Quick Update

I only have a few minutes to post in between my Russian classes but here are the highlights of this past week:

-I have been living without hot water entirely and for the majority of the day yesterday had no water at all. It really isn't as bad as you would imagine and the experience has made me feel more like a real Peace Corps volunteer that I had previously. There is also a pretty good possibility that I will be living w/o hot water at my permament site so its better to get used to it now.

-I had my site placement interview last week and feel that it went very well. There really is no way to tell what kind of impact what I told them will have in the placement process but I am hoping that I will wind up in my own house on the Sea with wireless internet and a washing machine like I asked...In all seriousness though, I was able to tell them how I envisioned my next two years going, the type of community in which I would like to live and the housing situation for which I am hoping. I will be finding out next week where my permanent site will be and promise to pass it along.

-Paul McCartney is playing a free concert in Kiev on June 14th and barring some unforeseen problems I will definitely be going! They expect somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 peeps to be there so it should be a pretty exciting evening. Should make for an interesting blog entry...

-The weather here is hot and sticky...very uncomfortable. Yes, I know I am in the Peace Corps and have no right to complain about such things but you try sitting through a 3 hour Russian class in sticky, wet clothes in a room with no AC and tell me how you like it. That's what I thought...

Everything else is normalno. No major changes. I am following my Pistons and Wings as closely as possible...feel free to pass along any updates if/when you have the time. I will try and post something new before the end of the weekend. Miss y'all

Finally!

So I finally have a cross cultural gaff to report that is appropriate for readers of all ages and will pass through the censors at the FCC. As you know I am studying Russian and being inundated with new vocabularly words on a minute by minute basis. Some are easy for me to process and regurgitate on command but others get all jumbled together and on occasion I get them confused...usually with no negative or humurous consequence. This past Saturday however, was not one of those days.

So I am sitting in a cafe called "Prince" that is located in the town center with one of my fellow Peace Corps peeps. We go there at least once a week and hadn't really had any problem ordering because we mostly rely on just pointing to the pictures on the menu. On this day though I decided that having almost 2 months of Russian under my belt it was about time that I order for myself aloud. Standing miles outside of my comfort zone I told the waitress that i would like the ice cream with hot fudge while miming how i would like to eat the ice cream so she could get the point. Unfortuantely, the word for "ice cream" (at least in my head) sounds pretty similar to the word for "youth"....so yeah, pretty much i had just ordered a dish of youth with chocolate sauce and had showed my waitress just how i planned on eating said youth. I have never seen someone look so confused in my life and finally, after realizing that that I had asked for youth but still not knowing what the word for ice cream was, i resorted back to opening up the menu and pointing. I don't know how well the story will translate over the blogosphere but it was one of the funnier moments I have had since i have been "in country". And yes, the ice cream was delicious. Hopefully that story buys me a little time while i go out and embarrass myself again for your enjoyment.

As for the day to day details of my life...nothing to new or exciting to report. Last Friday was yet another holiday (victory day) and we were given the day off from classes. I spent my free day with my fam at their "Dacha" which translates in english to a cottage. Their cottage though is only a mile away from the apartment where we live and they use it mostly as a place to keep their chickens, to plant their crops (they also have 3 other large fields) and to just relax. Part of the day was spent getting the ground ready to plant tomatoes and potatoes which is actually pretty gratifying and enjoyable work, and the rest was spent preparing and then consuming a ginormous feast. The highlight of the meal were the kebabs (sashliki) that we prepared and then slow roasted over a giant pit of hot coals...ochin vacousny. The remainder of the day was spent playing chess (im still fairly awful but I won my first 2 games this week and am feeling pretty good about it), tossing around a football and listening to Sweet Dreams Are Made of these by the Eurythmics about 100 times on repeat (my host cousin like the song....a lot). Definitely one of the better days I have had.

Tomorrow I have my site placement interview and will hopefully have a better idea of where I will be spending the next two years afterwards. I will keep you all updated on the developments and by request, will try and give you, my loyal readers, an idea of what life is like in ukraine and what the people here are like. (I just have to be tactful as there may or may not be some Ukrainian readers among you...but there really isn't much negative to say!) Alright...that's all for now. Go Wings

Hello all...

I apologize for not having blogged in the past couple of weeks but my life here has been keeping me rather busy. From Birthday celebrations with my Ukrainian family(they're all impressed that I don't make a face when I am taking down Vodka and Cognac shots) to trying to make sense of one of the 38,000 prefixes and suffixes in the Russian language my time just flies by. I honestly wish that I could sit here and tell you some wonderfully entertaining story about a drunken night out or some funny cross cultural mishap that I stumbled into but I really don't have much to share. I spend the bulk of my time these days with my face in a Russian book, in front of my computer watching Arrested Development or with a fork full of food stuffed into it.

I did get to experience Orthodox Easter here in Ukraine which basically involved me getting woken up at 4am to have a massive feast with my fam, taking a 3 hour nap, having another epic meal, taking another nap and more or less alternating those two activities for the remainder of the day...I'm seriously thinking about converting! (I'm kidding--no emails dripping with guilt neccessary) There are a bunch more Ukrainian holidays coming up this month and I am hopeful that they take the same form as Easter...those of you who know me well know that sleep and food rank pretty highly on my all time top 10.

I also tilled some earth this past weekend with my peoples to prepare one of my family's plots for potato(e) (just in case you're reading this Dan) planting season...good times. It felt good to get dirty and I was rewarded afterwards by roasting kebabs over a pit of hot coals and with a glass of Crimean wine. Also got destroyed by my cousin in Chess...4 moves to check...I went out a bought a board this afternoon. Again...good times.

I am heading off tomorrow to the Oblast (essentially a state) center to catch up with a couple of friends that I haven't seen since we went to our respective sites and am very much looking forward to a days worth of relaxation and laughs. Maybe Chernigiv (where I'm going) will provide me with the anecdotes that I know you all are so craving...lets hope.

Alright, I've got to be going but first wanted to say a word or two about my friend Matt Lash who passed away earlier this week. Matt was one of the best human beings I have ever had the privillege of meeting. He was selfless, brave, fiercely loyal to his friends and had more charisma than any person I have ever met. To have lost him this early in life is beyond unfair and I will miss him every day. I love you Matt...