Anton's mullet

Anton got a haircut the other day and of course the "neck tickles" were left for all of Ukraine to admire. We got out Zhenia's bows that I gave her and Anton thought it would be so funny to put one in his hair. He wouldn't let me do pigtails, but I thought this was plenty good enough.

St. Andrew's

This is a castle on the top of Adrevisky Street. It is a really steep street on a hill where there are lots of people selling souveniers. I thought it was really cool looking.

More students

This is Tonia, Christina, and Boris. They are some of my favorites. Tonia, Boris, and I like to scare each other when classes are over. They try and creep up on me and then when I turn around and scare them they scream incredibly loud and then run away. Boris loves it when I put my hair down in front of my face, put my hood on and make a creepy face. He busts out laughing everytime.

Lunchtime

(Sorry this picture is so dark) This is what a typical lunch looks like at our Little America school. This lady with the bright orange hair is Tanya and she cooks us lunch everyday during the week. She only knows a few things in English and it is very confusing sometimes because she says things that definitely don't make sense. She is a very sweet woman and she tells us that she loves us every day. The menu choices that we get for lunch are: cabbage pizza, soup with surprise meat floaties, cinnamon/tomato sauce noodles, grape juice, "holiday" cornbread, or sugar pancakes. It is fun to guess what thing she is going to bring us each day.

Nika and I

This is one of my most favorite girls named Nika. She loves to sing random songs and she is great at speaking english. I have a great video of her singing me this song about milk. :)

The older class...

These are the kids that I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are great kids, but they are a stinking pain in the neck to try and teach. They love showing me that they are too cool for authority... From left to right it's Julia, George, Sasha, and Andrew. And no, George and Sasha aren't cuddling, Sasha is twisting George's arm behind his back. They are really funny kids though, I love their accents.

The Soviet Toliet

This is the "soviet toliet" as Andre has told me. This is in the opera house. This picture is totally odd looking because I had to squat in order to get in the frame of the picture, but of course I had to get at least one picture with one of these babies. I haven't actually used one yet, but I'm sure I will. Kami and I had to take the picture really quickly because we were totally gonna get crazy looks for taking pictures in the bathroom.

All the teachers

This was at the Nutcracker ballet. Left to Right: in the first row there's Mary, Kami, Brynn (the head teacher), and Kim. In the second row there's Jeff, Desi, Stacy, Hilary, Chantell, and Lauren. Mark is in the back. I teach with Mary, Kami, Kim, Hilary, and Stacy. They are great girls. All the ILP people sort of had their own little box. We had to check in all our coats and belongings before we could find our seats. It felt really official. It was a pretty exciting thing that we even made it on time to the ballet because we end classes at 6pm every night and the ballet started at 7pm. We were practically hit the ground running from the Metro. The ballet was SO worth it. It was beautiful.

Spotlight wall

This is my picture that is posted on the wall at the school with all the other teachers. It's kinda fun to translate it. As we were filling out all the questionaires, the teachers thought that the head teacher was going to be the only one to see it, so some of us wrote some funny and embarrasing things. I don't remember what I wrote, but I do know that I wasn't asked by Tania to redo mine so that's good. :)

The kids!!

Here is the M,W,F group of kids. They are wonderful! We have been teaching them how to play "down by the banks." We also teach them a handful of primary songs. They absolutely love the girl's camp song "The Princess Pat." They want to sing it all the time. The boys especially love to scream all the words to the songs...

Some Statue...

This statue was outside the Ukrainian National Museum of Art. Marianna told me what it was and I'm pretty sure that he was a politician that was killed a couple years ago in a car accident. The Museum was very interesting. It had a lot of old style iconography and some modern pieces as well. The pictures of the different landscapes were gorgeous. Too bad we couldn't take pictures inside. Random note: Check out the little mullet wisp on my neck... I don't know what the heck that is!

My host family!

This is Anton, Marianna, and Zhenia on our Sunday afternoon walk yesterday. This is in the courtyard of Anton's school. My host family is so great to me and have given me an entire room to myself. I am very blessed to associated with this family. The only thing I would change in my family is their absolute addiction to put heapings of mayonaise into everything we eat. :)

Main Street/Downtown

This is on Khreshchatyk street. It is a really busy street with an underground mall right below it. On this street is the only place I've ever seen outdoor trashcans. After this picture was taken Kami and I went to McDonalds. It was sooo good. Everything on the menu is in the cyrillic alphabet, but is pronounced like you would say it in english. It was pretty funny when we realized that. But, we discovered that you cannot order in english, because they will not understand you. You must order in english, in a Russian accent. Then they know what the heck you are talking about. So it's not a "Big Mac," but "Beeg Mock."

The Cat Talisman

This cat is a lucky charm to those who pet it. My host mom Marianna told me specifically to go find it. After Kami and I took some pictures we found some Italian gelato shop and had our first encounter with a friendly and patient food server. It was a moment to be cherished. :) Most of the people roll their eyes or laugh when they discover we can't speak Russian. We give a good effort though.

Gates of Kyiv Museum

Here I am at the "Gates of Kyiv" Museum. It is pretty cool. The museum is actually built around the old gates which are old, thick, and tall brick walls. So this gate is not actually the real thing, but looks exciting enough.

Hooray for snow!

This is me in the Ukrainian snow! This was a great day! My jacket is absolutely perfect here. I am also grateful that Carrie and Mom made me buy ugly warm boots. I love my boots! The fur on my jacket however, looks like greasy rat fur compared to the AMAZING fur coats I've seen here. Everyone wears fur, it's a huge deal.

Lavra

This is one of the cathedrals or churches at Lavra. This is near the Dnipro River. The caves where monks are buried are below these churches. We saw a Russian Orthodox service in one of these churches. There were monks/priests that came around and swung inscence and crossed themselves all around the congregation. I am proud of myself for becoming more cultured while I'm here because the only other time I've ever seen incsence swung around was in a music video. :)

Tickles

This is Anton with the "Hamah." I wanted a picture of his miniature mullet so I told him to look at the hamster. The mullet is extremely popular here. Kami and I affectionately refer to these fashionable haircuts as neck "tickles." Both of our host mothers have them along with every other person in Ukraine. So yes, Carrie, my "Ukrainian Mon" will have a tickle mullet.

Anton and Zhenia

This is my host brother Anton and host sister Zhenia. They are very cute kids as you can see. Every time I come home I hear Zhenia say, "Ali-sa, Ali-sa" and I love it. We play games where I sneak up on them and scare them. Of course whenever they try to sneak up on me when I am reading, I always have to pretend to be scared or else Anton gets mad at me and pouts.

My flat!

This is the apartment that I live in. It's on the street Dragomanova. There are apartment buildings like this literally as far as the eye can see. It's pretty far away from the inner city which looks very, very different.