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Published: January 11th 2010
Alice leaving
We saw Alice off at the trainstation, very sad =(Ah so my plans for more frequent entries were not carried out as well as would have liked, but I promise that this year they will be at least weekly. That way you won't have to read through massive posts, and also I'll be able to remember things better, rather than trying to recall things from three weeks ago. At the moment I'm using photographs to remember events, and I'll try to add in other stories if I can. And obviously since my parents read this, there are some photographs that don't quite make it to the final draft.
This entry is for the week leading up to New Year's, and New Year's and our epic trip to Lviv should follow soon after.
So just a quick update on the weather before I begin. We had snow awhile ago, like I mentioned, and then the weather got crazy cold (like-18C =/ ). Unfortunately that meant that the snow was too dry to do anything fun, so we didn't get a chance to have our snowball fight etc. As the weather warmeв up, the snow was less cool (bad pun there). Things started to get pretty icy and slippery, and
Alice
The last night we spent with her, as she looks on with such emotion~ the sand that they added to things made everything go quite dirty looking. Watching everyone fall, and hearing stories about the same make me feel proud that I haven't fallen at all, and have no plans to do so in the near future =].
So back to events, I have some sad news that must be shared. Alice, from previous blog entries has left us and is now safely in Hong Kong. Long story short, she had some bad experiences, and her parents were real worred abuot about her, and despite her change of heart towards the end, she left us with some regret, but hopefully she's havin a good time wherever she is, and remembes her time here. We had a flat warming/farewell thingy for her on her last night here, with all the interns, and it turned out to be quite a fun night. Sadly all of us forgot to take photos *cough cough*
Moving to more positive news, I finally got the chance to build my very first snow man, on the day before the snow went completely to mud. Dennis, Olsa's brother, decided to take Angela and myself on a little excursion to a
Ouк first snowman!
Or snow thing rather.. park to make the most of the snow before it went to mush. The snow was pretty tough to shape, but in the end we were fairly satisfied with our result.
It was odd not having anything for Christmas here on the 24th/25th. In Ukraine, Russia etc, They have New Year's on the 31st eve, as usual, and then Christmas on the 7th of Jan (6th eve). So their preparations are all on the week leading up to New Year, which is the biggest event of the year for them. COmplete with a New Year's tree, New Year's presents etc, parties etc. And then Chrismas is a lot more sober, with family dinner etc. It felt quite strange working all the way upto the 30th, as I am quite fond of Christmas, and the absence of its spirit seemed to be quite unusual for me. So after work on the evening of the 24th, myself, Angela and Rita decided on an impromptu meet up, and we had quite a tasty dinner out at this Italian place, and we thoroughly enjoyed that.
The next day, the interns and a few AIESECers met up for dinner again, so that we
did end up doing something on the day. We decided to organise some kind of secret Santa for ourselves, which turned out to be a great idea. I managed to score a traditional Ukranian hat-thing, which was something that I had been coveting for a long time. I later found out that it was made out of rabbit fur, which is not ideal for me (and not just because of the smell when it gets wet). Nevertheless, from future photos, you can see that Greg and myself have become quite good companions. I hope I can get him past customs in NZ, I thing Teucer will be quite fascinated with him. People here don't believe that I'll wear Greg in NZ, but I'm sure people back home know me better.
We had two sets of outings that week. The first was quite brief, a planned trip to the museum was postponed due to some cleaning scheduled, so instead we walked around the park nearby, and took photos with the monuments of armed vehicles. I wish I could have climbed more of them, but sadly I was responsible and remembered my knee, and was more or less safe. I've had
Christmas eve dinner
One of the best ideas ever. to be quite careful while walking around, because of the previously mentioned icy road etc, so things like ice skating and skiing are pretty much out of the question. I think I can go this entire trip without falling, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be hit by a car at least once before I get home.
Our second excursion was a bit longer. Oksana, a teacher from Rita's school took us around the centre to look at churches and stuff for the day. We also walked down the the 'Monument of Glory', which was a very high statue backed by the river and the left bank of the city. While there, a wee little dog started following me around, and he makes an apprearance in some of the photos. Later we went to a pretty cool Georgian (i think) church on the left-bank, which was decorated around by lots of cool christmas-y things like lights, trees, sculptures etc.. There also was a little set of enclusures nearby, which was kindof sad, especially the monkey one. As far as I can help it, I will avoid the local zoos and the dophinarium. Not my kindof thing really. Later
One of my classes
Probably my favourite one, surprising me with drinks and chocolate on christmas in the evening, we visited Oksana's Grandmum and had some traditional Ukarinian eats, which filled us all up good. Old people are awesome.
Speaking of food, the quality of D'mello-Yip cooking has increased greatly since our initial sad meals of eggs and bread. We've become more competant at shopping, and despite our substandard cooking aparatus, we're producing very fine cuisine. And best of all, after a long, long detoxing session of our oven, we have deemed it usable and can do a lot more. Our Fliche (Flan/Quiche) was quite an excellent meal, and we have lots more baking planning in the future. Of course, we don't forget the simple things in life. The first time we had a visitor, I made some cheese and tomato crackers, and since then it's sortof stuck on as a simple, yet very elegant meal. more photo of food to come..
My classes are still going on quite well. As I teach English as well and doing speaking classes, my understanding of grammar is increasing greatly (ask me about infinitive forms and -ing endings). It's something that I had long forgotten after a New Zealand education in English, but fairly easy to pick
Cheese and Crackers
And D'mello-Yip dietary staple up again. You'd soon find out that trying to explain grammar rules with 'i'm not sure why it's this way, but I know it is' only gets you so far. I really like some of my classes, the students make it a lot of fun. Two recent happenings come to mind.. One where I was trying to get them to use words in context to derive the meaning, and we got to 'interesting'. One student said 'I think that English is very interesting.' I responded with, that's a bit ambigious, you need a sentence where the meaning is very clear. To which another student replied, 'I think that Jeremy is a very interesting teacher.' Aww... And then on Christmas eve, one of my classes surprised me with chocolates and Champagne, and we ended up staying back for an hour extra just talking and relaxing.
So that's it for now, there's going to be a very good entry coming up for New Year and our awesome trip to Lviv after that, which is definitely worth reading. Please read it. Please.
Points to ponder:
Hmm can't really pin down somthing specific to write here, there are so many things wafting
Yummy food
Vege pizza and fried things around in my head. One thing that I've noticed here that's funny is that English words take a while to catch on, there is a lot more emphasis on pronounciation. When I started out introducing myself and New Zealand, I would use English words that no one seemed to understand, but then suddenly someone would say it in a Russian accent, and then it would be instantly recognised. No one knew Peter Jackson, but they all knew P-ye-t-ye-r Dzaakson. And if you ask if people know how to play poker, without rolling the rrrr at the end, you'll just be met with blank stares. It take a while to get used to, but I don't think it's quite enough to leave me with a Ukranian accent sadly.
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Abhi
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hellooo
looks like you are having an awesome time dude..