peace corps.

what did you think i do?

cont....

January!

in the month of january i think taught classes for a total of.......8 days. 

school was canceled the last week of jan due to the freezing temps. i cant say i minded not having to walk to school with the fear of losing my limbs to frostbite. 

besides that january also was the month of language refresher. pretty much it was a week camp for the volunteers to come and practice/work on their russian/ukrainian skills. or... be reminded that you have no language skills ( as in my case). though it was really nice to be the student instead of the teachers and i have to say the pc peeps put in a lot of work and it was a good time! not to mention that the facility had hot showers and free internet! also a week of free food... yes please!

also in jan is my bday. it happens like that every year it seems...

after language refresher a lot of the volunteers went to kyiv for the weekend. the original plan was for ballet and bagels with my friend who's bday is the day after mine. but.. after going out the night before it didnt really happen so we just settled for bagels. and that was just fine. BAGELS!!! we also went to a great falafel place that was discovered by another volunteer. the owner in fact speaks no ukrainian or russian and perfect english. he even claims to have lived in laguna hills! what!!!! yea it might just be my new favorite place. that and the bagels of course....

feb!

feb has also gone by really fast and that might be in part because i havent taught that much this month either! the first week myself, my counterpart and one my students went to a pepfar (presidents emergency plan for aids relief) conference. on a more serious note HIV is a huge problem in ukraine. it has the highest infection rate in europe. i would have said before that i knew a lot of hiv/aids but now i really feel confident in my ability to talk to others about it and educate and spread actual factual information. i can also talk about it in ukrainian now! hopefully my school and i will be starting a project in this field soon. 

since then i went to a sauna with some friends and gotten sick :( the temperature is rising and im hoping that soon it will be constantly above freezing and i wont need to wear 4 layers of tights and leggings and socks to go outside!  i cant wait for spring and sunshine and fruits and veggies! 

oh and im at 11 months! 

and now you have been...

UPDATED!

pow. 

oh hey 2012. 

there you are. 

its been 2ish months since i posted anything so heres a sum up of the happenings and hopefully the beginning of more frequent posts ( ill say it until it becomes a reality)

trips

BUDAPEST

budapest is an amazing city that i highly recommend to everyone! being that it was the first place we had ventured to while being here, we of course tried to soak all things hungarian and of course anything else we could find that is not available in ukraine. this led to .... many many bags of cheetos, subway ( as in sandwiches!) thai food, and spices! our many budapest(ian) adventures including: walking tour, the baths, underground(literally) club, a romanian band, ruin pubs, locals, london teenagers, and sandwiches! 

SERBIA and ROMANIA

the trip i took over winter was pretty awesome. first we flew to belgrade, serbia on the tiniest baby planes ever invented. if you know me and my "love" for flying then you can just imagine how fast my heart was racing and how much i must have sweat. but its winter so.. i considered it like exercise.... 

belgrade is an awesome city. i also highly recommend it! its alittle harder to get to but it hasnt become a tourist trap that other big western european cities. the people were great, the food was pretty good ( not for vegetarians though....) and we met some cool people in our hostel. there are still bombed out buildings from the war and hearing stories about it from our walking tour guide was unreal. 

we took the train from belgrade to romania and got stuck at the border for 3 hours! they ripped apart our train in search of cigarettes and alcohol. and they ended up finding like 1000 cartons. cigarettes are super cheap in serbia and romania is an eu country ( or becoming im not entirely sure where they are in the process) so cigarettes are much more expensive. needless to say smuggling is huge!

once we actually got into the country we we visited 4 cities. Romania is a beautiful country for sure! we went to dracula's castle (ooooooooooooooooh) and saw the narrowest ( or one of) streets in europe (highlight of the trip!) on our way back to ukraine we missed the one bus that goes between the 2 countries and had to hitchhike back. 

after that we headed to l'viv. there we met up with a few other volunteers, had some doughnut for ukrainian christmas then headed home!

and of course on my 8 hour train ride i got to share my wagon with a school field trip. 30 something 11 year olds running around on a train. gloriousssssssssss.