Saturday May 7th & Sunday May 8th, 2011 - Blog #1

Knowing that my parents, siblings and Chris are all very supportive of the adventure I was about to embark upon for the summer, definitely made saying good-bye to all of them much easier. However, the hardest part about saying good-bye was the fact that I knew that I was going to be away the entire summer, which ment missing out on camping, swimming, going out on the boat and all the fun stuff we all do throughout the summer... Knowing that all of these things were still going to happen - just without me - made the reality of me leaving set in pretty quickly. I was leaving Family, Friends, and Chris! I knew all of these people were excited for me, but for some reason this didn't make me excited for me... leading up to my departure and on the day of, I was just more ready to experience what was going to happen over the next 3 months, but I didn't have the butterflies of nervousness or over excitement - I just was... Really it was all of Chris' encouragment, excitemnet and being proud of me that made things not so much sad, but exciting in the sense that I was doing something for myself that I had wanted for a long time... I would say that he is definitely a HUGE part of me being in the Ukraine right now!

Before I left, people had been asking me how I was feeling about travelling alone, and really I wasn't thinking too much about it at the time... After experiencing it, I have actually come to appreciate travelling alone. I got to sleep when I wanted and didn't feel like I had to keep someone else entertained. I got to meet new people on the plane and when I needed to run to flight gates I was able to do this without worrying about anyone else!!! So all in all travelling alone was not bad at all!!!

In terms of travelling in general, very quickly I noticed the time change while I was travelling. The fact that I lost 7 hours of my life (hehe, okay maybe that is a little bit of an extreme way of looking at it, but it is True, I did!!!!)... anyway, this was really weird, because then I didn't really know how long my flight was, not that it really mattered. But in order to try and orient myself to the time change so that it didn't have a huge effect on me, I really tried to sleep on the plane for a couple hours while it would have been evening to wake up in the 'morning.' I think I did a pretty good job of being successful at this because the jet leg wasn't too bad!!

In terms of the flights themselves, every flight I was on was late, therefore making me late for the next flight. I had VERY short windows between my transfers to begin with, and with the flights being late the windows got even smaller. At one point I was running through an airport in Germany (obviously I have never been to this airport before, so I had no idea where I was going)... and I had 5 minutes to get on a bus to transfer terminals and make it to my gate to board... now I knew that it would take some time to get my luggage from one plane to another... so when I got to the plane I made sure to inquire about my luggage a number of times so they knew the urgency of it getting to my next transfer... this worked, because soon after they announced that they were going to wait 10 minutes for the luggage from the Toronto flight!!! My reason for such urgency was that I knew there was only one flight every couple of days from Munich (my 2nd transfer) to Lviv so if my luggage didn't come with me then I wouldn't be picking it up at my final destination... and I had not packed an extra set of clothes (I know you are supposed to, but if you knew the packing situation prior to me leaving then you wouldn't wonder why I didn't have any extra clothes). Anyway, I am VERY glad that I got my luggage  because one of the Canadian students from Saskachewan had this issue and did not get his luggage for 4 days!!!

In Lviv I got off the plane, stepped onto the tarmack and headed toward the 'airport'... The airport is VERY small and old... it is kind of like they said "we need an airport in this city" and then picked any building that had hallways and land behind it!! Honestly it was simple and beautifully old! I got my bags from a pile in a small room and stepped out into the pickup area and immediately saw a friendly face... Jessica! Olena (our program coordinator) was there with her, and we went to a small cafe for some lunch while we waited for a Canadian student from Saskachewan to get in. At this cafe I got my first Ukrainian food experience!! We had, cabbage salad, green borscht (seasonal borscht), mashed potatos (the fluffiest potatos I have ever had... (sorry Mom and Aunt Nancy!!) and breaded chicken!! Let me tell you, my new word for the Ukrainian food will likely Always be AMAZING!!!! Because it was just that! This was a Great intro to what I would be experiencing for the next 3 months!!

After we picked up Kalyn (the Saskachewan student), we drove 2 hours out of the city of Lviv to the town of Ternopil, where our host families lived, and where we would be attending University. This was a very bumpy ride... We got dropped off at our host families apartments and I carried my luggage up 4 flights of stairs!! I met Slava my host mother, who by the way does not speak a lick of English!! And I met what I thought was her son... however 3 days later I realized through a lot of sheraides and looking up words in a Ukrainian phrasebook, this 'guy' that I had met was actually a renter. But after meeting them, Slava immediately made me eat something. We had bread with butter and sausage, then came sausage ravioli... it was so simple and yet the flavours were so Amazing!! Then I was offered some tea (chy) and dessert... and no not the type of tea chy... in Ukrainian tea is called chy!! Between Slava and I we tried to have some kind of 'conversation' and she shared chocolate with me as I shared from Reese chocolate with her!! Along with this tea and chocolate, Slave left the room and came back to serve me a shot of Коньяк (Cognac)... I was unsure if it was custome to sip this drink or to take it as a shot, and I really tried to ask what I was supposed to do, so I went with the shot option and then saw Slava sipping her Cognac... I just laughed to myself!!

Just as a good host mother would do, Slava made me call home to tell them that I was here safely. And I did just this, I called and talked to my father and told him I was here... but for some reason Slava didn't understand that I had talked to him and kept pushing the phone at me saying Mama - Canada - Telephone and I TRIED to keep telling her that I did, I did!! There was clearly a language barrier so then I just took the phone said yes - telephone - canada and then put the phone back on the receiver. Slava showed me to my room and where I could put things and I started to unpack and then said goodnight and went to bed!!!

This was my first day in Ukraine!!!! Oh and the reason I will say Ukraine and not 'the' Ukraine is because it is a country independant of any other country or union.... Just like we don't say 'the' Canada!!

Until next time!! xoxo