also, sorry if it's hard to read. I'm having trouble changing the background :S

Update

It's Friday!! :) Which means we've been here for 2 weeks now. But honestly it feels so much longer than that. The other night Kenzie and I were sitting in the kitchen getting ready to make dinner when our host mom gave us each a blin. It was amazinggg. :) It was filled with chicken, lettuce, ketchup, cilantro... Then at school the next day, we had blini for dessert. They were filled with an apple jelly type of thing. We also found out that one of the coordinators wants to give us cooking lessons to teach us how to make borscht and other Ukrainian food. Oh, and yesterday Kenzie and I went grocery shopping (again) and found banana juice. It tastes banana-y :P and we also found plum juice which wasn't too exciting. We love trying all the juices though. Ok I'm just saying random things, sorry. I actually have to be going, school's going to start soon. One last thing, the teachers are having a sleepover tonight at the other school and we're going to watch Taken (parents you can be proud) and then tomorrow Kenz and I are going to see the Nutcracker downtown! :) I'll try to have more to talk about next time and more pictures.

Poka!

Ballets and Pizza Night

On Saturday the Kiev teachers met up downtown and our coordinator Tanya showed us around. We walked up and down the streets looking at beautiful architecture and learning about the history (Kiev is the oldest city of Russian settled territory). Ten years ago the building below was going to be turned into a high-end hotel but there was a disagreement between the owner of the building and the project manager. Now it just sits there. :( Kenzie and I are trying to think of how we can buy it, I think two floors each would suffice. :P

We walked further and as we came around the baby blue church, this green-domed one was slowly revealed to us. It was beautiful, only about half of it is in this picture though.
The church below was destroyed by a fire (I think) and it was under construction for years, and just was finished in '02 (I think...lol) The outside was a gorgeous periwinkle color. We couldn't take pictures of the inside but it was amazing. There was gold everywhere and beautiful paintings. When we went inside we had to make sure we had a hat or scarf on our head because it's respectful in the Russian Orthodox churches for women to cover their heads when they're in a church.
After we toured the city we came to a buffet-like restaurant with Ukrainian food. Kenz and I got a lot of food for only $4 each! Food is pretty cheap here. The other day we got a bag of rolls for about $.12... but that's getting off topic. Anyways, at the restaurant, I had borscht for the second time, and it's sooo good. We are definitely going to go back to that place. :) After we ate, we all headed to the opera/ballet house to watch Giselle. It's about a girl who falls in love with a prince but she doesn't know he's a prince because he's wearing normal clothes, and then another man that loves her rats him out and because she can't be with her love anymore she gets so heartbroken that she dies. But that's just act one. In act two...I'm not so sure. I was asleep for most of it, I just remember a lot of girls dancing in a forrest. :) This Saturday Kenzie and I are going to see the Nutcracker and hopefully neither of us will fall asleep this time.

So, the day after the ballet, Kenzie and I spent the whole day planning lessons. We're going to do themed weeks, so this week it was "underwater" and all the lessons had to do with that. Next week it's going to be "outer space" and we're going to make aliens and banana rocket ships and things like that. Here is a picture of us taking over the school wall with our ideas:

We probably need to find a better way of organizing everything....

So since we were there all day we, naturally, got hungry and for some reason really liked the idea of ordering a pizza. But we didn't know our school's address, or which pizza place to call, or how to order a pizza in Russian, so we figured we should get some help. So we (as in Kenzie) called our coordinator Tanya (different from the one above) and asked her if she could order us a pizza. haha Slightly embarrassing but the pizza was worth it. The pizzas here are super thin, you can see through the bottom of them. :P
Anyways, I really shouldn't be sitting here, our lessons plans are due today and I only have 1 of 10 done. Also the kids will be here in about half an hour. Next time I think I'll write about food because I have some things to share :)

Hi Everyone! :)

Aright, so we've been here for more than a week now and I still haven't written anything. I guess I just have to find the time and energy, Kenzie and I still have really strange sleeping schedules; we tend to go to bed between 5:30 and 7 pm and the latest we've gotten up is 4:30 am. So obviously something has to change :) We started teaching on Tuesday, and I have to say, it's pretty hard. We teach from 9-1 and have 4 classes split up into two groups. The kids from one of the classes pretty much speak no English. Kenzie and I are having trouble getting them to follow our teaching method. Two of them just give us blank stares all the time.
As far as host families go, Kenzie and I are staying in the same one. Half of the family we never really see and the other half only every now and then, but it's ok, because they only speak Russian, so we can't say much anyways. :P They're nice though, and they have a cat that all of a sudden decided to be our best friend.
I'm not gonna write very much right now because we're leaving soon to shop and then we're going downtown to see a ballet! :)
So I'll just say one last thing, yesterday Kenzie and I bought Lay's thinking they were red currant flavored (but then again who's ever heard of berry flavored chips...?) Turns out though it was red caviar. We haven't tried them yet, they might be good...might be. Note to self: "ikra" means caviar....