On The Road Again.

I am headed 160km south out of Kyiv to spend a week working with a volunteer team from Mississippi. English camp, afternoons at an orphanage, food distribution and what ever else comes up.

Just can't wait to get on the road again.

Rocky Beach.

I had a great time at the sea last week with my friends S and U. The train rides there and back were long and hot, but the time in between was certainly worth it. I did not get a lot of pictures because we spent most of our time here, with these people and here looking out over The Black Sea; and of course, here with all these people!Holiday time in Ukraine is the months of July and August so the seaside was crawling with people. Most of them were nationals or Russians out for a little summer sun. We pretty much spent from 06:30 to 11:00 at the beach, took some kind of excursion or rest and then were back at the beach by 16:00. We were there till it was time to catch some dinner by the port and then head home ... all to repeat it again the next day!

In case you needed any convincing that international beaches are different from US beaches, just check out the favourite tasty seaside treat. Corn on the cob! Nothing like doing it up a little differently.I really did enjoy my seaside holiday and time with the girls. I learned a lot, was challenged in my thought process and encouraged by the peaceful crashing of the waves on the rocky beach.

Home From Holiday.

The hardest thing about coming home from a holiday here is the grocery shopping that is necessary. When I left on Tuesday night last week there was literally nothing in the flat. Nothing. That meant two things: first, straight away when I got back last night I had to make an emergency stop for a half litre of milk, Golden Flakes and cheese. Secondly, I had to do a major grocery run today. Lovely.

My list consisted of the following:

milk
orange juice
lettuce
tomatoes
apple
peaches
banana
laundry detergent
fish
pork chops
bar soap
bathroom cleaner
toilet cleaner
dish soap
paper towels
travel kleenex
spaghetti noodles
butter
frozen veggies
yogurt

I only deviated from my list for a few extra things (a candy bar, a coke and microwave pop corn ... insert sheepish grin here ... hehe).

Two hours, three grocery stores and 49 pounds later, I made it home. It is easy to forget how far it is to get home from the market. Its easy to look in the cart and think 'nah, its not to much' and then regret buying what I do by the time I am half way home. I have actually considered 'borrowing' a grocery cart for the duration of my time here - then I could just fill it and push my stuff right on home ...

It frustrates me how completely American I felt today on the walk home. I had on a backpack and a reusable grocery bag on each shoulder. It was a lot of groceries for a person to be carrying around. I guess I should not feel bad; nationals here have at least four to six people to buy groceries and carry home and its just me. I still feel like I haven't figured out how to keep groceries and other essentials on hand so as to keep a clean, functioning house with limited mad dashes to the market. I do okay, but once in a while I have a mad grocery shopping session. Today was just one of those days.

Holiday On The Sea.

I'm leaving on a slow train ... haha!

I am headed out today on the 23:05 train headed south! A couple of my national friends and I are headed to holiday together in Crimea. Yalta, to be specific. It will be a 14 hour train ride and a 90 km bus ride to get there and an 90 km bus ride and an 18 hour train ride to get back - don't ask about the time difference ... I have no idea why it takes longer to get home?! Just tell yourself, 'its Ukraine' that is what I do!

You can see Kyiv towards the left side of the map at the top. If you trace a route all the way to the bottom center you will find Yalta.

It is going to be an interesting, Russian filled, wonderfully unique eight days of fun! I have no idea what the plan is once we get there. I know it will include a lot of beach sitting and hopefully there will be some countryside roaming too. Yalta is a very popular holiday destination for locals so I expect it will be one hopping place.

Black Sea and beaches ... here I come!

Hot Summer Day.

It is hot here. I know, it is hot all over the world ... I am just stating the obvious. It is hot. There are not a whole lot of ways to escape the heat around here. There are no air conditioned homes to retreat to, not much indoor shopping with air conditioning, even sitting in the underground metro stations is an exercise in humidity rather than coolness (not even going to get into it about the actual metro cars ... ugh). If you are lucky enough to own a car with air conditioning, you could drive around town to stay cool. If not, the next best option for getting a little relief is to grab your kids or round up your buddies and head downtown to Independence Square.

On the square there are five big fountains and a huge set of terraces with flowing water. A pretty decent substitution for a pool or water park. The square is always filled with people during the summer weekends and Saturday was no exception. There were people everywhere - hanging out, eating and shopping, but a lot of them were playing in the water. At one point there was even a group of teenagers laying on the middle terrace pool performing some sort of 'synchronized' fountain dance?! Seriously.

I had to laugh as I walked passed this fountain.Someone had decided that it would be even more fun if they added a bubble fountain! There were suds flying everywhere, followed closely by shrieks of joy from the kids having a blast in the new and improved fountain. It was a mess ... a completely hysterical, can't help but smile and take a picture kinda mess.

Oh, the things we do to stay cool!

Staying Awake.

A rule of thumb one might find useful, if you are planning a volunteer trip across the world: Whenever possible schedule the arrival to your destination as close to early evening as possible.

The benefit of this is two-fold. First, you and your group of volunteers do not have to struggle to stay awake all day and secondly, I do not have to spend all day monitoring the length of your nap, orchestrating mindless walking tours (you will not remember 90% of what you see and hear during this time) and other distractions around town in an effort to keep you and your team awake!

I feel bad when a team arrives at 09:00 in the morning, a whole day before their project starts. It is tough to have a free day where the only thing on the brain is sleep. This happened on Sunday ... the team arrived at 08:40, cleared customs, exchange money, ate lunch and settled into their accommodations for the next twenty hours all before noon. I let them have a nap and then I shuffled them onto public transportation and around town in an effort to keep them awake. Trust me, this is easier said than done! It always gets to a point in the early evening that I start talking about random, stupid things just to keep them talking; because if I am lucky talking keeps them awake.

Thankfully, after some ice cream (about 18:30) we ran across these break dancers. The team managed to watch the guys dance for almost an hour.
Once it got to the point that the dancing was no longer enough of a distraction to sleep, I loaded them back onto public and headed back. We stopped for some drinks on the way and managed to make it back right about 20:30. Just in time for them to clean up and head to bed!

I, of course, went home just as exhausted. It is hard work keeping up with ten tired Americans, as they wander in and out of consciousness as well as traffic.

Random Check In.

It has been quite around here for the last couple of days. Nothing much exciting or exceptionally note worthy going on – between the snails pace of life and my ever reliably unreliable internet, I am here. Just not here.

Mostly, I have been hanging around trying not to melt from the humidity. I try not to run the oven, spend about five minutes of every hour standing in front of the ventilator (fan) blow-drying myself and I run around like a crazy woman opening all the windows after a rain shower; trying to get the cooler air to come inside. Really though, it is not that hot. It is only in the low 90’s but the 100% humidity is a bit much. They say people who live where humidity levels are high have better skin and less wrinkles … so here’s to fewer wrinkles in my old age!

I have also been watching a lot of World Cup soccer. I am mastering geography with Ukrainian names, Ukrainian intonation and I am getting pretty good at picking out jokes made by the commentators. I especially enjoyed it when one of my English classes spontaneously erupted into a lively discussion about who was going to win which match and who deserved to win the final match. People are talking about football all the time and it is on just about every television set in the city. Kinda fun.

People watching has been a prime form of entertainment for me and I have not been disappointed. I have learned many lessons of what not to wear and I am constantly wishing that others would learn the same lessons. Haha. I do not remember it bothering me as much last summer (maybe I was still shocked …) but frankly, I am tired of always seeing people’s underwear. It is called underwear for a reason. Sheesh.

I guess that is about all I have for randomness …

The volunteer groups I have been working with began to arrive on Thursday this week, one arrived on Friday and the third arrives tomorrow – so my days of lazy freedom and randomness are over … for now!

A Little Rain.

The last couple of days we have had some major rain storms here. It has been incredible. In an attempt to get home on Thursday evening (after dinner out) I turned a fifteen minute walk into a fifty five minute compilation of mad dashes mixed with doses of waiting in the shelter of something! I actually made my first ever visit to a Ukrainian police station on this trip home ... they had an open door when I needed it. Haha.

The shops in the metro station near my flat were completely flooded out - everything from floor to ceiling was completely ruined with water. Pot holes are now classified as craters and there is even more humidity hanging in the air. Lovely.

Here are some pictures I found of the downtown area. They were taken during the second storm on Friday. I managed to get caught in the metro during this one. Thankfully the train managed to get started up again and I did not have to get out and walk through the tunnels. Trust me, that is a reallly bad thing!
Its been fun to watch the rain fall so quickly in massive amounts, but I think we could use a break for a couple of days!