More Winter "Fun"

Happy 12/12/12!

So I am now in the midst of the busiest week I've had in Vinnytsia so far. And in true Ukrainian form, these plans weren't altogether presented to me until Saturday. I already had committed to teaching a class today (Wednesday) afternoon and my regular class on Saturday afternoon... and this week, the Peace Corps is organizing a training for English Teachers in Vinnytsia and I was asked to present. That is tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. Then last week Svitlana asked me to cover her class for her since she will be out of town, which is three hours long and is on Friday. Then Oleg's students accosted me in the hallway and asked if I would come back to their class. When I brought this up with him, he said that the only chance to do this would be on Friday morning. Then he scheduled a Russian lesson for me with Lena on Monday, and she asked me if I would also cover her three-hour evening class last night (Tuesday). Ack!

On Sunday, though, I was free to go out and have some fun with Tanya and her husband. We went out to the Mega-Mall and went bowling. The bowling alley felt just like being in America, right down to the carpet. The only real difference? They give you not just shoes here, but also socks! Interesting.

After bowling we went shopping, and I was finally able to buy a fleece blanket to wrap myself in when sitting around my apartment, as well as a good sharp knife. Tanya and her husband also bought me a beautiful Christmas ornament, which I look forward to putting on my tree back in the States!

Then we drove around town a little to look at the Christmas decorations, which was a lot of fun. I have a deal with Vasa-- I try to speak Russian and he tries to speak English, and Tanya helps us both-- so I got in some language practice, too :) Then we went to a Ukrainian restaurant for dinner.

The wooden building in the snow made me feel like I was in the Carpathians for real :P

We ate a dinner of fried potato dumplings stuffed with mushrooms; salat made of eggs, cucumbers, green onions, and ham; and shashlyk. Mmmmmm so tasty!!!

Mmmm... Shashlyk with dipping sauce. Дуже смачно!

So at least I had an enjoyable and relaxing evening before embarking on this crazy week!

Then today, my power went out around 11:30 am. I thought nothing of it, since power has gone out a couple of times before and the weather is kind of crappy (it just keeps snowing and snowing and snowing!) But then I went out to the grocery store, and discovered that I could not take my trash to the dumpsters down the hill because the sidewalk beyond my building had been roped off. There was an ambulance and some construction equipment, and even a TV news crew. When I got to the end of the street, I discovered there was a policeman blocking it-- the whole street was closed. I did not realize what had happened until I got back from my trip to the grocery store: under the weight of the snow, THE NEIGHBOR'S ROOF HAD CAVED IN.

Holy. Crap.

So my power (and thus my heat) was out all day. I left early for my class, wanting to charge my computer at the university... but there was a car accident and the tram was stuck for quite a while. I barely arrived in time for the class.

Like an idiot, I decided to walk home in the dark and the driving snow. The whole way I kept praying that my electricity and heat would be on when I got home. The street was open again, which was a good sign. But when I got to my building, it was dark. So I stopped outside to turn on the flashlight which is built into most Ukrainian cell phones (for pretty much this exact reason), because it was pitch black in the staircase. But literally right as I stepped in the door, the lights came back on. Thank God!

So, that's more than enough adventures for me today. Tomorrow I present at the Teacher Training. Never a dull moment around here!

Also, 9 more days until Turkey!

ETA Training/Orientation in Kyiv

I have returned at last!

Not much was happening for a few weeks-- or well, things were, but there was not much interesting to report. The weekend after I lost my camera I traveled to Kyiv to attend the regional Fulbright ETA orientation. This was three days of meeting with other ETAs who were sent to Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, etc.

While I had no camera, with the aid of Facebook I was able to gather some pictures that my fellow ETAs took from the trip.

St. Andrews' Church, at the top of the hill

Vanessa and I walking down St. Andrews' Descent. During the day this street is filled with vendors selling all kinds of crafts and souvenirs... but it was pretty awesome to be there at night when it was completely empty. I think this is my favorite part of Kyiv.

Words to live by. (Shashlyk, for the record, is grilled meat and/or veggie kebabs and is super tasty)

By the time I returned to Vinnytsia I was exhausted after my 2+ weeks of solid travel and very little sleep, so I didn't do much except rest for a week or so. Over the weekend, I went shopping with Karis, one of the Peace Corps volunteers, and we bought a new camera. She took me to the "Mega-Mall" on 600 Years Street.

"Vulnitsa Sheist-sot richya"

We also visited the Silpo in that mall, which we discovered to have a better selection and better prices. I've started going there when I can spare the time to take the longer tram ride.

On Thursday, I took a trip back to that mall and bought a wireless internet router for my apartment. This was really becoming necessary because my internet cable is broken and was continually falling out of my computer whenever I moved. It was a fulfilling venture, because the clerk at the store was perfectly nice to me, and he spoke Ukrainian and I spoke Russian and we understood one another perfectly, and he showed me the correct router for the internet service I have and the size of my apartment. Then I went home and set it up, which ended up being a somewhat complicated process since I have a service you have to sign into... and although all the menus and settings were in Ukrainian, I successfully set it up. I was really proud of myself after that!

Then, the Thanksgiving festivities began. I attended the local English Club's Thanksgiving meeting. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to actually eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving at the English Club! As you can see, there was turkey, potatoes, cranberries (made by yours truly), and lots and lots of sweets!

You can view more pictures of the English Club's Thanksgiving party here, too. My favorite is the one of Mila posing with my cranberry sauce. Hahahaha...

I had attended the English Club once before but it was like no one had noticed me until this meeting. Several of the members introduced themselves to me, and were really nice people. I will have to go back this week.

On Saturday, Anna, one of the Peace Corps volunteers, was hosting a bigger Thanksgiving party at her home in Vinnytsia Khurota-- one of the villages surrounding Vinnytsia. Unfortunately I had to be late, since I was teaching the class that I teach on Saturdays. This group of students are in the 11th grade at a local high school, and the university offers them these classes to help them prepare for their college entrance exams in the hopes that when they need to choose a college, they will choose this one.

These students are really motivated and enthusiastic and they really work hard-- and apparently they love me too. Before class Oleg was telling me that one of the other teachers had overheard some of my students on a bus in the city talking about how I was the best English teacher around. :o) This week they asked for a picture with me, so here it is:

These students are fabulous!

After the class, I caught bus 176 to Vinnytsia Khurota to attend the party at Anna's. It was interesting because I only knew three or four people there and everyone else was a complete stranger. They were all really nice to me, but as the only non-Peace Corps person in attendance, I felt like a special guest to a group which already existed. Still, I had a really great time and made some new friends in the area.

The food was fabulous. There was a huge spread of American favorites, including macaroni and cheese, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc. Notably missing, though, was the turkey. Plans for obtaining one had fallen through last-minute, so we ate pork and duck instead.

I should probably also mention that it was an "ugly sweater" party. We don't all have this questionable of a fashion sense on normal days. :P

After dinner we retired to the sauna (a surprisingly nice building with a pool and everything) to drink and play games and chat. After playing a game of Cards Against Humanity (a version of Apples to Apples that is utterly politically incorrect and offensive, and therefore often very hilarious), we settled into conversations.

Around 1:30 we (me and two girls who were planning to crash at my apartment) attempted to call a taxi back to my place... but there were a series of communication mishaps (first we didn't know the correct area code for the taxi service, then we got a number for one which didn't serve the area, except the person who made the call didn't understand that so we waited outside for 40 minutes, then tried to walk to a nearby hotel/bar to get a number and the people there either gave us a wrong number or the taxi service they referred us to didn't operate during those hours... it was a mess). Long story short, we ended up staying the night at Anna's (not that I really slept) and I didn't get back until late yesterday morning.

Now I'm very tired, but I got up to teach a class this morning (well, not really teach. It was a class I had never worked with before, so we just chatted and got to know one another). Then I took a trip out to the fancy Silpo and got ingredients for vegetable soup, which I made for dinner. Tomorrow I have a Russian lesson (only my third one since all this madness started-- I was gone, or my teacher was busy,  pretty much every day since) and I teach an evening class of high schoolers that I've never worked with before from 5-8 pm. It's going to be a long haul but I think it will be fun.

I also made plans for Christmas-- from December 22-28 I will be going to Istanbul with some of the other Fulbrighters, and when I return from that I will go to L'viv for a two-week intensive course in the Ukrainian language and to celebrate Orthodox Christmas at the home of one of my friends. :o) I'm really excited! Better things to come!

River Boats and Ukrainian Food

Today, I took a ride on the river boat with Tanya and her husband, Vasiliy. The weather wasn't ideal, as it was rainy and got quite cold by the end of the trip, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Tanya and me on the boat

Despite the weather, the river vista was still beautiful. The leaves are just starting to turn.

The boat ride ended (or, well, really reached the halfway point, since we stopped there and turned around) within view of a dam and hydroelectric power plant. Tanya told me it had been there since Soviet times, but had been recently upgraded and made more efficient.

I taught Tanya a new word to describe what this place was during Soviet times: a quarry. Upon further reflection... what a weird word.

Here is a picture of the riverboats that I happened to take last week, on a sunnier day:

After the river boat ride, they drove me around by car so that I could see a bit more of the city. We stopped at the Metro store, which is surprisingly similar to Sam's Club or Costco. Tanya and Vasiliy have a membership there, so I was able to get lots of stuff I needed that wasn't available at the stores near me in town-- a good-quality towel, a tablecloth for my table (embroidered Ukrainian-style-- I will take a picture of it tomorrow in the daylight-- it's so pretty! Definitely something I will bring home with me). There was also other stuff that I was glad to be able to buy in larger quantities since they had a car-- for example, water and toilet paper. Tanya is teaching me a lot about buying food in Ukraine, and cooking with it... and believe me, there's a lot to learn. The dishes are so different, and so is what's available in the stores.

When we had finished at the store, they took me to a restaurant which serves traditional Ukrainian food... and they ordered me basically some of everything, haha.

Varenky (basically pierogies) filled with cabbage, potato pancakes (one order topped with mushrooms and one order with onions and ham), fried potatoes with garlic and dill, chicken shashlyk (shish kabob), pickled vegetables (cucumbers and tomatoes), and some type of Armenian dish that I found suspiciously similar to a quesadilla. To drink- prune compote (the flavor of which reminded me of spiced apple cider) and two shots-- horseradish vodka and berry liqueur. The berry liqueur was not bad. Of the horseradish vodka... I wasn't such a big fan, haha. I thought it smelled (and tasted) like acetone :P Everything was so good! I ate far too much, and they let me have the leftovers, too!

We topped off the meal with a cappuccino.

Only THE PRETTIEST CAPPUCCINO EVER. All right kids, it's time for your Russian lesson. Яблоко (pronounced "yabloko")= "apple"

I must say, I have yet to drink a bad cup of coffee in Ukraine. Apparently barista-ing is a "thing" here, and they have competitions and everything. Last weekend when I was at the Day of the City celebration with Tanya we bought cappuccinos at a streetside stand, and it was by far the best coffee I'd ever had.

Now with a full stomach, I enter a food coma. Time for bed!