Making weight

no like airport and weight restrictions

one of the worst parts about making this trip: freaking out about keeping your bags under 50lbs/ piece. and it just depended who you got at the ticket counter as to how mercurial they would be with your weight allowance. one girl had to get rid of almost an entire bag and ship her items to the arrival retreat. i'm just glad that the weight of my bags will no longer be a source of stress! let those bags eat what they want. it's all bumpy bus rides and hopefully on time train rides for the forseable future.

our country director greeting us on my bus after we arrived in Kyiv.

so guess what we have at our "arrival retreat"? WIFI IN OUR BEDROOM!! it's what makes this post possible. well not everyone got this, but we are able to reap the benefits of being so close to the wifi hub @ the 'hotel'. that's just one of the perks that i wasn't expecting at this place. especially when one of the Ukrainian coordinators explained on the bus ride to this site that the building was "built in the 1970s to be a training center for soviet military, when America was our ENEMY #1!". 

but the rooms are actually pretty decent (3 single beds to a room) and we have a bathroom with running water/shower in our rooms too. unexpected indeed.  i was also warned by a current PCV that we need to take advantage of our showers because we never know when the next one will be with the host family. some girls she knows didn't get to take a shower for 12 days after their arrival retreat because their host families were on some random water schedule….i dunno. oh and our room is equipped with a tiny TV that plays russian soap operas and shitty american music videos. all in all, massive upgrade from what i was picturing. we had our welcome dinner tonight with a traditional ukrainian welcome ceremony and i then had to get 3 immunization shots. see ya never, typhoid. 

their choreographed announcements in ukrainian and english

ukrainians offering a traditional welcome bread. you have to take a piece of the bread and dip it in a pile of salt before you eat it. my favorite thing about ukraine so far

our place settings before the meal. the pineapple juice box was our second juice box of the day. we are noticing a pattern.

thumbs up for our first meal in ukraine, no clogging of arteries yet. however, dessert consisted of a brownie wrapped in a croissant.

it's just so lovely to be able to walk around and hear russian all around (or ukrainian; i haven't been able to distinguish the two yet). we also found out who will be in our training clusters (5 total people) for the next 3 months and what language we'll be learning. this girl is officially going to become fluent in RUSSIAN in a matter of months. ok not months, but definitely by the end of two years i'll be able to walk into a grocery store with confidence and order bacon from the meat counter.