First we went to Germany and visited Janice and her family!

TRAIN CONCERT

Yes, this is train. My sisters and I grew up on Train. And loved it. We LOVED TRAIN. So...while I was in Ukraine Jess decided to get all of us sisters Train tickets. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!

Matt Kearney was there. He has a beautiful voice live.  Andy Grammar was there..but sorry no pictures. He was great though!

Barbequing with a Ukrainian Fam

Anya is one of the students that I teach in Ukraine. Her dad drops her off for English class and aslways stops by to say hello. He lived in Montana on a foreign exchange student program so he knows English very well. That is honestly very rare to find someone in Ukraine that speaks English well. He invited Mar and I to have dinner at his home.
On Monday, he and his girls picked us up and drove us to his lovely neighborhood. Oh my goodness, it was so nice to drive in a car! We pull up to an actual house! I would say 87% of people here live in flats (apartments)...yes, that is my guess,-87%! They have a beautiful home! They are still building their home and are staying in their guest house. Their guest house is bigger than the flat that I live currently in. My flat has two bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a t.v. room, and a very small kitchen. We have 6 people living here too! Anyway, we got there and met his other girl and wife, Sasha. They couldn't speak English, but were so inviting and eager to have us. We looked at paintings and pictures and just talked. Sergey, the dad, showed us part of the pyramids that he had in his closet and talked about all of the places that he's visited-Tunisia, China, Egypt, Turkey, sheesh all over the world! Then he took us on a walk near his home. We walked along the beach. It was such a fantastic view. There were people camping out with their portable radios and umbrellas. People were starting fires and cooking. ....and of course nude oldies tanning it up. We walked back and we started up the barbecue. We had veal that was marinated, mashed potatoes, salad, pickled sweet peppers, and for dessert we had homemade cheese and honey as well as fresh milk from the village. The cheese was more like a sweet cheese that was really smooth and white. The milk was extememly sweet and thick. It was so thick, it had a film over it. Usually I would not drink that, but I hadn't had a cup of milk since I got here! They fed us and fed us until I could not eat another thing. Then they sent us home with the extra cake, veal, a few apples, as well as fresh cherry blossom tea he got from China and some Chinese currency. It was such a great day sunbathing on their lawn chairs, playing with the dog, and the girls. I felt like I was back at home in America visiting good friends.

Sundays!

I went to church today. Let me just say, my day was great! I love going to church and feeling Christ's love for me. It makes me have so much hope and I feel so much joy. It makes me smile more. I laugh easier. I can be more friendly when I've felt the Spirit. I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I am grateful I have it in my life!

Little Godsends

Today I was cheered up by an unexpected someone. I was having a rough start with my day and just couldn't get into a good mood. I had planned to meet up with some friends for a temple trip and had got on the wrong trolley bus that took me who knows where. I was at least a half hour late and had no phone. I showed up at the metro finding no one. I sat there in the metro in despair and frustration. All of a sudden a little boy about three years old took a seat at the corner of the bench. He sat there swinging his little legs back and forth with a small bouquet of dandelions. He seemed to take notice of my gloomy figure. He looked over at me with the biggest eyes and scooted closer to me. I think he was just curious. His eyes were just beaming with all the joy a little boy could have. He eagarly looked at my ipod, captivated by the weird language it was in. Then, without a hesitation he held out his bouquet of dandelions to my nose and just gave me the biggest grin his little mouth could hold. I sniffed them and told them how wonderful they smelled, even though he didn't understand English. We both just sat there and giggled. A minute later, my metro pulled up and it was time for a goodbye. I smiled and said bye! He quickly gave an excited wave and kept shouting pica! Pica! ..which is goodbye in Russian. He walked off with his dad and glanced back one more time for a frantic, yet excited wave and a beautiful smile. I got onto the metro and was just beaming with joy from that simple experience. That little boy was a little godsend to me today.

A day at the Ukrainian Zoo

What is this might you ask? Apparently, it is a Phoenicopterus roseus......a translation from Russian to the English word for flamingo. Wouldn't it be just be easier to say...flamingo????
I guess it wasn't the best time of year to visit the zoo in Ukraine... Before my host family took us, they had told us that a lot of animals usually die in that zoo. They don't have the best reputation.Gigantic mass waste lands and bomb shelters were seen. It was an adventure in itself. We didn't get to see a lot of animals. Gorillas...nope.Monkeys...nope. Hippos, cheetahs, elephants, flamingos, turkeys, nope! We just got to see the massive signs advertising for the animals. We got to see some good sized geese and a lion or two though.
The zoo was able to keep a snake though. Mom, I thought you'd like this.

It is unacceptable to make fun of the animals....or feed candy to them for that matter.

Although there wasn't much to see at the zoo, it was a fun day relaxing with the fam!

Happiness is a choice

Today is a good day. It may be a chilling 5 degrees Celsius, but that is okay! I'm in Ukraine. I'm teaching my cute Followup kids, Vanya, Raya, and Yulya. They sure are fun! Why shouldn't I be happy?

Manicures

Tonight, I got a manicure from my host mom, Ira.
I can't speak Ukranian.
She can't speak English.
BUT this is what made my day.

Ira went to school and studied cosmology. She can do hair and nails professionally you could say. She has a 16 year old daughter and almost every night they sit in her room and do each others nails with glitter and creative designs. I think it would be so much fun to do mother-daughter things like that! I love it and think it's so cute.
Since I have moved into my Ukrainian home, I haven't had the best communication with my family. The parents don't speak little English and I speak a FEW words of Ukranian/Russian. She offered to do my nails last night and so I eagerly accepted. I walked into the kitchen and she had little cloth set out on the kitchen table and had her bag of nail gadgets. I didn't know I was getting into a full salon experience!
She put some smelly good nail oil on. Then she pushed back my nail cuticles and clipped them. She was so delicate and precise. She wasn't just going to paint my nails. She was going to make sure that she did them well. She wanted to make an impression and show how much she loved doing them and how well she could. She worked and worked on my cuticles and then got the file out and worked on rounding my next to nothing, scrawny nails. Then she got out her hand cream and gave me a hand massage. We just giggled like two little girls as she just pampered me. I was just so happy to see this side of her. Then she painted my nails and put 2 little sparkles on each nail and did a neat design on my ring fingers
....after she was done her daughter told me that I needed to grow out my nails a bit so she could shape them and make them look good. I just think I might take her up on that! 

This is just one small thing that made my day! Even though it was through painting nails, I got to know Ira a little better and share a happy moment with her.

LIVOV AND ROMANIA VACATION

I went to Romania a few weeks ago. Let me just say that no one knew what our trip entailed. No one. All I knew was that we were going to Lvov and Romania and that we were getting there by a train and a bus. First, we took a  sleeper train to Lvov, Ukraine. Doesn't it sound like a Harry Potter adventure?? I was sure excited since this was my first sleeper train. We got on at 11:30 pm and headed off to the beautiful city of Lvov. I loved being rocked to sleep on the tracks and hearing the train roll along.
Lvov is the most European city in Ukraine. The architecture is beautiful. We climbed MANY stairs to the top of a tower to look out over the beautiful city of 200,000 people. It is a quaint little city. I loved it. From the top of the tower we could see almost everything! Some of the roof tops were caving in. It looked like it could have been from bombs. The homes and buildings were so colorful!

After our day there, we got on a bus to drive to Romania. Our tour guide informed us that it would be about a 6 hour drive. Well, that's not too bad. We got on. 6 hours passed. We drove on. We continued to drive, and drive....and drive. Little did we know it would be a 17 hour drive. The rode we drove on for about 14 hours was a 2 way road that wound up and down the mountain. Don't worry. We got to Sinai, Romania. It was gorgeous. The mountains reminded me of home. Someone even compared it to being a Park City country. In some ways it was.

This would be the windy 14 hour long road I would be talking about.

1st EXCURSION---------Peles Castle

Isn't it just beautiful! It was built just a few hundred years ago. It has about 80 rooms and 30 bathrooms. Wouldn't that be a wonderful hotel to stay at?! The dining room was huge. There were about 40 seats for dinner guests. The decor was fancy and it was well preserved.

2nd EXCURSION-----DRACULA'S CASTLE!!

Yes, I said DRACULA. Okay people, Dracula was real. He was. His name was Vladimir. Maybe he wasn't a vampire, but who's to say he really wasn't? Anyway, he was a creepy man. His castle was built in the early 1300's. He wasn't the first one to live in the castle though. I'll give a very brief biography of Mr. Vladimir. He was in the royal family, but somehow he didn't get bequeathed and left everything he wanted. Instead, all of the good family fortune went to his brother. He became very upset and bitter. It changed his life...obviously for the worst. He became known for his torture techniques that he would perform on people that didn't agree to his commands. His castle was built up on a very high hill. He conveniently had a forest behind this castle of His. He found a use for it alright. He chopped down the trees and only left a few feet left of it. With the remaining tree, he carved out spears. He had his servants through off people form the top of his castle onto the sharpened spears. He also did a lot of other stuff that I don't really want to go too deep into. If you want to learn more, look it up! Now, I don't know how credible all of this information is, but I found it on the internet.

3rd EXCURSON---GOOD OLE' TRADITIONAL ROMANIAN DINNER

Me and a group of kids from my volunteer group signed up for a Romanian dinner. In the description it said we'd dance around a campfire and enjoy entertainment and then be fed real Romanian food. Fun right?
We drove another hour up the windy roads in the Romanian wilderness to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. We were greeted by this.

Cheesy men dressed up in Dracula "costumes." Don't you just love the guy rockin' the bunny fingers? His hat even said Halloween on it. These was the first feel of how this dinner shin dig was goin down.
They had a bonfire alright. Me, and about 40 other people sat around this fire while 4 people came out dressed in traditional Romanian attire and started singing and dancing. There was also a random dragon thing that walked around the fire poking his faces in peoples' business and shaking his booty. Interesting..... They had a jug of Dracula's blood so of course we had to try that. It turned out to be...wine. when you're gulping down supposed warm cider you wouldn't think there would be burning! That was my first taste of spirits! I took a drink and didn't want any more.
Then, they escorted us into the basement of the restaurant.

This is our little ILP group that braved this adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

First they brought out this....

Looks fancy right?

I had never seen this before, as well as the others. We decided to poke it around first, just to test it. We gave it a good poke and it bounced back. What the heck? I was pretty sure it wasn't any meat I had ever eaten. I took a little snag and popped it in. Mush. Mush. Mush. The lady came out and informed us it was brain. It was cold! You could have taken the knife and spread it across the bread. I ate about 3/4 of it and had to call it off. I was not prepared to conquer it. No way. Welp, that was only the appetizer. They didn't even try to get us accustomed a smidge to what we would be eating. They just brought out the big guns!
The next plate

The only thing I felt comfortable eating was the red peppers. Before this picture was taken there was a dark brown deviled egg. I ate that too. The stuff in the tomato is some kind of cheese. It was STROONG. The round gelatin meat looking stuff was who knows what. I'm pretty sure it was a mixture of things. I heard it could have been tongue, ear, and liver. The sausage stuff on the left wasn't sausage. When I cut into it it was like meat spread. The taste was so foreign I couldn't get it down.

The Dinner Plate

This was grits and stewed liver. The orange things weren't carrots. It looks appetizing, I guess if you like liver. We had another dish with an assortment of pickled food. One was pickled watermelon. I didn't find much of a taste for it. For dessert we had a squirt of strawberry ice and wined prunes. Let me just say, I tried everything! When I left, 3 hours later, I was pretty dang hungry. It was a fun and a good experience, I would just rather eat good food!

LAST EXCURSION----MIDNIGHT TORCH TOUR

We showed upand they gave us this big, cheesy torches. Our guide led out. We roamed Brasov till 1 am, looking like a bunch of ridiculous English people. When we passed a church the guide stopped us and talked about it. She had even brought pictures of the inside of the church because apparently it wasn't open at 12 am. Awesome huh? While we waled through the city sqaure, some men passed us. The tour was in Russian. They didn't ask if we were English or not, but blurted out. 'What...are you doing?.." Enough said.

All in all, it was a spontaneous night that took us to places that we ate and did things we never thought about doing! I'm not going to lie. After the midnight torch tour we stopped at McDonalds. No more brain for me please!

metro?

One nice thing about being in a foreign country is that you have an excuse not to know how to do things right. You also are put in little, yet OFTEN humbling situations.
Yesterday I got on the wrong bus, so I hopped off and got onto another one. I asked the driver if it went to the metro and he said yes. We hopped on. A few minutes later he yells, "Diavichki!"I had been on this bus before and knew for a fact that we had a good 15 minute ride ahead of us. Why was he telling us this was the metro stop? Well, I guess it was the hint to get off at the next stop. I ignored my better sense of judgement and got off.So...of course that's what we did. We all got off....and the bus sat there...then he yells the same thing at us and waves us in. He just wanted money for the trip. I knew it wasn't the metro....We flashed them our metro cards, and got back on the bus.

Take the 56 D!

Yesterday, I got on the wrong bus to ride back to my flat. 56 K. I have taken this bus the same route a few times before and have never landed in the right place. When I wait for a bus at this particular stop it usually takes 45 mins, so when a 56 bus micro bus came zooming along, I decided to hop on! We got a good 30 min ride out of it until I fully decided it was the wrong bus. After I hurridly hopped off, I dropped one of my reallly nice gloves. Now it is gone. And now I roam around Kiev with one bare hand. Classy.

Today Marina and I got done early teaching our English classes. We decided to go shopping a Dream Town; a HUGE mall close to our flat. There are 2 Dream Towns, each on the other side of the block. These malls are so huge, that it covers 2 metro stops. That's ginormous! Well, these malls are legit. They have not only shops and a food court, but a Belgian waffle stand. gellato, ping pong tables, bowling, ice skating, rollerblading little arenas, a big arcade room, one of those flippy rides where they strap you in, banks, a movie theater, and huge parts of the mall that are themed different countries. They even have one of Arizona! That's what made me like it so much, of course! Lastly, they have a supermarket. A huge supermarket in the mall! Today Marina and I decided to explore it. We entered and took a little roller basket. We went straight to the candy and chocolate isle. Of course we couldn't read anything. We picked it up, and, if it looked good we got it. Period. Next was the bread and pastry isle. Holy flip. DELICIOUS. There were all kinds pastries and breads I had never seen before, never had I seen them twisted and contorted in such magnificent braids and weaved in such patterns. They were irresistible. SO, i got a colorful something. The black stuff, now I say stuff in order to ignore the fact that it looks like caviar. This shall be an experience. I even got flavors of star bursts that I had never seen! One package was an alcoholic drink kind. Bleh. It wasn't so tasty. So...please. Don't purchase them. We wandered that market for a good while. Everything was so foreign. This store, by far, has been my favorite.

KIEV

Today a man got squished in the trolley bus. It didn't make my day. He fell unconscious and 2 men drug him off the trolley. The doors shut and we left. I hope I never get squished!

LOST

Today me and an ILP teacher that lives with me, Marina, had to to find the school today, by ourselves. We take a trolley to the metro station, "Metro Minska," and then walk to the school. We were able to find our trolley and headed to the metro. We got off, crossed the street, and looked hopelessly at a crowded square of people as the snow fell. We walked. Our walk turned to a trudge. We peered out over the vast city of white, slushy, dirty buses. Everything looked the same; the people, the buildings, the apartments, the streets, the signs..just everything. I decided to call one of the local coordinators for our program. We started to talk. She asked where I was in order to help me get to the school. ...of course I don't know where I am. She asks me what metro I'm at, but come on. I am in a foreign country! I can't read one blasted sign. No. Not one. She then tells me to hand the phone to someone. I gave the reply, "To an old lady?"...why....why did I ask that? haha I looked. There was a man selling something on a table on the side of the street. He looked safe?... as safe as a street seller can look I guess. I walked up to him and motioned from my mouth to the phone. He took it and talked to the woman. He then handed me the phone and started doing all kinds of hand motions and speaking Russian. I gave him a confused smile and walked. We just walked. Finally, the other ILP teachers decided to meet us. They found us, and 2 hours later we made it. Glad that is over!

MONDAY

TODAY I saw a woman get squished inside of the trolley.
It shouldn't have made my day, but it did.

Cram em' tight!

Kiev is the capital of a European country. There are about 3.67 million residents. Hundreds of flats (apartment buildings) line along the city. Some are hundreds of years old and most of them have bars on the windows. They look pretty sketch, but some of the bars are for decor, believe it or not. I guess it's soviet style..
Me and some of the other ILP volunteers decided to stay at our head teachers' apartment the night before church. Notice apartment is singular. We made the hour and a half journey there and walked in the door. 1 bunk and 2 beds. 25 people. 2 rooms, 1 small kitchen, 1 toilet, and one bathroom. 25 PEOPLE.
It was interesting.

We lined up along the carpet. some kids were hanging off chairs, some decided to sleep on the wood floors in the kitchen. ....and might I add the bath tub. Yup, that basically sums it up. We crammed. Our ages ranged from 17 to 22. Sounds like a crazy party? No. It was a ridiculous, RIDICULOUS idea. Over the night, some people got 15 mins of sleep, others got at most 3 hours.
We got up at 7:15 and made the 2 hour trek in the slush and snow...in our skirts and tights into the white abyss of Kiev, Ukraine.
We are DEDICATED.

KYIV, UKRAINE January 22

Today was Sunday. My head teacher and other fellow ILP teachers decided we wanted to make the 2 hour adventure to church together. Our group of 25 people journeyed to the head teachers' apartment to stay the night before. I took a trolley, walked to the metro, rode the metro, walked, caught a bus, and walked to the apartment. It took an hour and a half.

Sunday morning:

8-walk to the bus, ride the metro, catch another bus, miss the stop, and finally walk to the LDS branch building. ...this took another hour and a half.

All in all, traveling to and from church took the course of 5 1/2 hours.

I think it was worth it.

KYIV, UKRAINE

I have made a few observations from the past four days that I have lived here:

1. All women dress up. No matter the weather, I"m talking four inch slush and 24/7 snowfall, women wear 4+ heels.....ALL women. No exceptions.
2. Fur is in.
3. Don't wear tennis; not with pants and certainly not a skirt!
4. Look angry. It's normal.


Rules I've Broken:
#1- I wore my boot cut black jeans, and a sporty waterproof jacket. ....Come on. It's waterproof!
#2-Fur? I thought that was in Anastassia's day?! Maybe? ...like 50 years ago? Anyway, apparently I'm not in the "in crowd."
#3-I didn't bring any boots. So what have I done? I wear my tennis every day....even with my skirt.
#4-I like to be a happy person so..I smile. I wave. I say thank you or "spaciva."

Rules I will continue to break:
Welp, probably just about all of them.

Europe Here We Come!

O

The Work of an Amazing Mom!

It was time for me to go back to Idaho for college. Almost 1,000 miles away!! I did NOT want to go. We both drove up and unpacked my things...and...well I broke down basically. I didn't want my Mom to leave me. I know. I know. I am a college sophomore and I don't want my mom to leave? It's true. I love my mom! She is my best friend. SO...after my Mom saw how much of a mess I was, she got a hotel room for the night. Not just any hotel room, but, an Italian Suite!!....It was one of the only suites left. We thought, what the heck? Let's do it.

As we opened the door, the room was dim-lot, we walked in further and saw the rose petals that had been sprinkled on our bed. Ooooooh romantic. And of course, to top it off, our JET JACUZZI. There was complimentary sparkling cider, wine glasses, and popcorn. Awesome!!! Who would have thought an Italian Suite would have worked out so great! Me and my mom just sat and relaxed and talked all that night. My mom, with her brilliant mothering sense got me through. I love you Mom!!