Public transportation

It’s hard to imagine that we’ve already been living in Kyiv for well over a month now. We’re learning how to do things in a style somewhat similar to what many Ukrainians do as second nature…ride public transportation, go grocery shopping every couple of days, hold our breath as we go through congested areas (either because of smoke or body odor!) Life is definitely different; we find it really weird not to be able to just “jump in the car” and head somewhere; now we have to plan on 30-60 minutes of travel time to where ever we want to go. Besides the handy dandy metro, there’s a trolley bus and the medium sized buses are called marshukas. It only costs about 15 cents (1.5 hgrivnas) a ride, so if we do have to take a taxi we’re often reluctant to pay 50 hgrivnas (roughly $6). I, Alyssa, am starting to look like I’m carrying a huge watermelon around my waist and am always grateful when people let me have their seat on the "public".
And now for one of my favorite afternoons... Speaking of pregnancy, we’ve been to the doctor a couple of times. There’s an American Medical Center here that is taking care of all the prenatal care. They’ve been great! Last week we had another check up and the Skousens offered to take us (they bought a car.) Ken and I thought for sure that we knew how to get to the AMC because you only have to take two major streets. Tricky thing is that there aren’t really any street signs, anywhere. All of the landmarks looked familiar, so that wasn't helpful. My favorite landmark was when Elysa remembered an inflatable meat grinder right before a bend in the road--sure enough, we came across that on our first attempt to find the AMC. Notice that I said the first time, so needless to say we had to turn around and go back to the major Avenue.--All the while I've failed to mention one of the reasons that people use the public is because the driving is so CRAZY here...ever thought that Mexico was rough? Chump change in comparison, so Jacob's sweating bullets trying to whiz in and out and Ken's yelling "GO GO GO" when it's clear--We backtracked and tried the big street before the one that we had previously taken, went past some fake palm trees, recognized a WWII memorial from one of our first tours of the city, asked a guy for "Quadrot" (which we were told by the AMC to find) he pointed and let us cut in front of him, we drove and drove, tried asking more people for help but they just started speaking a lot of Russian or scowled, and finally tried calling the AMC again. As I was on the phone trying to describe what I saw around me, Ken shouted, "There's the McDonald's!" Thank goodness for the guiding golden arches. It just so happens that there is a metro stop, a huge bus stop, and a Mickey D's right next to the AMC--ah what relief! This outing proved one thing yet again--I REALLY NEED TO LEARN THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET! (I know that there was a huge run-on sentence in there...but that's exactly how we felt!)

Odessa by Train--a true adventure!

Off work at 4:00; pack and walk to the metro by 5:00, oops 5:30; catch the metro three stops to the train station; we still haven't eaten dinner; 10 minutes until the train leaves...Ken runs to McDonald's; Adam, Kris, and Alyssa run to the train platform and somehow stumble across the correct car; where's Ken? the train leaves in five minutes; there he is--all aboard! That was the beginning of our quick weekend trip to Odessa. After the second week of school, we boarded an overnight train to Odessa on the Black Sea. With the help of a Ukrainian speaking friend the boys bought tickets. We didn't know quite what we were going to do when we got there, but that was okay.

It's most likely that one would not call these overnight trains "Bullet Trains" by any stretch of the imagination. They meander along at a pace all of their own showing off the beautiful Ukrainian countryside--a welcome relief from the concrete and noise of the city. And the clickity-clackity of the rails almost lulls you to sleep, that is unless you're pregnant and have to get up every hour or so to use the restroom. Unfortunately one of us falls under the latter category. Needless to say, our arrival at 5:45 am was well-welcomed by Alyssa. Can you guess what the only restaurant open at that time of morning was? Ding, ding, ding--Micky D's again. So with the help of the overhead picture menus we were able to order Egg McMuffins and OJ with only minor problems. Once our bellies were full we were ready to find the Black Sea. We set out to find a marshuka (bus) that would drop us off at the correct place (near downtown) or how to walk the 15 minutes from the train station. But without a map or dictionary, our hand motions weren't really cutting it. It is SO difficult when you can't even read the signs because they're in Cyrillic. Finally a younger guy thought that he knew what we wanted so he led us to a marshuka and explained our situation to the guy driving. As luck would have it, once we got on, there was a woman who spoke a little English on the bus. We ended up driving some 60 Kilometers to a little beach town and decided to discover what we could. We ate brunch and found some lounge chairs. Alyssa ended up napping for a couple hours and Ken and our friends relaxed and enjoyed the sun, sand, and a little water action.

After several hours at our mystery beach we decided to see what Odessa had to offer. We had heard tale that there was the second largest outdoor market in Europe, the longest balcony in Europe, and perhaps the longest flight of stairs in Europe. We walked a lot, found a good spot for dinner (with an English speaking waitress) and tried to find the market. Although we never found the market, we eventually found the Opera House--which by the way is magnificent. The architecture never ceases to amaze me. Swan Lake was the ballet on the docket for that night and we were able to get some last minute tickets for around $3 a piece. Just like in the States, bottled water had an exorbitant mark up and was twice that price. Being the frugal spirits we are, Ken and I declined on the water. It was just after ten when the ballet finished and our train didn't leave until two o'clock (in the am). What else did we have to do except go visit the stair step entrance to Odessa and all of its 192 steps. Ken and Adam raced up while Kris and Lyss decided their tuckered out bodies would be content with a stroll. Once that was accomplished, we stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant; the likes of which we hadn't seen in what seemed like months to four Mexican food loving friends. But surprise, surprise, it was smoky and none of us were hungry. Bummer! To wait out the end of our journey, we ended up choosing a coffee shop/sushi joint/hookah bar (we stayed in the first part of the odd establishment). When we tried pulling out cards, a waitress came and told us that playing cards in public was against the law because it resembled gambling. So any ol' person can walk down the street, take the subway, or be a minor with beer in hand, but you can't play an innocent game of cards--go figure! The train ride back was a little less eventful... Ken DID upgrade our tickets from third class to second which was a welcome to relief to all of us weary travelers. Alyssa included, we all slept soundly on the way home. Arriving around noon, we still had most of Sunday to do what we needed before the work week began.

First Day Down!

We had a great week with many trips downtown to see the Independence day weekend events and getting to know more people. Unfortunately we didn't buy train tickets in time to get to the black sea but in a couple of weeks we should be able to get somewhere.

The first day of school was yesterday and both Alyssa and I had a pretty good day overall. It is a little different teaching to a class of 5-6 students, the class just seems empty. Overall things went well though and it should be an entertaining year. We did discover that Kiev International School is not like other QSI schools in that there are a lot more local Ukrainian students attending. There is still a diverse group of students though.

After work we were off to meet our OBG at the American Medical center. We discovered that the 417 bus is slow to come and doesn't move much faster once you are on it. Good thing we don't have to take it on the big day! Our doctor's name is Ludmila and she is this wonderful бабушка (grandmother said like babushka) of a lady. She kept saying how Alyssa was God's little gift and that she would be like our mother. She was very caring and told us she had been waiting and waiting for us to come, actually the whole clinic has been wondering who these two Americans are that will be having a baby. The ultrasound looked good and all is well with Rawly. During the ultrasound we saw little Rawls sucking on his toes! What a silly little boy! So we feel very welcome and blessed to have this doctor, she is a wonderful and caring lady.

This is a picture from our boss's apartment on the top floor of a building. On the left side of the picture is our apartment building and the school is just behind the two big buildings. The school sits in a "green zone" so there is a lot of forest nearby. To the right, off the picture, is a big stretch of forest. Just to be clear "green zone" doesn't mean "clean zone" there is a lot of trash since littering is a huge problem in Ukraine. I guess it is better than the concrete jungle of the city. In the distance you can see the Left bank of the city which is divided by the Dinpre River, hopefully I spelled that right.

This is the market by St. Andrews cathedral (the cathedral behind us in the first picture). This was Independence day weekend so there were a lot of Artists from other countries and around Europe. There were also people selling all kinds of goods from textiles to salvaged pawn shop type stuff.
We really enjoyed walking and talking to the vendors. Every normal day the market exists just not down the middle of the street. Even still on this weekend you had to watch out for cars and the occasional bus!

This has been by far the favorite sign of Alyssa. Since everyone smokes it seems, she really enjoyed the smoke free zone.

New Discovery of the week: It's kind of a weird cultural thing but aparently there are other countries that have the same tradition. Here the men also shave their arm pits! I guess it helps because they also don't wear any deodorant.

Until next time America,

Ken and Alyssa

Pizza! Pizza!

Enough about our sleep depravity, what you really want to know is: What's the food like? Right? As the title suggests the cuisine here is simple: Ukrainian or pizza. So far we've liked both, but we definitely ate pizza more in the first four days than we have in the past six months. It's been a constant adventure going to the supermarket to find food. The first milk we bought was buttermilk, the second went bad the day after it was opened (apparently not pasteurized), and now we use boxed milk that tastes alright on cereal, but not plain. We found "Danone" (Dannon) brand mini drinkable yogurts that are probably loaded with corn syrup (sorry dad, you taught me better) but they're hopefully giving us the good enzymes we need. Some Canadians from northern BC are looking for yogurt culture so that we can make our own. As for the produce, it's plentiful for now and we buy it from the market because they do radiation checks on everything that they sell (I'm not joking!) Spaghetti sauce is similar to ketchup, but luckily someone gave us the heads up and we found a decent brand. We just bought some spices and garlic yesterday which helped a lot (I'm not sure if our co-workers will agree). Back to the dairy products, cheese is still a far cry from anything that we're accustomed to and we're a little nervous about what's pasteurized and what's not (for the pregnancy) but our friends the Skousens (also from Caldwell) discovered a great tasting cheese that we tried yesterday and are looking forward to purchasing the next time we go shopping. And as you'll see from the corny picture--I've finally tried cabbage rolls and love them, I think that we can find them frozen in the bulk section...

No towel, need sleepy

We've arrived—tired and unadjusted still, but we're here! Most days feel like we've been hit by a tornado (at least for me). Our days have been full of taking the entire group of 25 new teachers and their families shopping at the MegaMart (Fred Meyerlike) and the Metro (similar to Costco without the samples). With all this commotion, it has left little time for me (Alyssa) to get in the naps I've grown accustomed to over the summer. This marks our fifth day here, Ken's slept through the entire night twice and looks like he may again this morning, I, on the other hand, have this uncanny knack of waking up at 3:30am and not being able to sleep again until seven for an hour or so nap. It's currently 5:30 and I've already tried doing seven things, but it proves difficult when the rest of the world is still sleeping.

breaking in spring and planning for summer

The countdown begins...four months, fourteen days until our Ukrainian departure. We've spent Spring Break visiting friends and family in Grangeville, Idaho and finishing the kitchen remodel. We're hoping that we will be able to rent the house out to some "trustworthy" college kids (I have faith that phrase isn't an oxymoron!) So the cabinets are hung and painted, the bamboo floors are secure, and the counter tops should be finished by next weekend! Tomorrow it's back to the grind of school and finishing up all the little projects. We're both enjoying teaching this semester, but look forward to some little trips we have planned. We'll be heading to San Francisco in May with Barry and Hana (for baseball among other things.) Ken's sister graduates with her RN degree in June and she will be accompanying us back East. We'll be in NYC for a few days, catch up with some friends (go to a Mets' game), take the Chinatown bus to Boston and visit where Ken and Em grew up (Ashburnham, MA), from there we'll rent a car and head north to visit Alyssa's relatives in Maine. And don't worry we'll get to Fenway Park at least once or twice--after all, Ken needs a new hat for the Ukraine. In July we're being sent to New Mexico to attend an IB (International Bacclaurette) conference for our Ukrainian school. We'll get some Eagle Caps camping in July with Alyssa's family and head back to Oregon to say our goodbyes. That's it for now.