EUROTRIP

Greetings again from Kyiv!

So a couple of weeks ago i was able to go on a BIG trip to some of the neighboring countries by Ukraine! It was SO much fun! We went to Poland to Krakow and Auschwitz. Auschwitz was pretty intense i must say, but im glad i went. Krakow was a hip town with lots of interesting people and the coolest little shops and boutiques! We aslo went to PRAGUE! my favorite place...so beautiful with its old architecture and churches and Palace! Love love loooved it. I could spend a week there! :) We also went to Vienna. Another place i loved with all of its Art Museums and history, what could have been a better place for me to go! Oh and crazy, i ran into an old High School friend, Michael Thurin there too. What a small world. :)

I will have to put some photos up next month, the internet is almost out in the apartment.

Love you all! :)

p.s. here are pictures finally haha

                                                                          Aushwitz

                                                                            Praga

                                                                         Vienna

Kiddos!

So I thought I should put some pictures up of some of the kids we teach here at "Gymnasia Premier." We have a Pre-language class and a Kindergarten class in the mornings. Then in the afternoons we have two Kindergartens, one is called "Teensies" because they are the younger of the two, and Basic Reading and Follow-up...which are ALL BOYS, who are pretty crazy at times :) haha Really cute kids! I love them!

WWII Museum/Circus

This weekend was okay! It was a looooong week of teaching....i taught afternoon kindergarten this week, and most of the days the kids were good. There is one group i love, they talk a lot, participate and are really cute! One is Bogdon, he has a mullet (like 90% of the boys) who always has a different toy with him, and every second he wants to show you something with it. He says, "Look this!" haha he's a cutie. However, somedays the troublemakers come and i hate it. :) For example, Katya. She is five. She is the weirdest little girl...she makes this weird noise when she breaths really hard...and she takes off her underwear. And she brought a plastic knife to class and was trying to cut her knee and wrist with it. luckily, she only comes 3 times a week...

So this weekend i was excited for a break. We  went to the WWII museum. Well is started off bad because we took the wrong bus and got lost and had to walk for about an hour and finally made it to the museum :) but other than that it was great! I really liked how they did the exhibits. It was sad though. Oksana is funny, she was talking to us like we didn't know ANYTHING about the war...as if the United States didn't fight in the war either.

Jo had a surprise for us today too...she told us earlier this week. Since we had extra money left over from buying bus tickets for our big vacation, she bought us tickets to the circus! i have never been to the circus before  it  seemed very strange to me! they had dancers, singers, acrobatic routines, which were okay...and lots of animals...bears, lions, tigers, monkeys, dogs, horses, seals that they had do tricks. Thinking about it more...i just didn't like it...oh well, i guess i'm glad i got to experience it at least once in my life :)

Folk and Opera!

Hallo! 
I will be better at updating this :)
This past weekend, i was able to go to a Ukrainian Folk village and to the Opera! The folk village was huge, with tons of flowers and trees. It was a museum of old folk houses and architecture. One thing i liked best was all the old windmills on the hills. It was so pretty there. They also had some older people in traditional folk dress playing some really pretty music on some interesting instruments! There were painters out, painting beautfiul pictures of flowers! Tons of souviner shops with painted plates, hand carved jewlery boxes, necklacs, clay figures, clothes, tons of things. It was fun to see how they used to live!
After the museum, we got cleaned up and headed to the opening night of the Opera, La Traviata! The Opera house was magnificent, really really beautiful! i have never been to one...i heard that is one of the top five opera houses in Eruope! (i'll put pictures up when i can!) The inside was extravagent, with chandeliers, ivory and gold walls and decor. We sat in the balcony, in our own little box seat. It was hard to see though because i had an older couple in front of me. We decided to switch seats during intermission, but we got in trouble and had to go back :) oops! Even though i couldnt understand Italian or read the Russian subtitles, it was still really good! Can't wait to go to another one! 

Ukraine: Day 2!

Privyet!!! that is hello in Ukrainian...most say hallo as well! anyways today was a much better day. I think doing stuff and having to learn how to travel here and where to go really help keep myself busy and my mind off of everything. Anyways, so i'm going to best try and remember everything that i did today. First, our Native Coordinater Oksana and her friend Alla came and got me and my headteacher from the apartment. They wanted to show us the way to the metro...They are huge! It surprisingly wasn't too overwhelming though...i just tried to not let the crowds get to me and just take everything in! Getting on though my frist time was a little scary...i was the last one and the girls didn't push their way in so i had to push them and the door seriously almost closed on me! So from the metro we went to the downtown of Kiev. You also have to walk underground some places...its really cool and it reminds me of the streets of San Francisco with tons of vendors and things for sale like sunglasses, purses, necklaces, food. Things like that! there was also a mall :) The school is not what you would expect schools in America to look like, but its really cute! There are 5 teachers and we will be teaching 3 to 13 year olds! so that means i will probably be teaching all ages at times. So that should be fun. It is a little nerve racking as i think about preparing lesson plans and making sure i get everything covered that i need to. I heard that teaching is the hardest thing, i hope that i can push through and catch on quickly!

Another girl, named Hillary lives with a mom, dad and a son who is 14. He wanted to take her to this Flower exhibition in the city, so we decided to go with him as well! :) it was so much fun! he was so nice and funny...so animated and liked to joke! he also took very good care of us, counting to make sure he had all 5 of us and made sure we stayed together! he even took pictures for us too. So on the way we went by a long walkway of markets! We also got to see two WWII monuments as well, one of them looks like the Washington monument! The markets were fun, they had honey, flowers, purses, food, anything you can think of! The boy told us to not eat meat from the street because its dogs and cats!!! gross! ha the flower exhibition is for Ukraine's Independence day which was on Monday Aug 24. Every year they have different themes for the flowers and this year it was Ukrainian fairy tales! Some of them were like our American ones, such as Cinderella and Pinocchio. It was so pretty! Walking from there we walked along a sidewalk next to a cobbled road, where i guess they used to drive tankers on there. It was a little scary because people drive SO fast!


On the way up a long stairway, our headteacher Jo, tripped on her sandal and cut the bottom of her big toe REALLY really bad! it was bleeding so bad...like almost gushing blood. But we helped her out and made a bandage out of a sock haha and got her back home. Poor thing, but she is doing okay! it was really deep though so i bet it hurts.






It is definitely an eye opener all ready to see that we are so blessed in America. What you would think would be really ghetto and dangerous or small apartments here are actually pretty nice for them i think. Its just very different. The people dont seem too mean, but they never ever say excuse me, they just push their way through. They don't really talk much to each other either, unless they are with friends i suppose. I am not sure that culture shock as hit me yet, maybe because i have not met my host family (the sister is my age and she speaks english well ive heard!) and i haven't traveled anywhere on my own yet, so we will see :)