Finn Everyday

*part rant/part pictures. enjoy.*

two years worth of clothing?

I'm slightly obsessed with this style blog called Kendi Everyday. A personal recurring fav idea of her's (that can't be grammatically correct...english teacher over here..) is her 30 for 30 challenge. In a nutshell, she chooses 30 pieces from her wardrobe and she can only wear those 30 pieces for the next 30 days. It forces creativity and frugality. When I tried to imagine paring my wardrobe down for Ukraine I imagined the 30 for 820 challenge (take that, Kendi). I knew the perfect pack was going to be an impossibility, but I would give my 5 inch patent leather shoes to go back and pack all over again, having an official ukrainian month under my (7) belts. For the record, belts were a great idea. Easy way to change up an outfit with something that takes up the space of a...small snake? Couldn't think of a good analogy. Anyway.

WHY OH WHY did I think I would only need one pair of jeans?? I remember going through my jeans and somehow convincing myself that more than one pair of jeans was ludicrous. Here's what one pair of jeans is: house arrest. What are you supposed to do when you come home from teaching and your host mom is working out in the garden lugging stumps of trees around for no discernible reason? You're supposed to go throw on a pair of jeans and head outside to help said mother train for a weightlifting contest. But when you only have one pair of jeans you have to consider the mud that will inevitably get all over your jeans, and once that mud's on your jeans, you can't wear them out until they're washed, and since you only do laundry once every 2 weeks, you'll have to don business casual slacks for 10 straight days (if you give a mouse a cookie). So instead of being a good ukrainian daughter, I sulked in my room protecting my cursed single pair of jeans.

my street

4 pairs of sandals (3 of them flip flops). What country/season did I think I would be walking into (pun intended)? Let me tell you, Ukraine in general is not sandal friendly. Ukraine is boots up to your knees and coats down to your ankles friendly. (What are my brown leather boots DOING IN MY DAD'S CLOSET?!?!) On the other hand, leopard print high heels were a great idea. This country loves their animal prints (esp when it comes to linoleum flooring). Girls here wear high heels like it's nobody's business. Cobblestone-esque sidewalks and crater size puddles of sludge and you all look at me crazy when I bust out my bright yellow rain boots? Girl, YOU cray. Yet..you brave.

high heel death traps lurk everywhere, disguising themselves as passable sidewalks

my once formidable shoe collection reduced to this (not pictured:bright yellow rain boots, 5 inch patent leather shoes, hiking shoes, teva flats. aka too lazy to go downstairs to gather all my shoes for a proper picture)

And finally, I have to admit defeat. I thought that with enough tea intake, fruits/veggies, and my stellar immune system, I would be able to stave off sicknesses that plague weaker specimens. But today I woke up with a sore throat & runny nose, so I've been curled up in nana's blanket all day bemoaning my condition. mow mow.

kryptonite for the common cold

This national treasure has gone everywhere with me and I'm so glad I lugged it 6000 miles. Home is wherever I'm with you, blanket.

All Hail Caesar

This post is disjointed and purpose-less. Life's been too busy over the past week to sit down and make sense out of anything. So here are just some random synapses that are firing right now, with a few pics to keep you scrolling.

3 Things I love about the Uke (p.s. i did find out that you are NOT supposed to insert the "the" in front of Ukraine. this is an independent country people, show some respect):
1. I can take a shower 3 times a week and no one raises an eyebrow. Actually, eyebrows would be raised if I increased that number. Andrea, you're going to love visiting this place.
2. As soon as I step through the threshold of my house, I'm expected to change into my sweats. The clothes you wear outside are not acceptable clothes for inside. Jeans during dinner? Who are you expecting? Jesus? Take em off! Bring me my robe. This also makes me regret donating all of those OSU sweatshirts that I just didn't think would be practical.
3. I love using teapots everyday and cookies/cakes/candy are everywhere.

My bday flowers/balloons from my mama! She wrote happy bday in english, russian and ukrainian on the balloons. (sorry i only captured the english balloon)

directing me

some of my birthday feast. while i was helping my host mom prepare the food, i THOUGHT she said that her husband wanted her to make a pizza but she was already making so much other food. so i proceeded to tell her in broken russian that i had already had pizza that week and that i didn't need/want it tonight. when she pulled a pizza out of the oven i just prayed that my russian was so poor that she didn't understand anything i said about the pizza. situations like this happen at least 3 times a week.

helping open up the bottle of wine. whattaguy/nevertooearly

Temp's starting to get chilly and we still haven't turned the heat on in our house. Tomorrow is the day when the city turns on the heat. That's right, everyone's heat is centrally controlled. I'm tempted to start wearing gloves indoors. Despite those Siberian winds we get here in the Uke, the weather is pretty similar to the weather in NE Ohio. However, there are some HUGE differences in how we experience winters here. Let's make up a list, shall we?

1. Radiators. Those are the only heating instruments I've seen indoors. What I wouldn't do for my old heat dish..
2. As I mentioned before, those radiators don't get fired up until the temps are safely in the 30s (aka 0 degrees Celsius)
3. Insulation? Stalin didn't believe in it.
4. In my day I had to walk 5 miles to school, uphill and through 4 feet of unplowed/unshoveled snow. My day will be everyday for 4 months.
5. I've been warned that my face will become fatter because that's my body's response to prolonged cold temps on ma face. Awesome.

So in conclusion, while it may be very cold in The U.S. during the winter, the average time of exposure to that temp is around 5-10 minutes per day. Then you're safely tucked into your double paned, insulated houses or your independently heated offices. Here, you're outside walking for a solid 1-2 hours per day and you have to sleep with 12 blankets on top of you just to retain your body heat.

mayonnaise pizza/beer date with some fellow chernigov volunteers. there are 3 PC clusters in the city

Thursday was a big day; taught my first ukrainian class the english language AND was called "Caesar" by my own language teacher.  I was shouting out commands (по русски) to a fellow cluster-mate during an activity while I was completing another activity on my mac. Apparently my commands can sometimes come off a little too...I own your soul. Not really a good history with strong armed leaders around these parts so 'Caesar' was probably not a complement. But I thought it was hilare. At least my own students didn't call me Caesar (and yes, I know you're all thinking "yet...").

Took this video for Rhett (it's not working on my comp right now but maybe you'll have better luck). We were gathering on red square for a tour and there just happened to be a bike rally going on. It's not very well produced..sorry. Here are some pics that will add more clarity.

Looking for Jax

Didn't see him.

...and the great advantage of being a literary woman was that you could go everywhere and do anything.
~Henry James

Henry, I agree. 1st completed book in Ukraine: Water for Elephants. 3/5 stars. Easy read but...meh. Donating the book to our local English Club.

Visual Intrigue

Since my last post was woefully un-visual...this post will be gratuitously graphic, bringing balance to my blogging life. I just finished helping my mom cut some vegetables for my bday dinner. From the looks of it, it's going to be a FEAST and I'm super pumped. I also stopped into a random market yesterday and picked up a bottle of champ for the occasion. Not scared to bring a little Heather (RHOOC) to northern Ukraine. This was the first time she's allowed me to help with preparation and I was feeling so good about myself that I thought I might even get to help with the actual cooking of the food. But as soon as I peeled my last garlic she said "ok see you later". So I have some extra time on my hands before dinner, hence this post.

Our собака (sobaka). He has 3 working legs, which is pretty common with the dogs around town.

I wish I captured more pics of our apple picking day, but this was it. They have 3-4 apple trees in their back yard and we (they) spent an entire Sunday plucking apples from the trees, using a wooden ladder and tall apple-plucking device. Both looked like they were straight outta Snow White. My mom makes apple jam, juice and various other spicy/sweet condiments out of these babies.

Vahnman.

Fresh squash for dinner! I'll be walking down the streets like it's any other street in the U.S., and then I'll hear a rooster crow from someone's back yard and think "oh yea, I'm in Ukraine"

My bed after our first language class. Learning a language in 3 months is easy.

5000 apple pancakes (блинчики) made by my babushka. I popped these like skittles. Also pictured: homemade apple juice. Never liked the stuff until now.

Adorbs tea pot we use every day

I'm obsessed with the mailboxes here. Mostly because none of them have been updated since the 1930s and no one seems to mind.

The entranceway of our LCF's apt. This was with a flash. I took a picture without a flash and it was pitch black. It's super creeps walking from a bright day outside into a horror movie entranceway.

Fall in Chernigov.

Stray dog on a stroll (look at who's lurking in the background....)

...is that Andrea?

LENIN! complete with flowers from his secret admirers.

His autograph. Two policemen were staring me down while I was snapping these pics as quickly as possible. I ran away before they could approach.

Big fatty fat crows everywhere.

My library!!! (sign in ukrainian)

Front door

So far, my favorite room in the library to work in. Since they haven't turned the heat on yet in any building in the city,  I'm only able to last about an hour before my hands start to go numb. 

One wall is lined with Ukrainian oil paintings. Thinking of investing.

The ceiling

Found this guy spying on me from behind a screen

Surviving the Marshrutkas

Making it through my first week in Ukraine felt like I made it through the first year. I survived my first solo marshrutka (google it) ride by using my old pal, Lenin. I deciphered the correct stop I was supposed to get off at by looking for his statue. Since they pack you about 200 deep in a bus that can only fit 20 ppl comfortably, I only had a sliver of window I could manage to see out of. But by golly, when I saw that old bastard raising his arm towards me, I've never felt so relieved. So it's been pretty smooth sailing on the marshrutkas since then (one morning we were crammed so tightly, I almost accidentally kissed a man).

I would have posted yesterday but our internet has been down for the past few days. I realized how ridiculously addicted I was with unlimited fast wifi. It was tough to go cold turkey wifi for the first few days, but I've made a TON more russian flashcards without my internet access. I also haven't had a chance to upload any of my new photos, so this will be a sans visual intrigue post.

Yesterday I finally got my first library card in Ukraine (which is also where I am now, and i think it's closing like, now)! It's beautiful old school lib that hasn't really been updated since the 1920's..except for the wifi part. I attended an English club with some fellow PCT and it ended up just being a massive Q & A session. They had a bunch of questions for us, including " When will Bernanke quit printing money?" and "What are the difficulties facing the middle class in America?". We asked questions like "Can we wave to a baby in the marshrutka?". All part of the cross cultural exchange that Peace Corps strives to implement.

The food choices haven't been too cray yet, but everything I've had to eat has been pretty damn good. Most of the meals we have come right out of my mom's garden in the back yard. It actually reminds me a lot of nana's cooking. I tried to save both of my hot sauces for when I actually get to my permanent site, but that only lasted for 3 days. No one else in my house has been brave enough to try out my hot sauce, but that's A OK with me.

Funny scene of the week: My brother Vannya running through the house the other night yelling, "куда?!?!" (pronounced 'koodah' and it roughly means 'where'). He was holding a dish towel and slapping it at any inanimate object in his path. After every slap, a "куда?!!". I sat completely still for a minute, wondering what could possibly be the cause of this odd Ukrainian behavior & hoping I wasn't somehow to blame, I finally realized he was on the hunt for a fly. Just being a two year old. He had no idea where the fly was, but he relished in his task of finding it.

Ok I'm being kicked out of the library now, I think...