Here are some more pics for you...

 Odessa Opera House

 Odessa Art Museum

 Odessa

 Statue at the sea terminal

 Independence Square, Kiev

 The Hotel we stayed at in Kiev

 Kiev Opera House

 same

 St. Volodymyr's, Kiev

 The Goobers at the Opera

And so it begins.

So everyone keeps reminding me that the last time that I posted anything was the beginning of January.  This may true, but I have a legitimate excuse, oh wait, no I don't.  I'm in Ukraine, I do what I want!  Anyway, nothing exciting has really happened to me at all between my last post and now.  Well, I guess my other brother and his wife visiting counts as something.  The came in on the 15th of January and spent about a week traveling with me around Ukraine.  Ok, so we didn't really travel, but I took them to Kiev and Odessa.  We started out in Odessa, the Pearl of the Black Sea, where we attended a concert at a bar/club that our Hostel's owner told us about.  There were two bands, and the second one was really good.  They had a female singer, but she sounded exactly like Freddy Mercury, in a good way.  The music was really loud, but we drowned out the sound with some good beer.  The next day we arranged to tour a portion of the Odessa catacombs, which are the largest in the world at over 2,500 km.  It was an interesting experience.  We got a taxi to the museum and Maria asked him if he spoke English or Spanish, both of which he shook his head to.  It was a fun and incredibly awkward situation, only made better by the fact that our driver didn't really know where the museum was.  We eventually found the place and our tour began.  It was led by a little old lady who only spoke Russian, and without any kind of warning or safety talk we dove right into the catacombs.  This is Ukraine! Through her over dramatic hand motions, and my small vocabulary of Russian, we basically understood what she was telling us.  It was a good time over all.  It went a lot like this: Tim or Maria: "What did she say?" Me: "I don't know."  Eventually I just started making things up to make them happy.
After spending about two days in Odessa, we caught a night train back up to Kiev, where we spent the rest of our trip.  One of the things that I loved about Tim and Maria's visit was their spontaneity.  Maria thought it would be cool to go to an Opera, so we saw an Italian opera at the Kiev Opera House.  Our hostel ended up being really bad, so we stayed in a hotel for the last two days of the trip.  We were worn out and soar from walking all day and carrying our heavy bags, so we all got massages.   The whole trip was lighthearted to say the least, and even though all the pressure was on me, I didn't notice it because it didn't feel like we were on any type of schedule.  It felt like a vacation where I wasn't in charge, even though I was.
Anyway, Tim and Maria left on the 21st around noon.  My train didn't leave until around 6:30pm, so I had some time to kill.  Luckily, I had noticed that there was a TGI Friday's in the city.  Let me tell you, I haven't eaten anything that unhealthy since I came to Ukraine.  It was amazing!
Once I got back to Chernivtsi I had about two weeks until classes started again, so I lounged around and did nothing most days.  I did, however, visit the two graveyards in the city, which were quite interesting, and creepy.
Now my classes have started again and everything is back to normal.  Don't forget to COMMENT!