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!

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