Well February sure did go by fast. For the past two weeks it has been snowing all the time. It never amounted to anything huge, but I would say that there is about half a foot of snow on the ground now. Because of the snow, road conditions have been poorer than usual. As I told you before, Chernivtsi seems to use the time method of snow removal. This means that they just wait until the snow goes away on its own. Last week on my way to cross the street to get on the bus, I was almost hit by a car. It was no fault of my own, I hadn't even started to cross the street yet. Out of nowhere this car comes at me. It is literally spinning out of control and stopped spinning about a foot from where I was standing. I didn't see my whole life flash before my eyes, so I guess it wasn't really a near death experience.
Anyway, my classes are going well. I have Russian language, Russian history, and Ukrainian Government. You may think that that sounds boring, but I like all of them. I have a second teacher for Russian this semester, and she has been really good so far. She has me doing Russian tongue twisters, which she seems to find hilarious. I can't remember if I've ever talked about Russian. I'll do that now. I think that I can sum it up with one word; hard. That's really all that needs to be said about it. It is really hard and frustrating, but at the same time very rewarding to study. We move so fast through the language that I can never seem to get my mind wrapped around what it is that I just learned. As soon as I think that I have a grip on the language, 10 more things are added that make it harder than ever before. You see in English we have a strict word order, but in Russian they use the case system. This means that sentences can appear in any order, because the endings of words will tell you where they correspond in the sentence. It's really hard to explain in text so I'm just going to stop. All that you really need to know is that Russian has 33 letters, six different case endings, and most people, even native speakers, will consider you crazy for trying to learn it.
Don't forget to comment!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Here are some pics for you...
House of the Chimeras
Independence Square
St. Andrew's
St. Sophia's
St. Michael's
St. Nicholas Cathedral (where we went to church)
The Lavra
EPIC
С Рождеством Христовым и Новым Годом
So last time we talked I was about to embark on a trip to Kiev to pick up my brother and sister. ONWARD!
My 15 hour train ride to Kiev was fine, and I arrived at 7:43 in the morning on the 21st of December. Nick and Jess weren't going to arrive until 4:50 that afternoon so I had some time to kill in the city. I took the metro into the city center where I found a place with wifi to check on airport delays. There were none so I explored the city and got something to eat until it was time to head to the airport. I arrived at the airport just as their flight was coming in, but after an hour of waiting for them to come through the doors I was starting to get nervous. Eventually, Nick found me and said ", what are you doing here?" It turns out that since I arrived in Kiev in September, a new international terminal was constructed across the parking lot. How was I supposed to know about it, Google maps didn't show that it even existed! Anyway we headed into Kiev and caught out train a few hours later to L'viv. We arrived the next morning (22) and walked to the Hostel. Once we arrived we were shown to our room (after waking up the attendant). We immediately showered since we all hadn't for almost three days, and after that we got something to eat. We climbed the city hall tower (again), and walked around the city for a little before we got something else to eat (i think). We did a lot of eating, so if I don't remember what it was that we did, i'll just say that we got something to eat.
On the second day we took a tour that was very informative. Jess took pictures of everything and was generally insufferable, but I made it through. After the tour we ate. Early the next morning we took a cab (their only cab experience, thank God it was a good one...)to the train station, and about 6 1/2 hours later we were in Kiev again. We headed to the Hostel, that we were staying at up town, on the metro. I had gone there once before, but unfortunately this time I went out the wrong exit at the metro station and was lost right away. Nick started to get huffy, mainly because he and Jess over packed. After about 15-20 painless minutes we found the Hostel and were soon out the door again to eat. I really like eating. That night Jess and Nick began feeding their addiction. You see, when we were in L'viv we all tried Ukrainian hot chocolate. It basically tastes like your drinking melted chocolate bars, probably because that's what it is. Their addiction got so bad that we would just randomly stop at Coffee House, the Ukrainian Starbuck's, and get hot chocolate. Anyway, the next day was Christmas. We took a tour of Kiev at 12 in which the guide kept trying to convince me that I was going to find my future wife in Ukraine. I even rubbed a bronze cats tail to make it come true. The tour was really good, which made Jess slightly more bearable. We ate and then went to church where I had a typical Ukrainian public bathroom experience that was saved by a Christmas Miracle! After church we ate Christmas dinner ie pizza.
The next day we went to the Kievo-Pechersky Lavra, or crazy big monastery thingy, and the Great Patriotic War Memorial, or epic Soviet thingy. Jess had to use a squaty-potty that day, which she completely blamed on me for some reason.
On the 27th Nick and Jess left after we did a little souvenir shopping. It was sad, but I had a 15 hour train ride to cheer me up. This is really long, and I didn't even get to talk about new years... New Years: drinking, dancing, eating, laughing, avoiding dancing, falling asleep...
COMMENT!
My 15 hour train ride to Kiev was fine, and I arrived at 7:43 in the morning on the 21st of December. Nick and Jess weren't going to arrive until 4:50 that afternoon so I had some time to kill in the city. I took the metro into the city center where I found a place with wifi to check on airport delays. There were none so I explored the city and got something to eat until it was time to head to the airport. I arrived at the airport just as their flight was coming in, but after an hour of waiting for them to come through the doors I was starting to get nervous. Eventually, Nick found me and said ", what are you doing here?" It turns out that since I arrived in Kiev in September, a new international terminal was constructed across the parking lot. How was I supposed to know about it, Google maps didn't show that it even existed! Anyway we headed into Kiev and caught out train a few hours later to L'viv. We arrived the next morning (22) and walked to the Hostel. Once we arrived we were shown to our room (after waking up the attendant). We immediately showered since we all hadn't for almost three days, and after that we got something to eat. We climbed the city hall tower (again), and walked around the city for a little before we got something else to eat (i think). We did a lot of eating, so if I don't remember what it was that we did, i'll just say that we got something to eat.
On the second day we took a tour that was very informative. Jess took pictures of everything and was generally insufferable, but I made it through. After the tour we ate. Early the next morning we took a cab (their only cab experience, thank God it was a good one...)to the train station, and about 6 1/2 hours later we were in Kiev again. We headed to the Hostel, that we were staying at up town, on the metro. I had gone there once before, but unfortunately this time I went out the wrong exit at the metro station and was lost right away. Nick started to get huffy, mainly because he and Jess over packed. After about 15-20 painless minutes we found the Hostel and were soon out the door again to eat. I really like eating. That night Jess and Nick began feeding their addiction. You see, when we were in L'viv we all tried Ukrainian hot chocolate. It basically tastes like your drinking melted chocolate bars, probably because that's what it is. Their addiction got so bad that we would just randomly stop at Coffee House, the Ukrainian Starbuck's, and get hot chocolate. Anyway, the next day was Christmas. We took a tour of Kiev at 12 in which the guide kept trying to convince me that I was going to find my future wife in Ukraine. I even rubbed a bronze cats tail to make it come true. The tour was really good, which made Jess slightly more bearable. We ate and then went to church where I had a typical Ukrainian public bathroom experience that was saved by a Christmas Miracle! After church we ate Christmas dinner ie pizza.
The next day we went to the Kievo-Pechersky Lavra, or crazy big monastery thingy, and the Great Patriotic War Memorial, or epic Soviet thingy. Jess had to use a squaty-potty that day, which she completely blamed on me for some reason.
On the 27th Nick and Jess left after we did a little souvenir shopping. It was sad, but I had a 15 hour train ride to cheer me up. This is really long, and I didn't even get to talk about new years... New Years: drinking, dancing, eating, laughing, avoiding dancing, falling asleep...
COMMENT!
Monday, December 20, 2010
Merry Christmas!
Christmas is officially in the air in Chernivtsi. There's a huge Rockefeller style tree on Saborna Square, lights hanging all over the city, and a nice layer of snow on the ground. However, Christmas isn't on the 25th here. Most people celebrate Christmas on January 7th. This means that the 25th is just another day in Ukraine. Also, I've been told that New Years is a bigger celebration that Christmas in Ukraine.
In other news, I'm heading up to Kiev this afternoon to pick up my brother and sister from the airport. Unfortunately I won't actually reach Kiev until early Tuesday morning. That means that I'll be cooped up on a train for 15 hours. I plan on sleeping through most of it, but people might have other plans for me.
Once I pick them up we'll being heading out on another train to L'viv, where we'll spend a few days. Then we'll head back to Kiev and have Christmas there. There's a lot that could go wrong so everyone should keep me in their prayers.
Anyway, I promised a Christmas photo.
In other news, I'm heading up to Kiev this afternoon to pick up my brother and sister from the airport. Unfortunately I won't actually reach Kiev until early Tuesday morning. That means that I'll be cooped up on a train for 15 hours. I plan on sleeping through most of it, but people might have other plans for me.
Once I pick them up we'll being heading out on another train to L'viv, where we'll spend a few days. Then we'll head back to Kiev and have Christmas there. There's a lot that could go wrong so everyone should keep me in their prayers.
Anyway, I promised a Christmas photo.
Obviously it's a blue Christmas without you all. Oh, and I bought that ornament specially for this photo. It was pretty embarrassing buying it. The look the cashier gave me was priceless. Have a good Christmas and try and make the most of it even though I won't be there. Don't forget to comment!
Friday, December 10, 2010
It's been a long time coming.
I realize that it's been a while since I've put up a post, but unfortunately I was having a procrastination flare up. Fear not, your about to witness a whole new level of awesome!
Christmas is just around the corner, and I find myself asking where did the time go? Where did the time go, there I said it? My hair is long and I need a haircut. I have been trying to work up the courage to go and get it cut, but every time I walk past a Salon I hear that Ray Stevens bad haircut song playing in my head.
It snowed about three inches last week, which I was pretty excited about. In case you didn't know I love winter time. I also love the cold. For me it just couldn't be Christmas without the cold. The snow was a very interesting experience. It gave me an insight as to what I should expect in the future. Here's what happened, nothing. I don't know if it was because there just wasn't that much snow, but nothing was done to the roads as far as I could tell. This made it interesting to be both a driver and a pedestrian. Every time I stepped in front of a moving vehicle I wondered if it would be able to stop in time. You will be happy to know that I have not been hit by any cars, yet. As far as I can tell, the only thing scarier than driving on cobblestone streets when they are wet, is driving on cobblestone streets when they are covered in snow.
For my next blog post I have an exciting Christmas themed picture to share with you all, which I hope you will stop by, if for no other reason, to see. Oh, and please post comments or I'll take to drinking.
Christmas is just around the corner, and I find myself asking where did the time go? Where did the time go, there I said it? My hair is long and I need a haircut. I have been trying to work up the courage to go and get it cut, but every time I walk past a Salon I hear that Ray Stevens bad haircut song playing in my head.
It snowed about three inches last week, which I was pretty excited about. In case you didn't know I love winter time. I also love the cold. For me it just couldn't be Christmas without the cold. The snow was a very interesting experience. It gave me an insight as to what I should expect in the future. Here's what happened, nothing. I don't know if it was because there just wasn't that much snow, but nothing was done to the roads as far as I could tell. This made it interesting to be both a driver and a pedestrian. Every time I stepped in front of a moving vehicle I wondered if it would be able to stop in time. You will be happy to know that I have not been hit by any cars, yet. As far as I can tell, the only thing scarier than driving on cobblestone streets when they are wet, is driving on cobblestone streets when they are covered in snow.
Have you ever seen a foggy snow covered landscape, I have?
Other than the snow I can't say that I have anything else to say, OH WAIT, my brother and his wife are coming to visit me on the 21st until the 27th. I'm pretty excited. I'm getting the train tickets tomorrow, and then all I'll need to do is book the hostels that we'll be staying in. Wasn't there a romantic comedy called "Hostel?" For my next blog post I have an exciting Christmas themed picture to share with you all, which I hope you will stop by, if for no other reason, to see. Oh, and please post comments or I'll take to drinking.
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