хорошо

The title of this post is pronounced "hehr-oh-show" and is the Russian word for "good." It's one of the first words my host family taught me upon arrival in Ukraine. Yep, I am officially 5,754 miles away from the place I have lived my entire life shout out to my home dawg utah. yeah. if utah was a person it would be gangster. or...not. anyway. The travel here deserves it's own entire post, but that's just not going to happen because let's get real, who wants to read about my head bouncing off my shoulder in that humiliating way while I was sleeping or how many times the German flight attendant told me to move my leg so she could push the drink cart past? Oh, you do? Ok. Well, email me. But until that email comes through, the highlights, which consisted entirely of the people I met during my 28 hour endeavor. These people included:

The opera singer flying to New York, the CEO coming back from a visit with his Singapore branch, the mechanical-engineer-Croatian-grandpa who knew about Utah and asked how many husbands I have um, that's polyandry. get your insults right. and i wasn't actually insulted, but kindly told him that he was wrong. and then converted him to the church. #iwish and the 80 year old retired math teacher who was going to his annual September trip to Lebanon to visit family and who said flattering things. sometimes i wish i could date a grandpa in a 22-25 year old body. anybody else? am i totally weird? don't answer that.

Upon arrival in Ukraine we all crammed into a little bus and were dropped off around the city. I hate to say what my first impression of this place is because it's completely changed since then. But...first impression. Think post apocalyptic type setting with gray everything and graffiti everywhere there isn't gray and robots who all wear heels, never smile, and talk in monotone. I admit there was fear.

I got dropped off at the wrong building but then a nice Ukrainian helped me find my way, even pulling my 50 pound bag around while I jabbered at him in English about how I was so sorry my bag was so heavy but I had to fit everything I possible could in there because I'll be here for 3 months and I even had to wear my boots on the plane because they were too big to fit in my case and oh wow look at all the pigeons and have you ever been to America because I can't believe I was just there a few hours ago but I watched "Epic" on the plane...finally he just turned to me, smiled, and said, "No understand. Very little English."

So I felt awesome. Kind of like those little dogs that keep yapping at you no matter what you do.
Yeah.

Anyway, I got to my host family and they are just awesome. Really, I love them so much already. I've showed them pictures of my family and friends and mountains, which they loved. They even have a piano so I got to play a few hymn arrangements for them. I'm not allowed to directly spread the good word, but maybe in a subtle way I can....They've invited me skiing with them sometime this semester if there's enough snow and I might dye my hair with my 16 year old host-sister. They try to teach me Russian but end up just laughing at my attempts because it basically sounds like a running disposal. With a peach pit inside.

The women here are beautiful and all the men wear really nice jeans. I have glow in the dark stars on my ceiling and the temple is perfect. The Metro is exciting and the buildings that once reminded me of "I Am Legend" are so comfortable to me now. I feel...at home here. Teaching is really really hard, but what else is knew, right?

Oh. The fact that I live in Ukraine.

morning view from my room

to me, this is so neat. all the different textures showing all the different types of people living there. not just cookie cutter perfect homes and buildings. it scared me and first, but now I think I prefer it.

i'm so deep.

i'll be going here as often as possible.

these forks seemed like something my mom would come up with.

which i why i liked them so much.

the pond i walk by every day. i'm pretty sure i should ride in that train at some point, aren't you?

this place sold some delicious meat wrap thing called sharuma (said with a crazy thing in the throat and tongue that I can't do).

it has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings.

but. is. delicious.

oh hi.

just here, casually holding this sharuma close to my face because that seemed natural.

Zach and Tessa.

the "couple" of the group.

happy anniversary. thanks for spending it playing jenga with all of us.

#romantic

Olia.

our awesome native coordinator.

like, she's cooler than you.

sorry.

the view again at night.

i mean, tell me you can see the appeal.

Anyway, things here are herosho. Like, really, really, herosho.

peace and babushki
they are so true to the stereotype here it's unreal. i smile whenever i see one.

rrw