Can't Stop Now

Oh my dear lovely blog, how I've neglected you...

Im officially under a month now till I come home! Of course, I have mixed feelings about this, though they tend to lean more towards me being happy, okay, and satisfied about leaving. Im not quite ready to leave yet, but in...26 days, I will be.

After my trip around Europe,

Lyviv

Prague

Germany

Prague

Prague again...

coming back to Kiev was pretty depressing. But its been almost 4 weeks since then and my spirits have come back up. Everything is going so well...I have so much fun! Us ILP teachers hang out all the time and its always ridiculously funny and great.

For the Harry Potter premier we found a theater that was actually playing it in English! A bunch of us, including me, attempted to dress up a bit with the stuff that we had at our schools. I was able to scrounge up a witches hat and Harry Potter glasses, I looked pretty legit compared to the others hahaha. The theater was so small that most of the people watching the movie were us teachers. The projectionist managed to switch up 2 segments of the movie so an entire hour or so of it was out of order! At first we were confused as to how and why Ron suddenly wasnt with Harry and Hermione and why there was a snake attacking them, but then we figured...yea, the projectionist screwed up (probably because the directions were in English ;) )...and we laughed because we should have known that something like this would happen. It really wouldnt have been complete without something going wrong.

Yesterday we had our Thanksgiving (or Spasibagiving) and it was perfect. We all signed up to bring a food item...mine was corn, because thats about all I can be trusted with when it comes to cooking food...but other people actually made homemade rolls, pumpkin pie, cornbread, apple crisp, and delicious carrots cooked in brown sugar. We had mashed potatoes too, and our meat was chicken instead of turkey (b/c we couldnt find any). It was fantastic! We watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie online and then turned on Christmas songs for the rest of the evening. We also played some games...Signs (which if you dont know what that is, its the BEST game to play with a big group and you dont need anything to play except yourselves) and speed Scrabble. It was actually the first Thanksgiving Ive had where I wasnt at home with my family, but its still one of my favorite Thanksgivings!

About 6 or 7 of us go to Institute every Wednesday night and we've made this sort of tradition of going to this one bakery afterward. Its an adorable little place and its also half off after 8pm on Wed, which is why we first started going there. Sometimes we even invite some of the native Ukrainians that go to the English speaking institute with us to come. We always have such great discussions.

It still hasnt snowed yet here! Though I just checked the weather and its supposed to snow a bunch this Tues, Wed, and Thurs. Dont ask me whether Im excited for the snow or dreading it, because I honestly couldnt tell you. Actually...its probably a lot of both.
At the beginning of this week it rained so much I though the city was going to flood! And if it had rained on more day it probably would have. I was totally unprepared the first day and ended up walking in usually ankle deep water in my flats! The next day I decided that I would conform and wore boots over my skinny jeans. I say conform because literally EVERY woman here (who isnt a babushka) wears boots.

There's this endless obsession with English speakers here in Ukraine. I am not kidding you. Whenever Im with a friend, or friends, and we're talking to each other (we normally are b/c we dont really get to speak English at home) every single person around us will turn and look at us. Or they'll like move closer to us and listen to what we're saying. Like, literally tilt their heads closer to us. Or, if they speak English themselves, they'll start talking to us. I haven't gone one day without having at least one or two people talk to me and ask me questions. Its insane! Ive gotten used to it of course, but I still find it crazy. I dont like or not like the attention...sometimes you have some really nice conversations and meet great people, but I swear at least 1/3 of the men here are always drunk and reek of beer and have no problem at all talking to you (whether they speak English or not) and that's when it gets annoying.

But like I said, its not always that bad. For instance, the other day, I met this pretty...hahah interesting guy. I was at the internet cafe (why is it always the internet cafe??) and was buying my ticket thing when he heard me speaking English to the employee. (I had meant to say 'spasiba' but got distracted because I dropped a Hryvnia and ended up saying 'thanks.') Anyways, he starts talking to me and ends up telling me he wants to take me to get ice cream at this place at Kreshatyk. Usually I can get out of these situations with some sort of excuse, but sometimes I cant...because it would be really obvious that Im trying to ditch them. So I end up saying yes and we head there. I learn his name is Alex and he's half Russian or Turkish (I didnt quite understand) and half Serbian and he plays on the Serbian national basketball team. ( Which may seem hard to believe but if you had seen him, you wouldnt have doubted it for a second. Also, he was wearing the jacket to prove it.) He was nice. At one point, I somehow choked on my ice cream and could NOT stop coughing...it was pretty funny. He patted my back and was like, "Ill go get you some water..." I managed, through my coughing, to say "No! I'll be fine! Sit down." Because really, water is not free here. I didnt need him buying another thing for me. Afterward, he walked me to the metro and that was that.

Once I got taken out for hot chocolate by a guy from England...haha and you can bet I enjoyed that. Another time, when I was heading to the train station to go to Budapest and Prague a guy named Slava carried my suitcase the entire way there (with me glued to his side in case he wasnt as trustworthy as he seemed, but seriously...it would be hard to run away on the metro carrying my 50 pound suitcase..) and then he wished me good luck in Russian and kissed me on the cheek. So yea, you mix the good with the bad and you get a place thats just like the rest of the world.

I think Riah is starting to like me and care for me a lot! Either that or Riah's worried that she'll be blamed for the death of a stupid American girl because she never seems to be wearing just the right clothes to go outside in, sleeps too little, doesnt eat enough, and still! for some inexplicable reason doesnt understand the Russian being constantly yelled at her, even though its been months. I dont know which one it is, Riah's a hard woman to figure out lol. I really do love her though...even when a couple times a week she'll wake me up by yanking the covers off me, yell at me for 5 minutes, then lay the covers back over me so that every part of my body up to my neck is under the blanket. Im assuming she does it because she thinks I'll get cold. Which is really sweet...though that can be a hard fact to remember when its 5 o'clock in the morning and you were in the middle of a really good dream. I think our relationship could be tentatively described as a love-hate relationship. ;)

Well, I'd better head out. Till next time!!