Sunday May 15th, 2011 - Blog #6

My day started by going to church with Dima, he is a member of a Protestant church. It was a great experience. Although I didn't stay the entire time (because church runs from 11am-2pm), I stayed long enough to see what it was like... they had a very up beat choir with a band (guitars, drums, keyboard) and the members of the congregation were all up singing. Although I couldn't understand what they were saying (of course), the atmosphere around me and the people there made for an excellent experience all on its own. Following church I had a Skype date and then went home for soup, bread with mayo, cheese, sausage and green onions... I will say that the mayo is better here... I think because it is somehow made with more natural ingredients (this is saying a lot because I Love Hellmman's Mayo!!!). So you may think that this is all I had, but no I was also given a plate of pasta with sausage and cheese!! Of course it was all amazing! Now lately there has been some friendly 'yelling' between Slava and I over the portions of food she is giving me... this woman plates enough food to feed the both of us and I try (with the Very little Ukrainian I know right now) to tell her that the food is great but that I just cannot eat it all (even though I do because how could I not it is soooo good!) and so I attempt to take my plate over to the pot or pan and put some back in before sitting to eat, but she tries to make me keep it all and if I do get some back she ALWAYS grabs a spoon and says 'a little more'... I say no and usually 'win' as I can be very persistant, although she then shrugs her shoulders and sighs.

After lunch I studied for a bit and took a short nap before heading to the stadium to meet Jess to work out... this has been interesting for us as we have very old play ground equipment to work with, but we have figured it out for the most part!!

I then went home to study some more and for dinner I had soup (because there is always some kind of soup with every meal!!), raddish salad (which by the way I was unaware of how delicious raddishes were) and PEROGIES!!!!! Sooooo Good! After dinner Slava helped me with my homework and then we went for a walk to get some fresh air before bed... We stopped to talk to this lady from the building and I believe I was witness to some apartment gossip because they were speaking normal and then the other lady started to whisper and kind of look around and both of them were making facial expressions that involved some eyebrow raising and the kind of 'ohhh....' (attitudeish response)... funny cause I have NO idea if this is a correct assumption, but I have become very in tune with peoples body language here as a method of survival, so I may not be too far off on this one. There was one point later in their conversation that I did feel a little uncomfortable as I knew that Slava was telling her that I am a student and had 2 jobs in Canada before coming here and that I live on my own and that I have student debt (I knew this because we had just had this exact conversation the night before, so it was familiar) but from the reaction of this lady and then Slava's response, I wasn't sure what else was being said about me and that made me feel a little out of place and kind of like 'the rich Canadian girl'... A part of me wonders if this lady questions why I am here and that if I cam here then I must have lots of money... I am sure that this crosses peoples minds from other counrtries, and as I am aware that I do have privilages that allow me to do these types of things... that it is hard to expalin (even more so with the language barrier) that it still takes a lot of work as a Canadian to get here (Ukraine) and that it is still Very expensive for the average person, very much including myself.

All in all it was a good day!
xoxo

Thursday May 12th, Friday May 13th & Saturday May 14th, 2011 - Blog #5

Thursday

This morning we had our language classes in the park again... the weather has been great and the park is so beautiful that having a class there makes the 2.5 hours go by nice and fast! For lunch we had a different salad (cut veggies with oil), green borsch and steak with really good homemade potato wedges! We then had our free time and I got a lovely email from Chris and family! We had our tutoring session and then went to our cultural studies where we finished making our Easter Eggs!

I had oats with what I think was sausage on top - Slava obviously gave me too much and I was unaware that after we were also having borsch... but as always the food Slava makes is Amazing and I can never REALLY get enough... My stomach is currently living my the idea that I may never experience the taste of things again, so I am able to pack down quite a bit of food (this hasn't been the smartest move I've made for the waistline!! hehe!)...

After dinner Dima took all of us to a concert not to far from where we live... the group was called Mission 3:16, the concert had a religious base. The band was AMAZING and it was awesome to see all these people come out and enjoy a concert such as this - and for free! We obviously could not understand the lyrics to the songs, but the music itself was great - they were a rock/alternative band and their instrumentals were crazy good! We rocked out and bought thier CD and got pictures with the band after and all of our CD's signed! The night was Awesome! We had quite a long way home after however, we started on a bus but there was a big accident and so we ended up walking home which took us FOREVER and I was Very tired by the time we dropped everyone off to their apartments.

All of this on a Thursday!
xoxo

Friday

Today I started my day with VERY LARGE fruit salad (in this one sitting before 9am I filled the requirements for the Canada food guide for 2 days!). Today in class (in the park) we learned how to ask people where different places are - of course the most important things like the bus stop, the ATM, churches, train station, etc... I am sure this will end up being very helpful if we ever decide to travel out into Ukraine on our own. (which I do plan on doing!)...

Lunch was great as always! The people here making food for us are geniouses in the kitchen, I was unaware that a potatos and cabbage could take on soo many different tastes, it's great! Instead of having our cultural studies today our tutors took us ice skating at the mall that is close to our apartments. It was a lot of fun and even more so because I got to teach Olesya how to skate!!

After this I went home and had leftovers from the night before - I Love leftovers at home - they are even Better here!!! Later Slava and I watched Ukraine's Got Talent - it is the exact same concept as the American version, but some of the talent was very different and very cool!

Slava and I are getting a lot better at understanding one another with hand gestures and we have pretty much memorized where things are in my phrase book, so we are getting very good at looking things up quickly. I am hoping that tomorrow I can find an English-Ukraine / Ukraine-English dictionary tomorrow so that we have more words to work with!!!

Today wasn't overly interesting, however I am loving it More and More here. I love the simplicity of life and how quiet it is here - things that are just very different from Canada (and big cities like Mississauga [Chris...hehe]). I feel quite comfortable here!

I can definitely say "The World Is My Classroom!"
xoxo

Saturday

Not much exciting happened today. I woke up and had yogurt and oatmeal for breakfast instead of fruit salad - this was a nice change!!! Went to the Internet cafe by my house to go on Skype! Came home and had vegetable soup, a cheese sandwitch, cucumbers and rice for lunch - funny, yes there were vegetables in this soup, but there were also large pieces of chicken also... hmmm.... Later I went to the mall and did a bit of shopping - because why not on a Saturday right?!? I came home to have dinner (vegetble soup [with chicken], rice [this rice had flavour like I have never had before, it was great!]... and Obviously bread!!!)... I studied for a while and then I met Chris (one of the Canadian students from Saskachewan) for a beer at the local cafe. All in all it was a great relaxing Saturday!

xoxo 

Wednesday May 11th, 2011 - Blog #4

This morning I woke up at 7:20am to have a shower because I had clearly put on too many clothes on to sleep in because during the night I got VERY hot and ended up sweating the entire night. from this picture I am sure you understand that I'd want to shower before going to school... Well, little did I know (Because how would I have known with Slava not speaking any English) that there wouldn't be any hot water today. (I am now aware that there is no hot water Monday, Wednesday or Friday)...but at this time I was unaware of this, so because this washing as not questionable for me, I had a FREEZING COLD sponge bath, and I mean it felt as though I was dumping a bucket of ice water onto my body it was that cold.

When I came to breakfast with wet hair Slava and Dima's eyes lit up when they saw me... they laughed and made some attampts as English while making some body gestures - what I got out of this was that I was a very strong girl for having a shower with such cold water. I sat down to a big plate of fruit salad (I definitely got all my fruits for the day in 1 meal!!)... They told me again that I was eatting dessert for breakfast (which is interesting considering I was offered chocolate cake for breakfast yesterday). Along with the large fruit salad I had I was also FORCED to try the cheese Slava was cutting for herself with bread and butter. I will say that it was Very fresh and tasty ( I think the people from this country invented the CARB).

I continued to get ready for school and got myself there all on my own by getting on bus #19 (Slava reminded me more than a couple times, so I was SURE not forgetting what bus to get on!). Today at the University it was a day not to be forgotten. We went to our language class in the morning and our professor Laryssa asked if we'd like to have our class outside, it was beautiful so of course we said yes, but little did we know that this meant we were going to a near by park... and this park was Gorgious... it was not a park with a lot of open space and some trees, rather there were ferns, tall trees, fields of grass, ponds and rivers (with people fishing in them), there were old wooden bridges, very loud frogs (which sound different from home!), lots of beautiful birds, and of course the odd straw-dog! Sounds like not to bad of a place to have class, well it was AMAZING! **The word Amazing is most definitely going to be my 'go-to-word' for the entire time I am here!!** So this is how our morning started in this beautiful park, and it was about 23 degress today so it was very nice and sunny.

Following class we had lunch, this will always be a nice surprise - we had this incredable mushroom soup (at home mushroom soup is my favourite - well I will never look at Campbell's the same again after eating the mushroom soup I had today :( ...), cabbage salad and salmon with rice... YUM! We are eating like kings and queens here at the University!

After lunch and our free time we went to a concert the University was putting on to celebrate 10 years of the Arts Faculty... Although we obviously could not understand one word that was being said during the speeches or the performances, seeing the cultural dancing, acting, singing, musical instruments and all the rest was well... AMAZING!!! The fact that they acknowledge their factulties like this with a big celebration (that even involved a cake cutting at the end), it was great to see peoples true appreciation for Art. They even showcased a bunch of hand crafted art in the halls of the school and even this was too much, it was all soo very beautiful! Another thing that was pretty awesome was that all the professors from the faculty got up and did their own little skits by either dancing or acting or singing - it was great to see their talent showcased as well as the students! It was most definitely a great opening to experiencing the true appreciation for art and performance in this country!

After coming home from school and having another one of Slava's amazing dinners of breaded chicken on top of potatos with cheese on top (you see if I come back a little heavier you know who fed me and what!). I was served enough food to feed about 4 people... now telling Slava that I could not possibly eat all of this was hilarious... oh and this was served to me after I had already had a slice of homemade pizza and cucumber with oil and salt! So she set down this huge plate of potatos and chicken and to tell her I wanted less I made the motion with my hands to take off half of what was on my plate, this was followed by her taking away (maybe) 1/4... so I proceeded to make this motion and we did this 'tak' (yes) and 'ni' (no) game back and forth (of course with smiles and laughs) until she took off what I wanted... I am under the impression that she thinks if I say less of one thing it is then okay to serve something else because then she brought out this HUGE jar (I have never seen a jar so big in my life!) of garlic and dill pickles and cut up 4 of these things to have with dinner!

Following dinner I worked on some homework and then told Slava (through pointing at a variety of words) that I was going for a run... I ran around what would be considered a block and found a track at a near by elementary school where I stopped to run around the track . There were lots of people there playing soccer, walking around the track, working out on some 'gym' equipment (very old fashioned gym equipment) and just hanging out... This was my first experience seeing people run and exercise in jeans and flats.

***Some side notes:
    - On the bus to school I made the observation that here 'less is more' when it comes to clothes. Women (of ALL ages) like their see threw clothing and EVERYONE is wears the fanciest high heels I have ever seen. The women here all have Great legs, and I am sure it is from walking in these heels all day on the most uneven 'sidewalks' and roads I have ever seen... rock, cobblestone, dirt, you name it they walk in it in heels!

    - Straw dogs (random stray dogs wandering around) are EVERYWHERE... there are an endless supply of them and I have noticed that they have a yellow tage on their ear... and I have found out that this means that they have had a rabbies shot at a shelter near by. They can go to this shelter to get food and water if they wander back as well. I find it very interesting that they take care of stray dogs like this... they don't put them down after a certain period of time which is nice to hear... they all seem very harmless (and are very cute), I usually see them laying down on the sidewalks and they do approach locals who give them water and pet them.

Now that is all for now!
xoxo

    - Oh I forgot one of the funniest things that happened to Kalyn and I on the bus coming home from school today. We were sitting talking about the concert at the University and we were giggling and just chatting away and all of a sudden this old lady sitting infront of us (very old fashion Ukraine lady - farmer like) turns around and gives us quite a scowl and then she started saying something in Ukrainian with a very stern voice... (we obviously had no idea what she was saying) but then she made some hand gestures that made it look as though she was telling us to be quiet... Kalyn and I figured that she was upset that we were talking in English and maybe thought that we knew Ukrainian but were just being rude... who really knows what she was saying but after the lady turned around Kalyn and I looked at one another and started laughing pretty hard, which we are sure did not help the situation, but what were we going to do, it was pretty funny, these 2 girls standing above us just looked at the situation with their eyes wide open.... it was a great end to the day and was pretty funny!!!

That is actually all now!
xoxo

Tuesday May 10th, 2011 - Blog #3

Today was our first day at the University for our language classes. All of our host mothers helped us find our way to the University by taking a VERY crowded bus ride and then showed us to our classroom where everyone was invited for an introduction session. Here we got to meet our professors as well as the dean and all those important people involved with the program from Ukraine's end of things! This was then followed by 2.5 hours of Ukrainian language class where we found out the format of the next month and also that Jessica and I would be in our own classes seperate from the others as they would have a differnt structure for different credits. This ended up being great because it was as though we had a one-on-one professor! In our first class we learned how to say the alphabet and learned what the alphabet looked liked! This is VERY different from our English alphabet as theirs is more symbols based, and yet some of these symbols look a lot like some English letters, so trying to wrap my head around that was an experience in itself! We began to learn some very simple Ukrainian phrases like "Good Morning" and "Thank-you" along with some others.

We then went and had lunch at a cafe that is in the University, they had a special room set up for the 4 of us (this is where we will be eatting everyday while we are at the University!) The food at the cafe is amazing of course and full of flavour! Today we had red brosch, these delicious mashed potatos, and an omlette made with chicken and veggies!

After lunch we had some free time where I actually got access to the Internet for the first time!!! This was VERY exciting as I was able to tell everyone that I made it here safe and sound! Following our free time we had our first tutor session for an hour. Jessica and I's tutors are Alla and Olesya... they are both very awesome and seem as though they will be very fun to be around! We then went to our first cultural activities class where we began to make taditional Easter eggs. We were told that we were to make 'clothes' for our eggs out of string and beads. They showed us what seemed like a very hard process for making these 'clothes'. However once we got under way it was easy enough!! They are sure to turn our amazing, and look my first souvenior!!

When we were done school for the day our tutors came on the bus with us to make sure we got home safe... We did a lot of walking as Chris and Jessica were not 100% about how to get home, but once we dropped off Kalyn I was able to get myself home no problem. **This one is for all of you whom I have called because I have been lost - I'd just like to say that I am in a country I have never been (which is very maze like) and I got myself home after only making the trip once (in the dark)... I may just come home some kind of directions Super Star!!**

After this very long walk around all the apartment complexes I came home to a hot dinner of pasta and chicken and boy was it Amazing! Somethings so simple with SOOO much flavour! Following dinner I needed to do some homework, so with the language barrier Slava did her best to help me with my homework! It is interesting that we are able to still understand one another with knowing no Ukrainian at this point... We do a lot of looking things up in my little phrase book and making a lot of hand gestures!!

Something I noticed this morning when Slava gave me a HUGE omlette for breakfast, and I went out and got some bananas, organges and apples from the supermarket to have for breakfast... Slava asked me what I wanted for breakfast and I told her this fruit chopped up in a bowl and she thought this was very strange... she believes I should have bread, butter, cheese, and salomi for breakfast because fruit salad is for dessert. When I told her that this is what I wanted she shrugged her shoulders and laughed!!

We will see what she actually comes up with in the morning for breakfast!

xoxo

Monday May 9th, 2011 - Blog #2

Today was a holiday for most of Ukraine, it was a holiday to celebrate and remember those who faught in World War II... The concept is much like Rememberance Day, except theres is a holiday and involves much of the village coming out and watching parades of vetranes and police officers march through a square where they have monuments in rememberance of heros from the war.

In the morning we met with our language tutors in the centre of the village and they took us around Ternopil. We saw the city square, a local lake, took pictures of Love Island and a love tree where married couples take locks, engrave or put their names on them and then lock them to this tree... this tree is a metal statue and is representative of the ever lasting love and union of these people. It was pretty amazing to see all the very old locks that had rusted to the branches of the tree and see that there were even new locks. Throughout the day we saw a number of these trees along the path surrounding the lake.

We walked through a park named after a famous poet, saw Many monuments of past kings, heros and religious figures. We went into a Catholic Church and saw the most Amazing works of art on the ceiling and walls, and even the crown molding was phenominal !! It was absolutely gorgeous!

Later for a break we stopped at a Cafe and had lattes... We later saw a procession of soldiers walking through a park. We were shown this HUGE monument to honour the missing soldiers of the war, this thing was absolutely enormous. After we went for pizza and salad, I had salad with corn on it - this was a first for me and it was great!

After spending the day with our tutors and the other Canadian students, we all attempted to tell our tutors where we lived in order to get home... but we didn't not even make it close. All the apartments look so similar and there are no street signs and the apartments are build in a pattern of squares so they face one another, making so that they are not really on a main road at all. I ended up getting Kalyn's host sister to take me home after we went shopping for some fruits and vegtables (since Slava doesn't have anything like this at home).

Tonight I had cabbage rolls and a soup with chicken (there were huge pieces of chicken in this soup, it was delicious!), and for dessert I had cake and tea!! 

I found out today that Dima is actually not Slava's son like I thought he was (from our attempt at conversation) and that he is really just a renter! He gave me a gift of the New Testament today so that I can catch up on my Bible knowledge, it should be interesting living with someone who lives thier entire life based around church and their belief in God. I am looking forward to seeing how this goes!

Tomorrow we start our first day of language classes!

xoxo