getting the English teachers at my school on board with this, but it is a slow going battle. I have made a little leeway though and get happy to be able to dock students for cheating, which a huge problem here.
December 21: In my search to find annoying effing sounds to put on my iPod (so that my counterpart and I can drive them as nuts as they drive us), I discovered the "Mosquito" sound. The 8th formers will hate us and it will be glorious.
     Basically 8th form is the worst grade in the school in terms of noise, motivation, and manners. They are always loud in class and are nearly impossible to get quiet, let alone teach. I simply made it my mission to try to annoy them as much as they can annoy the teachers.
December 26: My bed is gradually breaking...
     I sleep on a couch that pulls out into a bed. Somewhere in its lifetime, a hole appeared in the plywood that lays underneath the cushions. Over time, it gradually got larger and larger. In this time, I began sleeping in a slight dip to a small hole, to a mini crater. Thankfully it has been fixed.
December 31: It's NYE? Oh.. I guess I will commence with my Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.
     In Ukraine, NYE is celebrated like Americans celebrate Christmas combined with how we celebrate New Year's. I didn't do anything and even fell asleep before midnight only to be woken up by midnight fireworks outside of my window.

Catching Up on November

Let's continue to play catch-up, shall we? This post will be in the style of Facebook posts from the month with some side comments thrown in for some additional flavor.

November 1: Watching Grease and remembering how much my brother Matt loved it when we were kids. No wonder I know all of the words to the songs!

My oblast mates at our 527 Project. The shirts say "Ask me,
What is #527?"

November 2: 527 project tomorrow!
     527 is a hotline people in Ukraine can call to find out if out of country job opportunities are valid rather than an attempt at getting people into human trafficking and also connects victims to programs and services to help them. My oblast got together at an internaut (kind of like an orphanage) to give a presentation and then go out with the students and promote the 527 number in the town of Voznesensk. You can learn more about the 527 project here on CNN's iReport.
November 4: Finally got my new toilet tank installed! Goodbye running toilet water :)
November 9: In Kyiv for at least the next three days due to my lungs staging a revolution against me :/
      I was having a pretty tough time breathing, but we sent back home that night with a steroid inhaler and PeakFlow meter since I wasn't as bad as I could have been.
November 15: I just don't think my body can win lately. Lungs hating me, followed by a cold, followed by my currently swollen eyelid. Health, please come back to me!
      I proceeded to be sick rather often over the course of the next few months. Damn weather!
November 20: My counterpart has gotten me addicted to grapefruit. 
November 21: My counterpart is out sick for the week. This means I get to teach more than 4 classes alone this week and do more than just read the text and do the warm up in the other 14!
       Scariest week ever.
November 23: I really enjoy having a teachers' English Lesson. They actually try!
      For a good while I did a weekly English Lesson for interested teachers. I had 2 regulars and then 2 that would sometimes come. I hope to have this going again next school year.
November 25: So not only is this the first Black Friday I haven't worked retail in 7 years, it is also the first that I haven't worked PERIOD. Yep, I got to school today to discover that English classes had been cancelled!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

November 26: My Thanksgiving! Fresh turkey, green bean casserole (with homemade french fried onions), stuffing, and mashed potatoes! There was also apple pie, banana caramel pie, and cheesecake involved :)
     Quite a few PCVs from my oblast (and a few others) had Thanksgiving together on the Saturday following the actual holiday. One girl, Anne, was given the mission of finding us a turkey for the holiday since they aren't super easy to come by. She came through and found a huge one! I was pretty in charge of cooking the turkey (which was a challenge with a small oven and huge bird with no pan big enough for it!), green bean casserole (all from scratch, even the french fried onions!), and mashed potatoes. It was delicious!
November 29: I really love onions and garlic. I find that perfectly acceptable, especially since I just ate a full onion and two cloves of garlic with my meat and garlic varenyky.

Fall Break: Budapest!

Living in Eastern Europe is pretty awesome for many reasons. I think one of my favorite reasons, however, is how cheap travelling between countries can be. I have mentioned before that coming to Ukraine was my first time leaving the US. Surprisingly for many people, I have never experienced culture shock since being here.

Many schools in Ukraine have a Fall Break in the school year in addition to Winter and Spring Breaks. Basically Ukrainians believe in "having a rest."  I was invited by a couple of PCVs that I had gotten to know better at Camp Bereg to go with them to Budapest for Fall Break. Let's just say it was pretty awesome.

Ferris wheel in Vinnytsia

The day we left for the border started very early for me. You see, we all planned to meet in Vinnytsia and then take a train together from there. Getting to Vinnytsia isn't exactly easy for me to do from where I live. I took a train in that direction, got off of it in a village in Vinnystska Oblast at 4ish in the AM, hopped on a bus that would go through my friend Elyse's village (to pick her up) on the way Vinnytsia. Upon arriving there, we headed to McDonald's since it was open that early to wait for the rest of our party. Our train didn't leave until night time and we were lucky enough to be in town when a bunch of other PCVs would be there for a meeting, so while they had their meeting, Elyse showed us around her oblast center which included seeing the biggest fountain in Europe, the Roshen factory, a love park, and a closed amusement park. After the meeting was over, we met up with the others and went out for pizza after their meeting was over.

Eventually, the four of us ventured to the train station and traveled on an overnight train from Vinnytsia to a town called Chop which is located on the border of Ukraine and Hungary. From there, we took the border train to the village on the other side, a cute little place by the name of Zahony. Unfortunately for us, we had forgotten to exchange money in Ukraine and had to set off  into the village in search of a bank to make an exchange so we could buy our tickets to Budapest. After going the wrong direction, we finally found what seemed to be the square of the town as well as a few banks to choose from. The thing that sucked was none of them offered currency exchange for UAH! This was also an adventure since none of us spoke Hungarian, and no one we found could speak much English, let alone Ukrainian or Russian. We did luck out in finding a rather nice bank teller who exchanged our UAH with her own money at a good rate. We headed back for the train station where we bought our tickets using the Hungarian phrase book I had made for my Kindle!

Our ticket to Hungary!

The ride was 5.5 hours long, and most of that trip was spent playing Durak and Hearts. Thank goodness we enjoyed playing cards so much! We got into Budapest in the evening, headed to the metro and found our hostel after a small amount confusion. The guy working the desk at the hostel recommended a restaurant for us to eat at at a discount. We headed there and each of us ordered something different and sampled one another's food. It was all delicious! We also made sure to get our free beers and a bottle of some really tasty wine. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and called a night.

We learned the story of the
 "Little Princess"

The following morning we left the hostel on a mission to find the meeting point for a free walking tour we had found online. On the walk there we continuously hoped that the tour wouldn't be cancelled due to the weather being a bit on the cold and rainy side. Luckily for us, we found the tour and we were so glad we did! The tour lasted a few hours and covered a good amount of the Pest side with an excursion to Buda via one of the many bridges that connects the two parts of town.  We saw a few statues and monuments, churches and government buildings, learned a bit about Hungarian history, and were given a small lesson in Hungarian to use at bars. The tour guide also told the group about how there would be a free concert that night which automatically gave us something to do in the evening! On our walk back to the hostel, we found ourselves amused a T-Mobile pay phone with a pink phone and then we decided to stop in to H&M since we had passed it on the way to meeting our tour. I finally bought a hat and some tights, which was for the best since I had neither and it was rather cold! Both of which saved my butt this winter, by the way. Post H&M, we walked along the shops on our way back the hostel where we planned on relaxing before trying to find Thai food before heading out for the night.

Finding the Thai food was little difficult, but worth it since it was pretty yummy and something none of us had had in awhile. After dinner we walked back to the club and learned we had missed the first band, who were Hungarian, and they were setting up for the band from Romania. While waiting for the set to start, Davi and I went to get some Hungarian firewater for the four of us while Kristen and Elyse found a place for us to sit. It turned out we weren't the only ones from the tour who had come out for the show and we wound up talking to the others for awhile before enjoying the show. The band was called Grimus and I enjoyed them so much I was able to convince Davi to go in on a CD with me (it is actually one of my favorites to listen to). After the show we went out to one of the many ruin-pubs with some of the people we met at the show. It turned out that a couple of them were staying in the same hostel we were, so post bar we walked back together, but not before picking up late night snacks at a 24 market up the street.

Thai. Yum!

After sleeping in a bit, we walked to the largest bath houses in Budapest (which was by no means a short walk!) On the walk there we stopped into Subway where we enjoyed our taste of America before continuing onto the Baths. We made sure to experience as much as we could while we were there. We sat in pools of varied degrees, saunas of varied degrees, and attempted to sit in a steam room only to discover it was impossible to breathe in there. I think our coolest success was managing to sit in a 100 degree Celsius sauna for a full 5 minutes followed by rubbing ourselves down with ice. It was awesome sitting in there and watching tough looking guys walk in, make a "holy crap it is hot in here" face, and walk back out. We left there just as the sun was going down and began our venture back to the hostel by foot. I eventually had to give up that plan because my feet just weren't having it, so we took the metro back to the center, found the biggest Synagogue in Europe, got some food, and readied our things back at the hostel so we'd be ready to go in the morning to catch our train back to Zahony.

Heel clicking in Hero's Square.

Once we were back in Chop, Davi decided to try and trade in her Hungarian forint for UAH at a local bank, but after the man working there tried giving her an unfair price, she just decided to keep it for the time being. When we boarded our train back to Kyiv, we discovered we were the only ones in our car (for the time being). We took advantage of this by being as silly as possible in an empty train car.

Here is some info about our trip:
Hostel: Maverick Hostel
Walking Tour: Free Budapest Walking Tours
Hungarian Trains: Timetables!
Ruin Pubs: Locations and Information 
Bathhouse: Szechenyi Bath and Spa

Here are some more pictures from the trip:

Davi playing with the pink phone!

Post walking tour

View from the Buda side.

One of the bridges over the Danube.

Rubbing his belly so we would have a good meal.

Love locks at the park.

Flowers left on the wall at the House of Terror

Romanian band Grimus

Rock!

I may or may not be the worst blogger in the world.

Oh man. Can we say "neglect"? Because that is what I have done with this blog. This blog that should have been documenting my amazing Peace Corps experience in Ukraine. Perhaps I will dedicate this weekend to trying to catch up. It will be a challenge and involve a good amount of time perusing my Facebook Timeline and  Tumblr page for highlights from the past 8 months (holy cow, I have slacked off), but hey, at least everything will be in one place, right? Let's catch up with that cliff hanger I left off with last time around, shall we?

A Day in Nikolaev
Obviously it is kind of difficult to remember the details of something that happened so far back, but I am pretty positive that this particular day involved hanging out with Anne, another PCV in my oblast. On our agenda was eat, explore our oblast center, and head to the zoo there. We walked around Sovietskaya, the main shopping street in Nikolaev where one can find the only McDonald's in the oblast, many stops for ice cream, locals selling handicrafts, pony and toy car rides, and shops, of course. We went into a bookstore here and found a map of the city and Anne asked about finding The Brothers Grimm book in Ukrainian (no such luck on that front). I remember being a bit confused that the street was being call "Sovietskaya" when that was not what the street signs were reading. I later found out that that is what the street was called in the Soviet Era, but people still use this name. Apparently it is pretty common in the predominantly Russian speaking areas for people to do this. It is so ingrained in Nikolaev that even shop advertisements say they are located on Советская. Fun facts!

Anyway...

We started at the monkeys.

So before heading out to Nikolaev, I searched the internet for what there was to see and do there. In my research I learned it has the best zoo in Ukraine. Now, zoos in general make me wary since the animals tend to look sad. I did some research and found out that this zoo is a full member of EAZA, so it eased my mind. Anne and I made our way to the zoo, bought tickets and went to see the animals! Let's just say that as cute as the animals were, they looked so sad and I will not be recommending people go to the zoo here. I am sure that it is miles above so many other zoos out there in Ukraine (and other parts of the world), but it could have been better. Plus, what kind of zoo has no giraffes!?

The Comets performing in Rock Band!

Camp Bereg: Part II
Seeing as how I was back at site with nothing to do in August, I took up another volunteer's call for volunteers at Camp Bereg after people had pulled out of doing it. I enjoyed it the last time around and had fun meeting other PCVs and interacting with Ukrainian students.  My second time around was a blast. Since I was there from the beginning an AISEC volunteer from Brazil that I had made friends with before and I were a assigned a group of campers for evening activities and they were amazing. Every night at camp involved competitions and the top team got to spend the night on the beach and have shashlik by a campfire. I was pretty excited that my team did a great job since it also meant that I would be camping on the beach as well :)

While there, I also celebrated Ivana Kupala, I even made a head wreath and inhaled some bon fire smoke! It was awesome to watch the performances and see how creative the girls got with creating their wreaths.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish out my time at camp. Due to a family emergency, I left camp while everyone was at the beach for the morning.

Emergency Leave: Kiev
Getting to Kiev from camp was an interesting experience. I managed to catch the bus back to Odessa at a reasonable time and made it in time for the next bus to Nikolaev. While on the bus from Odessa, I called Josh, my semi-sitemate, to see if he could call the family we had become close with from his village to see if they could give me a ride to the train station. See, I didn't have my passport on me to be able to go straight to the train station, so I had to go home to Ochakov first. By the time I would have gotten home, I would have had VERY little time to make it back to the Nikolaev by bus in time for my train. Luckily "The Fam," as we call them, said they'd take me to the train station. We made it to the train station just in the nick of time to grab my ticket from the PCV who was nice enough to buy it for me that day and run to the train. The dad of "The Fam" walked me onto the train and got me settled and then handed me a huge bag of food. Oh Ukrainian hospitality!

I got into Kiev early the next morning and hung around the office until the staff got in and found out that my flight would be leaving early the following morning, so I had a day to kill. While in the office I met some volunteers who were getting ready to head to their COS conference, one of which was someone I has started talking to before coming to Ukraine, Alia. Alia heard me talking about the excitement I had about my future kitten, Yablahka, and about the cats I had had back home and she talked about her cats, Reba and Dottie, who she was planning on taking back to the states with her. Cat Lady bonding is always awesome.

At the museum.

After suffering a nice amount of boredom and not knowing the status of my dad's health back home, I took up the offer to go to Pirogovo Open-Air Museum. The funny thing about being a PCV is meeting other PCVs you have never met before and then heading out with them for the day. Just like that! The museum was pretty awesome and had a ton of old houses, windmills, and churches showing the various types of buildings from throughout Ukraine.

I made it back to the Peace Corps office around 6PM and then headed to the apartment of one of the Americans who works for PC Ukraine. Since she was also on her way to the states early the next morning, she offered her place for me to stay instead of a hotel. It was pretty awesome. I took a nice hot bath in a huge tub, ate enchiladas while watching American TV, and had a ginger ale! It is the little things in life that can put a smile on my face. The next morning we were picked up by the PC Driver and went to the airport.

Emergency Leave: America
I flew into Las Vegas after nearly not being allowed onto my plane in Paris, then being held over in Salt Lake City for far longer than I wanted to be. I was picked up by my friends Michelle and Bree. Their first reaction to seeing me was "Holy crap you're tan!" followed by "Geez you've lost weight!" My first American meal was the same as my last: Chipotle. It was glorious and was preceded by a failed attempt at eating pizza at Little Caesar's in the Luxor.

Yum!

The plan was for the girls to pick me up, then to stay the night with Michelle and then to head off for Arizona the following morning since the last thing I wanted to do was spend 2.5 hours in a car after flying half way across the world. My friends Candyce and Jacqi picked Michelle and I up in a rented car the next morning. We stopped at Starbucks on the way where I truly had a hard time deciding between a Coconut Mocha Frappuccino and Iced Green Tea. I chose not to decide by getting both in tall sizes. This made my friends more than amused.

As a part of the plan, we decided to take advantage of being so close to Kingman by going there to eat at Cracker Barrel since Nevada isn't privy to its awesomnimity. It was delicious and I left some Ukrainian money as a part of the tip. After our tasty lunch, we went off to Meadview where they dropped me off at my dad and stepmom's house where I got the same reaction to my appearance.

I spent the week with my dad and went to the doctor's appointments he had and found out more about what was going on with his health. It was crazy seeing him so thin and weak, but luckily he is much better now!

My sister flew into Las Vegas a week after I got there and I went out to pick her up. We stayed the night in Las Vegas with Candyce and Jacqi after eating In and Out, going to play Bingo with them and my friend Conrad, as well as a middle of the night meal at IHOP following $1 roulette in Downtown Vegas. Busy night. We headed back to Arizona the following afternoon and spent the rest of the week in Arizona before we both flew out the next weekend.

By the time I got back into Ukraine, I had missed the First Bell ceremony at school, which bummed me out, but I soon jumped in to school at site!

They love each other!

New Roommates
So in August I got a Facebook message from Alia, the PCV I had met in the lounge in Kiev. Here message went something like this:


The reason I'm writing you is that I'm reconsidering taking my cats home. The main reason is that I'm leaving in 3 months and I don't even know what state I'm going to live in, and I can't bring the cats to my mom's house when I arrive home, because she already has three cats. Also, the flight home with the cats will most likely include a 20-hour layover in Warsaw, which would be really stressful for them.


I hadn't even considered leaving my babies in Ukraine until I met you yesterday; you're the only one I've met thus far who seems to love cats as much as I do and who I feel I could trust 100% leaving them with.


I remember you'd mentioned wanting a cat. My cats (there are 2 of them) are named Reba and Dottie. Dottie is grey and really mellow, and Reba is orange and white and she's a little more energetic. Both are extremely good about using the litter box - I've never had a problem with that. Dottie has been spayed; Reba hasn't yet. You can look in my album "wall photos" for pictures of them. They really love each other so I don't think I should split them up.


Now there is no way I could pass up helping out another cat lover! So I took them in on October 15th and have been giving them love ever since! They are both way sweet and each of them has an original way of snuggling with me.