Advertisement
Published: December 2nd 2009
Edit Blog Post
The mall
Attempting to take a photo without a screen =/ I think that as time goes by, the frequency of my blogs will decrease steadily. Hopefully I can still continue to post photographs though. Sadly there will be a lack of photos for a while, since my camera broke already.. but hopefully I can fix it or get a new one for cheap..
So I finally arrived in Dnipropetrovsk at 7am, by train. There I was pleased to see a smiling reception waiting for me, of Era, Ola and Ola (will try to get photos soon). I soon discovered that names are a bit confusing.. There's the Russian name, the English variation of that name, and then the English name too sometimes. So my 'buddy' assigned to me is Olya (i think), but she says I should call her Ola, or Helen. She explained how it went to Helen, and although I don't remember now, it made sense at the time. Apparently there's 9 girls named Ola in the LC, so that might make remembering names a bit easier.
So after a nice breakfast, we headed back to Ola's flat, whom I would be living with until my accomodation was sorted. This is not my buddy Ola, but the
Osa and Alice
The lovely AIESECer whom I'm staying with, and the cheerful Alice from Canty. other Ola, whom I will refer to as Osa, to make things easier.
Transport here is in the form of a scary van like thing called a marshrutka. They're fairly packed, drive at breakneck speeds, and I'm looking forward to when I can travel in one by myself. Things aren't too scary in terms of people, it's just the fact that there aren't any people out and about that speak English, except the students that I'm with.
Later that day, I met up with some other AIESECers at the city centre shopping mall, as well as meeting some other interns. There was Angela from auckland, Alice from Canty, and Steve from the Philippines. Steve is my hero at the moment, having been here for about 2 months, he's already picked up quite a lot of the language, and can get around by himself quite well. I'm hoping to pick up some Russian while I'm here too (no pun intended).
The mall that we were at was very modern, which was quite a contrast to the rest of the buildings and areas outside. (I'll add photos later). It was always nice to see some familar stores, music or movies though, a small area of familarity in an otherwise foreign place. It was also good to talk to the other interns as well, about NZ, our experiences so far, or just talking in conversational English. One pretty cool moment was when we were outside the mall, and one guy casually pulled out a handful of sunflower seeds and passed them around. I was like, cheers bro! Although I don't think he understood.
Once we got back to the flat, I pretty much fell asleep for a good 12 hours. After nights of packing, trying to sleep on planes and in airports, and a bumpy sleep on the train, a nice bed never felt so good. Needless to say, I thought I would be in equilibrium in the time after that, but I think it will take me some time to adjuct to the time difference, the flight, and the early sunset..
The people I'm staying with at the moment are extremely nice; Osa and her brother have been very warm and welcoming, and go out of their way to make sure that I'm doing well (especially with the whole vegetarian thing). Her brother Denis, is an AISEC alumni, so I have long conversations with him about different things, both about AIESEC and Ukraine, which is quite informative. Her father, although lacking English, is very nice and welcoming. Last night for dinner, he insisted that I join him and Denis for some traditional Ukranian drinks with dinner, which was an interesting experience.
Something to ponder about..
There's a lot of little things that you don't really prepare for, but still have to get used to. Cars drive on the right side of the road, so aside from the craziness of the drivers, I need to get used to looking left when I cross the street.
It's quite cold outside.. still the start of winter, but about as cold as mid-winter in NZ. However, inside anywhere is quite warm, hot even. So I need to get used to shedding and adding layers quite often.
Hanging out with the AIESECers is a bit tricky for me, because they usually speak Russian with each other, so I pretty much tune out. But then when they speak to me, they are quite avid story tellers. I'm used to 'A because of B'. But here, it's more like 'A, by then way, C,D,E,F.. and yeah, B'. So I'm really getting a chance to develop my concentration ability.
There is more, but I'll save it for another time. Feel free to comment, nice to know that people are reading this =].
Advertisement
Tot: 0.246s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0481s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
jeremello
Jeremy D
Apologies
Sorry for lots of typos, they say that a poor carpenter blames his tools, but I'm sure it's the keyboard.