додому і назад.

So I’m back. It has been about 3 months since I last posted. I would like to say that it’s because I have been unbelievably busy saving the world, but in fact I have just been lazy. A lot has happened in the last three months and I don’t think I will be able to recall everything, but here it goes.

First of all I have moved to a new place. It’s like a beautiful one bedroom apartment without a bathroom (come again?). I have a couple pictures below. I have been cooking every week and I’ve almost perfected my mom’s chicken soup and beef stew. Peace Corps gave us a cookbook during training and I’ve been cooking a couple dishes from that. I made some homemade spaghetti sauce a few weeks back, it was delicious. I have a couple pictures of the food below also.

After my last post the real Ukrainian winter started. There was a week in February when it was -20 to -25C (0 to -10F). The coldest day I saw was -30C (about -20F) – it was scary cold. It’s a weird feeling being in that weather (that feeling you get … when you can’t feel your face) especially being from Southern California.  I remember I used to shiver in 45F weather back home.

School has been in full swing (it was closed during that weather from hell week). There have been highs and lows, but all in all I’m enjoying teaching. I have learned one important thing in the last week. Teaching can be very difficult, but very rewarding.

And what have I learned in the last 2 months? Flies in Ukraine are idiots. Since Spring has started I have had at least 8-10 flies inside my house. Back in America, if you try and catch a fly with your hand … its impossible. But these Ukrainian flies don’t give damn, they will happily fly into your hand. I enjoy these moments of minutiae (yes after I typed this I changed the name of my blog)… I feel like I’m in Seinfeld. A lot of people don’t know this, but I am literally George Costanza. I am anal about bathrooms (even though I shit in a hole), I’m socially awkward, and if I joined a book club I’d watch the movie.

I’m actually writing this last part of the post from Kyiv, I’m coming home! Not for good yet, I’ll be there for two weeks. From April 8^th to the 21^st. So that’s about it for now – in between my last post and this one there are hundreds of stories to tell which I’ll save for another time. But I’ll leave you with the strangest… I was cooking stew and I had my back to the front door. I heard it open and assumed it was my neighbors. No one said anything so I turned around and saw an old babusia standing in my kitchen. She asked me if the neighbor was home, I said I didn’t know and went back to cooking. I then heard a crunching noise behind me…I turned around. This old lady was sitting in my kitchen eating the carrots I had cut up for the stew. She then got up, left, and didn’t even say goodbye.

The End.

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