What Kiev Is Really Made Of: Cathedrals, Metros, and Oversized Animals

It's been a while since my last post, but may I take this moment to congratulate myself on a decently good job keeping up with a blog? Add this to my journal and nightly emails to my dad, and I would say that this portion of my life is exceptionally well documented. I think I deserve kudos for that.

The day after my last post (Sunday) was beautiful. My host family took this as the perfect opportunity to have a barbeque and invite over some friends. We had met this family before, but that was at a large party. The dad of the family was incredibly nice to us, and even let us take photos with his super nice camera. In fact, near the end of the night he decided to let us borrow it for a while. And that's the story of how Kate and I ended up with a magnificent camera that we are scared to death to harm in any way.

It was a great day and was made even better by the fact that the next day was our first official vacation! Kate and I had a pretty slow morning, but in the afternoon we met up with a couple teachers from our group to explore some of the well-known cathedrals of Kiev. Our first stop was St. Andrew's Monastery. This has been significantly renovated, so it isn't exactly an original, ancient building. But it was still interesting to see and fun to take pictures of (especially with our swanky new camera.)

Quality you can see ( I'm mostly talking about the camera, but the building is nice, too)

Hey, look! We found some friends!

It's picture worthy

The backside is just as beautiful

We took a bit of a walk through a park around the back of St. Andrew's and that's where we got conned. I was actually not conned at first, but I eventually fell for it. There was a man with a bird sitting on his shoulder in one area of the park. He offered to let me hold the bird, but thinking that it probably cost money, I said no. However, the girls behind me said yes with no inhibition and so I decided to join in on the fun. Once we had taken our pictures and laughed our laughs, the man demanded payment. Obviously. I felt so stupid for not sticking to my initial gut feeling, and I don't think the other girls were very happy about it either. Oh well, at least we'll know next time, right? Hopefully?

The fear in my eyes is because I can sense the con happening



Overlooking Kiev

The next stop on our list was St. Sophia's Cathedral, but not before we shot some sweet photos of course! Then we made sure to go up the bell tower to see Kiev from up high. Finally it was into St. Sophia's. This cathedral dates back to the 11th century and in some areas you can still see original floors and walls from that time period, along with later additions in the 17th century. St. Sophia's Cathedral is famous for having so many intact frescoes from these time periods and is the subject of extensive research and restoration. It was beautiful; I wish we could have taken pictures. To be in a place so ancient that has seen so much was a unique experience.

From the bell tower

 

 

Thanks, I'm a model

 

He's a warrior, and that's about all our host dad told us

It's a long way up, or down, depending on your point of view

Leaving some change at St. Sophia's. Why? I don't know

This entire portrait is made of Ukrainian Easter eggs with paintings on them.
It's a painting made of paintings

Kate and I parted ways from our friends and ate dinner at a Ukrainian cafeteria-style chain. It was good as always, but when we went to the bathroom, we had our first experience with squat toilets. I wasn't shocked to find them in Ukraine, I was more shocked to find them in a relatively nice restaurant. Neither of us expected this, but we rolled with it and I can safely tell you that I hope I don't ever have to do that again.

Down the street of souvenirs

Kate's an artist, what can I say?

Model status once again

The following week wasn't anything out of the ordinary. We taught, planned, slept in, watched TV, got lost on the marshrutka, and got sad as the once sunny weather was traded in for rainy and cloudy weather. Despite this, I have great hope that all this rain means that greenery is just around the corner.

Friday was awesome! Before Kate and I left for Ukraine, we stayed at her grandparents' house. Her grandpa always has a lot of candy by his bed, and he had these amazing gummy bears that we've been craving lately. Kate asked her grandma to send us some and the package finally arrived on Friday! We rushed down to the post office, and discovered a really heavy package. Kate's grandma had sent us each a six-pound bag of gummy bears! We sat down outside the post office to examine our prizes and I immediately dug in! I was so happy.

Wow. Sorry the quality tanked.
But those gummy bears sure are good

We thought we would be clever and take a different bus that we swore would get us to the right metro station. We ended up on a completely different metro and we finally got home about an hour after we should have, but at least now we've been on all three metros!

Saturday was another busy day. At 11am Kate and I traveled all the way across Kiev to meet up with some teachers at this big market. We had never rode this far on the Red Line, but a little over halfway through, the metro emerged from the ground and suddenly we were riding above ground! It was just as we crossed the Danube River, and let me tell you, Kiev is a huge city. I just feel so amazed to live and serve here.

The market was fine, but Kate and I spent most of our time in the food section. Our new favorite pastime is looking at all the different candies and cookies we like, and trying to decide what to bring home for our friends and family to try. We also grabbed a "loaf" of lavash bread each, because it's delicious and only fifty cents, so why wouldn't we get it? If you've never had it, lavash is a Middle Eastern flatbread that when you eat it, miracles occur. So with that amazing carb creation, we headed back to our house to get ready for the temple.

It took us around an hour to get home and then we headed back out only twenty or thirty minutes later. I had a scary moment when we got to the marshrutka: I thought I left my temple recommend at home. We couldn't go back and still make it on time, so I thought I would have to head back alone, but luckily I found it in the depths of my bag.

It took some effort to get to the temple, but I'm so glad we did. The temple has certain times when they're doing baptisms, but we weren't really sure what to expect. We had gone before, but that was with our ward and so we knew the people and knew English would be spoken. After we got dressed, we headed to the confirmation room and were surprised to see at least a dozen people in there. We sat down and listened as one of the men read and spoke to everyone in Russian. We just kind of nodded and smiled like we knew what was going on. I don't think they knew we didn't speak Russian until it was my turn to be confirmed. I went up to the man and slowly said, "Jor-gen-son." My name is hard enough for people who speak English (which doesn't make sense to me because I feel like it's pretty simple) but I knew it wouldn't be easy for Ukrainians. Once they realized I didn't understand Russian, everyone kind of flew into a panic, trying to find the English version of the confirmations. It really didn't matter very much to me because I knew what was being said, but it was nice that they cared. Luckily, one of the men spoke English fairly well, so I was saved from having to play charades.

I mean, wow

I am so happy that we went to the temple surrounded by Ukrainians and the Russian language. It really reconfirmed to me that my church is world wide and that the temple is as important to people on the other side of the globe as it is to me. They were all so kind to us, and made me feel like I was at home. The man who spoke English did the baptisms in English for us, which is something he didn't have to do. There were Ukrainian girls there that were around our age and there were little old Ukrainian women. One woman in particular touched my heart. Her granddaughter was baptized first and then the grandma followed. I later learned that these two had come from Western Ukraine to do baptisms for family members. (The Kiev temple is the temple for pretty much all of Eastern Europe.) This woman was so happy and excited to be here. She bounded down the steps of the font and leaped into the arms of the man who was baptizing. Every time she was dipped underwater, she threw herself back and practically baptized herself. I love that woman so much. She taught me that serving others and participating in the Gospel is something to be excited about. I hope I have half as much fervor and energy for doing this work when I am that woman's age.

Even in the bathroom afterwards, many of the girls talked to Kate and I. They were all so friendly, and it was one of the best experiences I have had here.

Inside the temple was great, but outside, not so much. The wind and rain had picked up, and combined with our wet hair, we were quite the sorry sight. We finally made it back to the house where we were welcomed with no electricity. We hurriedly changed and once again headed out to a house of one of the ward members who offered to have all the ILP people over. We knew they lived close to us, but since our electricity was out we couldn't exactly look up directions, so we kind of headed out blind, hoping we would stumble upon it.

I'm sure you know by now, when Kate and I try to do things differently and be creative, we get lost. This was no exception. After wandering for about an hour in the cold and darkness, we were finally picked up by the dad of the family. Turns out we were pretty close to the house, but you know us, luck just can't be on our side!

It was a nice evening, with pizza and teachers and lots of pets! Seriously, they had so many bunnies and birds and a pig and the biggest rabbit I have ever seen in my life. They're an American family, but they've been living abroad in various places for about ten years, so it was really interesting listening to them and learning a bit of their story.

Kate with the rabbit. Do you see the size of that thing??!?!

Then it was Sunday again and church was wonderful as usual. That night we went to our host family's grandparents' house, which is huge and beautiful and close-by. The grandma was very nice to us  and she is the proud owner of the biggest cat I have ever seen! It's called a Maine Coon and it's gigantic, but very nice. I was quite the happy camper because cats are amazing and lately I've had an obsession with abnormally big things. I can now add owning an abnormally large cat to my pet list, which already includes owning an abnormally large dog.

Kitty, please love me

It loves me!

Kitty, come back

This week has been teaching as usual, but this Saturday begins our week-long excursion into Europe! We will be visiting Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, and Krakow, so now I can add five new countries to my list of places I've been! It's going to be a tiring week, but I'm going to try to blog every day since so much will be happening! I'm incredibly excited about our vacation, so hopefully the weather is good and the adventures are everywhere!

Another super exciting announcement: I have officially finished my first entire journal! This one has entries all the way from April 2011, so you can see that my journal keeping has definitely improved! Luckily, I brought an extra journal with me, so I can keep on keeping track of my life and the places it takes me!

The Good, The Bad, and The Candy

The weeks just fly by! I'm all settled in, getting ready to enjoy a nice three-day weekend. Life is good.

It's been almost two weeks since I last wrote, and that's mostly because the week before last wasn't anything amazing or out of the ordinary. However, it continually surprises me how much easier teaching has become. The first week, maybe even the first month, I didn't know how I was going to be able to survive five months teaching English. Between planning double the usual amount of lessons, incorporating all the various ILP guidelines, and just plain dealing with small children, it was hard and still is at times. But it's been so gratifying to see how far I've come and how much I've adjusted to my life and responsibilities here.

Last week actually had a weird, but super awesome trend--Pre-K never showed up! The terror I associate with Pre-K has diminished, but my heart rate still picks up in the moments before it begins. Last week, though, everyone was MIA, giving way to the faint hope that Pre-K would be suspended indefinitely. Unfortunately, they were back this week, although teaching them has slowly (like really slowly) become more enjoyable and definitely a lot easier. It's all about how to handle the little crazies.

Another interesting tidbit: our host family has been without a car for probably around two or three weeks now, which means we get to school by using a modge podge of different host drivers, like the grandparents or the terrifyingly fast driver neighbor. We also have been getting home by ourselves every night. This really isn't an issue, except that we live in some random village on the edges of Kiev meaning we need a super specific marshrutka to get to the center of the village. And this little marshrutka comes maybe every twenty minutes and for some reason likes to zoom past the metro stop we usually wait at after our first marshrutka ride from the school. We learned this the hard way after we missed it and had to wait in the humid cold for who knows how long before we could frantically flag down the next super specific marshrutka. Believe me, when I say flag down I mean audibly yelling and spastically waving to make sure the driver notices us. We tried to experiment and take the first marshrutka to the next metro where that super specific marshrutka actually slows down for a few seconds--yeah that didn't work out. Both times we tried it on different buses, we turned off the road and went in a completely different direction and we ended up having to backtrack up some hill and across the street. So we take our chances with flagging down the super specific marshrutka.

Last Thursday, Kate's mission call came! It arrived at her home in Utah and her parents scanned it and emailed it to her so she could be the first to open it. I obviously wanted to know right away, but Kate is responsible and thoughtful, and decided to wait until her whole immediate family could Skype in and be with her when she opened it. That also meant that we had to wake up at 2am in order to Skype. Curse this enormous time difference; I have a hard enough time waking up at 7:30am. Kate woke me up and apparently I said, "Is it loaded?" That doesn't make any sense. It took a while for her family to all get on, so I was sprawled on the bathroom floor wondering how I got there. Finally it was time and it was so exciting! She is going to the Chile Concepcion Mission, Spanish speaking (obvi) and she will be leaving for the MTC on July 16th! Super exciting stuff, both her mission call and the fact that I could go back to bed.

I'm just going to apologize right here because I definitely thought my life had been bone dry week before last, but looks like I was wrong. It only gets longer from here folks, so turn back now if you're not up for it (although personally, I think the better stuff is coming up.)

That weekend was some kind of pancake festival or whatnot celebrating the first day of Spring. And when I say pancake, I actually mean crepes. Lots and lots of crepes. My grandpa used to tell us how in France they would make crepes for some special crepe day, but they would put alcohol in them and then get drunk from crepes and start slapping each other with crepes. I think that's amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of those shenanigans (although I really wish I had,) but we did go to this park with a bunch of old Ukrainian villages. Basically, it was this place representing Ukraine in old times with little model houses and churches and the like. It was pretty awesome, made even better by our picnic that consisted of, you guessed it, a ton of crepes. I actually think I'm going to throw up from the sheer amount of sweets I've eaten in the last two weeks (you'll understand much better in a few paragraphs.) We only stayed for a little over an hour before we left because it was wet and cold. Hopefully, we can make a return trip in the spring because it sure was cute.



It's the first day of Spring!



This man and his mustache are my heroes



A replica of an old church, completely made from wood

Inside of above church



My hair did not appreciate the humidity



Eating crepes and drinking tea like the fancy people we are

I can only imagine what this place looks like in the *real* Spring

Gah!! Monday it snowed, but luckily it didn't stick. It's mostly been raining and overcast, but the sun did come out on Friday which was beautiful!

For the past few days Kate and I have been watching these little kids pull out massive packs of huge wafers for their snack. Sometimes we're lucky and they share, but on Wednesday after school we decided to get some of our own at a little store down the street. One pack of wafers turned into three each and soon we were each walking up to the cash register with arms full of candy, chips, and some random sweet bread we picked up. The lady who rang up our "food" was laughing at us as we raided the nearby candy shelf for some of our favorite candies, Pueros. She started talking to us in Russian, and then found the situation even funnier when she realized we are foreigners.

The haul

Thursday was a sad day. Our group of teachers was allowed to go down to the center of Kiev where the protests have taken place over the last few months. There were hundreds of thousands of flowers piled all across the center to honor those who died in the protests. Our head teacher bought some flowers for us so we could pay our respects. One building was charred black from being on fire and there were still many barricades and tents up. The cobblestones from the streets were sitting in stacks from having been pulled up to be used as weapons against the police.  As we walked down from the bridge where most of the people died, I saw two girls standing in front of a memorial for one of the people who died. One girl was attempting to comfort the other, as the other cried. It was emotionally hard to be around so much suffering and sadness. It was very surreal and the gloomy, overcast weather added to the dreariness. It was humbling to really understand what other people go through all around the world in order to obtain the freedoms and privileges that I have enjoyed my entire life. 

Paying my respects to the fallen

 

 

 

This building was used as a hospital for the protestors and caught fire

 

 

Torn up cobblestones

 

The weapons the police used on the protestors

 

 

This is where the majority of the casualties occurred

 Friday, in contrast, was a very happy day. The sun was shining and the air was warm. Pre-K was so fun to teach, even though I got the hiccups and that was very distracting to the little kids. (If you know my hiccups, you know they sound like a small dog is being kicked.) 

Singing songs and having fun

Little Alyssa and Andrew

For lunch, Kate and I decided to make a trip back out to the main street to buy some street food. We decided on shawarma, even though a girl in our group has gotten sick from it and our foreign coordinators has advised against it. It was delicious. We probably won't be getting that everyday since there are risks, but I'm glad we tried it. It was such a nice day that we decided to keep walking past the first bus stop while munching on our contraband. Little did we know that the next bus stop would be incredibly far down the road and that marshrutkas wouldn't stop very easily. But it was sunny and warm, so I didn't mind. 


It was sooo good



Waiting in the sun for the bus that never comes

Teaching had more kids than usual, but it was Women's Day which is actually really celebrated here! A lot of our students brought us chocolate and flowers, which made me feel so special. 



The loot

 For dinner we had waffles with Nutella and then our host dad Alex made us try pickled garlic cloves and pig lard on bread. It was not tasty, but at least I tried it, right? Relating back to what I said earlier, I am going to die from the amount of sweets that are in my body and continue to be presented to me.

Case in point: for breakfast this morning, we had straight up candy. It was two plates of candy. Maybe I should fast again this Sunday, just so I can cleanse my system. 

But I do have a brilliant plan. I told my mom that I would like her to take me out to get Mexican food when I arrive in Salt Lake in June because Mexican food is delicious and I miss it. She asked if she could just bring me Chipotle, and since I'm flexible and easy to work with, I agreed. But being me, I get a little obsessive over planning for the future, so I promptly downloaded the Chipotle app and crafted my order, all ready to be sent in when I arrive back in the US. I also took a screenshot of my order and sent it to my mom, and now I will show all of you beautiful people.   



Just take it all in