Pirate Week and Birthday Parties

This week has been pretty fun. One day we played "pin the eyepatch on the pirate". The kids had a lot of fun. :)

Everyone lined up waiting to play

Vasil likes to dress up as a babushka :)

During our Basic Reading classes the kids get to draw when we finish our work. One kid loooves dinosaurs and sharks. I think this is some combination of the two... For some reason I love his drawings :P

Vlad, one of the Basic Reading kids, had his birthday on Tuesday, so we had a party during the last half hour. Vera set up little snacks for all of us. :)

Vlad (the birthday boy, can't you tell?), Ali, Sasha, Nastya, Anya, Dasha, Levon (dinosaur boy!), and Masha

Isn't it cute?

Dasha wore a cute party dress :)

In other news, the parents came and watched us teach on Wednesday. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. They didn't even stay the whole time. It was a little awkward having to discipline the children in front of their parents though.

As far as the weekend goes, we're going to see the Lavra on Saturday. It's a high-ranking monastery with over a hundred burials. It also has a complex system of narrow underground caves. Should be neat.

Then next weekend we get 3 days off and we're taking a night train to L'viv! So excited. And then a week and a half after that we're going on our Euro tour. This should be a good month. :)

Another weekend of fun!

There's a lot to talk about but let's start with the weather. Remember how it was a beautiful 40º the other day? Well right now it's 14º...not to mention the freezing wind. This is how I had expected Ukraine to be like in the winter. There's ice everywhere! But the sun was shining a little today. :)

Anyways, we've completed 4 weeks of teaching and tomorrow we will have been here a month already. Crazy!

So on Friday Kenz and I met Vika at the gym and she helped get us signed up. Today was our first time actually going though. We did 2 hours of yoga this morning. :) I definitely need to practice... We weren't able to go yesterday because we were downtown most of the day celebrating some of the teachers' birthdays/half birthdays. We went to lunch at TGI Friday's and had a fun time. When we first got there, Kenz and I were trying to find the restroom and this other lady was going there too so she helped us. She was talking to me in Russian and asking us if we were visiting Ukraine. Then a few minutes later, I came out of the bathroom and she and Kenzie were speaking German! So we all talked for a little bit. She's a German teacher here. It was so cool. I was so happy to be speaking German. :D

Mindy and Kenzie

T.G.I. Friday's Ukraine style :)

The birthday girls!

Valentine's Day Tree :P

"Kiev- the city of flowers"

After lunch we went to St. Sophia's which is more than 1,000 years old. It's not an active church anymore, just a museum. It still has the original mosaics and some really old graffiti (the oldest from the 11th century). We also went up the bell tower which was kind of scary because the wind was intense and the walkway was slippery. But we made it. :)

Our teachers having fun despite the weather

St. Sophia's - built in the 11th century!

This mosaic is made completely of hand painted easter eggs. Real eggs...15,000 of them. Incredible. (I wasn't supposed to take a picture...shhh)

Looking down from the bell tower

Kenzie trying not to be blown away

At least it's not icy... :)

Alright, I have to get going, another week starts tomorrow! I'm gonna try to get some more pictures up soon and maybe a video or two of the kids. :)

Beautiful day!!

So yesterday it rained and today there's not a speck of snow left on the ground, just a lot of mud. yeah! after coming back from the grocery store yesterday we had no choice but to go through a field of thick mud. It was pretty comical. It's also been really really windy. I can hear it howling outside right now. But it's only 40º :)

No snow!
The other day Kenzie had to open a can of pineapple for Kitchen class and so we asked our host mom if she had a can opener, she dug around in the drawers, went in the other room and came back with this...haha we had to have our coordinator Vera open it. :P
Ukrainian chocolate! It's pretty good.
Here's a better shot of St. Sofia's. It's so beautiful in person.
Yesterday we went downtown and took a quick look at Souvenir street (above), and four of us actually bought furry Ukrainian hats. I know, I felt like such a tourist but it's ok. We met this lady from the US and she's here teaching English as well. She comes every year for two weeks and teaches adults. She said she's been to the Ukraine and Poland 13 times. :o
We also discovered a new cathedral. We couldn't look around for long though because we were already kind of late for our cooking class. Tanya the main coordinator taught us how to make borscht. It was really good and perfect on a rainy day. Oh, and we found out from the other girls that we went to the wrong ballet last weekend... haha apparently the Nutcracker was yesterday morning. I have no idea why they let us in last time. I'm glad we went to the other one though because it was really good.
Tanya and me

The result!
Tanya and Igor with some of the teachers.
This is what our evenings are like now, our host siblings come into our room and color. :) That's Misha and Masha (blond hair) and Masha's friend who comes over a lot. (Karolina?)

Anyways, Kenzie and I are at the school right now getting ready for next week.

Oh, apparently I didn't have my blog set up probably for comments, so I wasn't able to get any. But I fixed it, so feel free to leave comments. :)

Last night we were watching tv in our room when our 8 yr old host sister Masha came in and started to show us her nail polish and make-up. She was insisting we paint our nails so we did and then her 9 yr old brother Misha came in and we all started playing hide and seek in our room. Honestly not too many hiding spots :P But we played for a while and then we all sat on Kenzie's bed and colored for a long time. They were speaking to us half in Russian half in Ukrainian. A couple times I just had to smile and hope a response wasn't needed. :P It was fun. Also, on Tuesday night the neighbor Tanya's 17 yr old daughter was over, and she came in our room (right when we were going to bed) and we talked for about 2 hours. I guess the third week is when you start meeting people.

We were reminded today that the fourth week (next week) is supposed to be the hardest week of teaching... :S and I thought it was starting to get easier. ha But tonight we're having a sleepover at our school and we're going to watch movies and then tomorrow one of the coordinators is going to teach us how to make green borscht! :) and after that we're going souvenir shopping downtown. Any requests? ;)

pictures!!

Ok, so as the title may suggest, this post has a lot of pictures. :) First, we'll go over Ukrainian parking, it's hilarious to see how people park sometimes. The car behind is completely on the sidewalk:

Cars are blocked in all the time. I don't understand how that pink car is gonna get out....

Also, they looove to park backwards.

Again, blocking in cars.
I guess that's a spot... Gotta love the two babushki as well :D

The other day Kenzie and I went to a covered market with lots of frozen fish
aand fruit!!
They also have cute cars here! Kenz and I want to go around Europe in this car...with a hairless cat :P
How does it not hurt their cars to park like that all the time?
This is our Basic Reading class!! My favorite :) Probably because they have the best English. haha from top Ali, Vlad, Levon, Dasha, Masha
There are little notes all over the place. I don't know if it's one person that does it or what. They're so cute! This one says "I love you, little one"

"Happy Birthday, Mom!"

"Good Morning, my love!"
Unplanned stripe day! haha Vasil, Roman, Petr, Matvey, Kenzie, and Matthew
We went to the grocery store and got 2 1/2 loaves of bread, two bars of chocolate, and two yogurt/granola things for a whopping $5.50 :) gotta love Ukrainian prices
our wall of inspiration. Like my little aliens?
Ukrainian money. It's only about $60
About $.60
These are the best cookies ever! Spice cookies covered in chocolate, we discovered them in Switzerland and found them here :)
We made alien hats :) Georgiy, Matvey, Petr, and Roman
the last group got eyes on theirs :) (except Sasha, he didn't want anything, psh) Sasha, Nastya, Egor.
Our favorite juice!! It tastes mostly like cherries, yummm