Never Ending Fun

This last week has been absolutely crazy. With jet lag, planning lessons and teaching I feel like I haven't even seen Kiev but now I am finally starting to feel settled in and ready to have some fun! 

FRIDAY!!!

We started off the weekend by going to the Ocean Plaza Mall. I was excited to go shopping for the first time here and see what kind of stuff they have. But holy cow I was not expecting this!!! The mall is huge, and beautiful. I didn't know a mall could be beautiful.

There was 3 stories. Way bigger than the Seattle mall or any mall I have ever been to. We wandered around for a while but discovered quickly that everything here is expensive. Which I am secretly thankful for because I won't be spending any of my money on clothes in this place! But I found a cinnabon place and couldn't resist it. I don't know if it's because I'm always hungry or what but everything here is so delicious! 

SATRUDAY!!!

Best Saturday EVER! I'm sure I'll be saying this every weekend because we always seem to have something fun going on but so far this has been the best Saturday and just the best weekend overall. We started off by waking up super early. Okay really it was only like 7am but for me that's early. Left at 8 and made the 2 hour journey to meet up with the other girls for a wonderful temple trip. Temple's and the grounds around it are always beautiful but seriously it is BREATHTAKING. It's soo beautiful here. 

We got here at the perfect time of year. All the flowers are in bloom and there is lush green grass all around! Not to mention it's nice and sunny. It was such a cool experience to be able to do baptisms in a foreign temple. I love knowing that I can go anywhere in the world and the church is the same, minus the language barrier. 

The YSA branch here really loves all the ILP girls so they invited us for a picnic in a park and some soccer playing! While we were sitting in the grass at the temple waiting for them to get all the food they needed we were all laying in the grass (which is suggested not to) when 2 babushkas (grandmas) walked up to us. I know know why it's not suggested. They started yelling at us in Russian saying "Get up! Get up! Your ovaries are going to freeze!" According to them if you sit on the ground without anything underneath you then your ovaries freeze and you can no longer have children. OPPS! I hope that isn't true but I guess we'll find out eventually.  

Luckily the Ukrainians came back to rescue us and take us on our picnic. 

NOTE TO SELF: A picnic in Ukraine does not mean a park with grass. It means a hike out into the middle of the forest to eat food off a blanket on the dirt ground. 

But minus their slight misunderstanding of a picnic I had lots of fun with everyone exploring, eating, and playing volleyball.

The party just keeps going and going though. Next up was my first ever European soccer game. I guess I should be calling it Futball though. 

Which we wanted to get cleaned up for.. 

But ended up trekking across town looking like total american backpackers and getting ready in the McDonald's bathroom.

Although I am never disappointed at how swanky the McDonald's is.

Game time! 

 It was AMAZING! I know I say this about everything but seriously I am just having the time of my life right now. The game was against 2 teams from Ukraine. But 1 was from Kiev so of course we were cheering for them. 

GO TEAM DYNAMO! (DE-NA-MO)

I've NEVER seen so many people, not to mention most of them were drunk. I'm pretty sure the entire city of Kiev was at this game. But we had so much fun shouting random words in Russian we didn't know, doing the wave, and cheering on the team. Which WON 2-0!!!

SUNDAY!!! 

This is the next ending forever fun weekend that I will always remember! I didn't want the weekend to end but like always we still had some fun plans ahead of us. We started of by going to church. The international branch building shares a parking lot with the temple. So it takes us about 2 hours to get there. I am already appreciating church more. I'm thankful it was in English though because stake conference the weekend before was all Russian. 

Then luckily I finally had some time to rest and take a much needed nap before some more excitement. 

Our Sunday evening excitement was going to see a Romeo and Juliet ballet. We watched it in the opera house which like most things in downtown Kiev is BEAUTIFUL! The outside and inside of this building was great. The ballet was defiantly just as pretty. Although I loved it I think it was a once in a lifetime type of thing. 3 hours of ballet and you can't help but get drowsy. 

Until my next adventure goodbye!

до свидания

(Das vidhanya)

Teaching By Day Exploring By Night

 You can count on every blog post while I'm here to tell you that I love Ukraine. But seriously, I'm sure they will all say it at some point. But that's okay but it's so true. There are so many cool places to see in this city.

The Friendship Arch

   

This is just one of the many places that I've discovered here in Kiev and love to go to. It's called the friendship arch. The name fits it though because it really is a great place to go with friends. Whenever we go they are always playing some bumpin' music and have some rides going on. Not to mention there is an amazing view of the city. 

Which is even better to look at while being spun in circles.

I've discovered the joys of European carnival rides. 

Maybe I'm crazy but they just seem faster and more fun. One thing I know for sure is the workers think it's funny to mess with american girls. 

Kennedy and I were on the ride screaming our heads off when we get stopped at the top to switch directions. Well the men look at us and start wiggling it back and forth while snickering and whispering to each other in Russian. Not like they have to whisper though, I wouldn't understand what they were saying anyways!

 But we let them have their fun and continued to scream until they finally released us before we puked.

So basically I love Ukraine, the Friendship Arch, Exploring and the Carnival Rides.

So Far So Good

Too soon to say I love Ukraine? I don't think so. I have just experienced one of my first out of the many fun weekends I will have. We've officially finished our first week of teaching and our wonderful head teacher Audrey is taking us all exploring. She is great and so is this city!

 These are the lovely ladies I get to spend the next 3 months enjoying the City of Kiev and all our other adventures with. Everybody is so great I am so excited! I can already tell that this is going to be a wonderful adventure.

Teaching

I love being an ilp teacher. I love these kids. I love this country. How much better can my life get? Like seriously! This is just one of the many groups of kids that I teach and I love them all. From the left Vanya, Alex, Dasha, Anya, and Luveria. Everyday I go to the school and teach them from 3-7. You think having a room full of kids age 3-11 is hard in America, try doing it here. It's a struggle to keep them focused and keeping them from speaking Russian but at the end of the day when they tell me what they learned it feels so good to see the growth from just that little bit amount of time. There are some smart kids here! I can't wait to see how much more they know at the end of the semester.

First Week

There is so much I want to share with everyone that I don't even know where to start! But well start off with where I am living. I have a wonderful host family Kate and Igor. I'm determined to get Igor to watch despicable me at some point while I am here. They have a very small 2 bedroom apartment but it is so cute! I will post a tour of the house at some point before I leave. Next my school and transportation. Everyday I ride the trolly to Lukyanivska where I walk about 6 blocks to the center school where I teach.  I love walking there especially in this wonderful weather we have been having. This week we have been finishing up training though so I had to ride the trolly to Lukyanivska where I got on the metro to go to the Pozniaky school. It was quite the adventure doing it for the first time by myself but I managed to not get lost and am feeling rather proud of myself! I also got to teach my first class today! I teach from age 4-13. I teach Kindergarten, Catch-up, Basic Reading, and Math. The kids are so much fun and I already love them! I look forward to teaching everyday and I can't wait for the end of the semester so I can see their progress. (I know blog posts are boring without pictures but I will add some later on this week, promise) Ukraine is seriously the best I love it more and more here everyday!

Off to Ukraine!

I've been waiting for this trip to happen for what seems like forever. Really it's only been 5 months but same thing. Saying goodbye was so hard. Even though I've been away from home for longer, there is something about being thousands of miles away with very limited communication that scares me a little. But I guess this is good practice for a mission! Now for 23 hours of flying. I flew from Seattle to New York which was a fun place to fly over. I even met a guy who I had a awesome missionary moment with! I was writing a letter to Elder Graff and the guy next to me asked me why I was writing a letter because people don't do that very much anymore. I explained to him that he was on his mission and that means he doesn't use phones or facebook to talk with people from back home. Then I told him that he was serving for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He had kind of heard of the Mormons but had questions. So I told him what the Book of Mormon is, who Joseph Smith is and answered all his question. Well Elder Graff had given me a Mormon.org card and challenged me to give it to someone. So I gave it to him and he said he would check it out! I'm so glad he gave me that challenge and I had the opportunity to share the gospel. But then I flew from New York to Paris!

 

 Where they have these cool chairs. Everything here is soo modern but it's pretty. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see the Eiffel Tower from the airport but it was still really cool to be in Paris even though I didn't get to leave the airport.

 Finally the last leg of the trip, our flight from Paris to Kiev. I'm so exhausted at this point that I seriously pass out before the plane has taken off. The flight attendant wakes me up for food and I go back to sleep to be woken up again when we land. This whole 10 hour time difference is going to be an adjustment for sure. But we got all our girls in this bus and set off to meet our host family! I am on the outskirts of Kiev in a apartment with a young married couple. I've just met them and already think they are great! I start training tomorrow and then get to start teaching on Thursday. I can't wait to get to know my group of girls and the kids that I will be teaching. I can tell this is going to be such a great adventure (: