Spring is here! but really spring here means a lot of rain and still the occassional snow. but more and more everyday i see green popping up and that atleast, makes me happy, even if i still have to wear multiple layers.
much has happened in these past 2 months, so lets see what i can remember.....
MARCH
much has happened in these past 2 months, so lets see what i can remember.....
MARCH
- the 8th of March is international women's day. which is celebrated in pretty much every country except for the USA. mmmmhmmmmm. yea. we got days off from school, students bring you presents, you eat a lot of cake. might just be the best holiday ever. to celebrate this marvelous day i ventured to a neighboring PCV's site where the 5 of us lovely ladies celebrated our womanhood ( read: booze, food, and science experiments)
- I tried to stay low key for most of march because spring break i went to istanbul!!! i went with 2 other PCV's (Kimberley and Kristin) and we met up with some more there. Istanbul is a beautiful city with so much culture! beautiful mosques everywhere, delicious food, friendly people. We ventured to the asian side of the city and found this great bazaar and even did a turkish bath. pretty much a turkish bath involves many half naked people, hot stone tables, and shampoo. ill leave it at that.
- and of course i had my usual routine of teaching and clubs.
APRIL (first half-ish anyways)
- April started off great with Emma! my first niece was born! yay!
- Pesach:
- i was invited to go to kyiv to celebrate Passover with friends of some PCV friends i have. we celebrated the first 2 nights with 2 completely different seders. one was super orthodox and strict the next was super ukrainian and liberal. both were equally enjoyable!
- after the seders i got to go back to my friends super tiny village ( 650 people!) and experience his village. the highlight: milking a goat! or at least attempting too. its not as easy as it looks.
- last week was ukrainian easter ( they are orthodox and run on a different calendar). i experienced this last year and this year was pretty similar. i woke up at 3 am to go to church with my counterpart and her family. after standing in the rain and getting blessed by the priest we went back to their house and had breakfast. but its not really breakfast when you are drinking wine and eating all kinds of meats and veggies right? then i came home and slept for hours only to wake up and feast some more with my host baba and her family.
- ive also discovered the "sercret" jewish population of my town! im pretty excited. and when i say "secret" i mean it was a secret to me because i didnt know they existed before now. oh and one of the woman of the group ( yea theres a group) reassured me that there are some young unmarried nice men in this group. so i guess our fears of me returning old and alone are no longer!!
this weekend we are holding a seder for volunteers in kyiv and im pretty excited. hopefully it turns out well, especially since we are cooking all the food ourselves. but dont fear, ive already volunteered to only boil the eggs. i think we are safe.
