Loved This Week

Man, oh man. Talk about a good week. I just got back from my second vacation here in Ukraine. We just stayed in the country this time, but if I'm being completely honest, I enjoyed this vacation more than the last one. I was happy to get to see so many places last time but this last vacation felt more like VACATION. A group of 6 of us girls took a trip to Yalta and the Black Sea. It was a 15 hour train ride, but it was overnight so it felt faster. We left Sunday night and here's how our week went :)

Monday: This was our chill/relax/get our bearings day. We got to the train station in a city called Simferopol and from there took an hour and a half bus ride to Yalta. Long trip, but really not unbearable. Yalta is very pretty. It reminded me so much of the central coast of California, which is one of my favorite places. We met the lady for our apartment at the bus stop in Yalta and got settled in our apartment, which we all thought was a steal. We paid about 25 bucks each for the whole week staying there! Plus, it was super close to everything, in a central location, and it was cute too! It had a cute 70's vibe and we were all comfortable in there. It was so nice to take a shower after that long trip and, lucky me, it was a stand up shower. Oh yeah! Livin the high life. Then we went and bought groceries at a market that was also super close and came home, made a spaghetti dinner together and watched two movies. Good day.

Tuesday: On this day we walked around the boardwalk for a while in the morning. The Black Sea was beautiful. So so beautiful. I could see why it's called the Black Sea, the water looked really dark to me. It was a nice temperature too, a lot more mild than Kiev, as far as the cold. In the afternoon we took a ferry ride to see the famous "Swallow's Nest." The ferry ride was fun...but I wasn't impressed with the castle. It's not even a real castle, it looks like it came out of Disneyland. I don't know why it's so famous, you see it on postcards a lot. So my advice? If you go to Yalta any time soon, I wouldn't bother seeing the Swallow's Nest :) Just my personal opinion. It was so funny, when we were out there seeing it, there were these two guys with monkeys. You could pay to take a picture with a monkey. Well, as we were passing them, Emily was attacked! Literally! They both lunged for some oranges she was carrying. I swear, those monkeys must have been starving because they were in it for the kill! It was hilarious though, I heard screaming and when I looked back I saw Emily all flustered with monkeys scrambling all over her! Hahaha! After taking the ferry back we went home, made dinner, and watched movies. I think we've all been a bit movie deprived. At least I was.

Wednesday: This is the day I've been excited to tell people about. :) We went....SCUBA DIVING!!! In the Black Sea of all places. The host dad of a girl in our group had a friend who had a scuba diving shop/business, I don't know what you'd call it. Anyway, she made plans with him, through her dad, to take us scuba diving! We were a little nervous but so excited and decided to try it out. Here's the hilarious part. This guy spoke no English (his name was Kostia, by the way). His friend and sister were there with us as well, and the friend spoke a tiny bit. But not really. So, we basically got "trained" for scuba diving through miming. Hilarious. We were all standing there watching him explain with a lot of hand movements and gestures what we needed to know and remember to go scuba diving. After all this his friend says to us "Don't be afraid." Haha! And that was about it. But really, for the extent of what we did, we knew what we needed to know. I was a little nervous of course. It reminded me of the adrenaline rushes I'd get before diving meets in high school. But I knew we weren't going very deep at all and I didn't think I'd forget how to swim back up to the surface. And I was right. We were fine and we all had a blast! It was so cool breathing underwater! My childhood dream of being able to swim like a mermaid has finally come true! :) We went two at a time and when it was my and Emily's turn, something hilarious happened. We're under water, swimming merrily along, when Emily turns around to show me something and totally whacks me in the eye! I got water in my mask. It was just a little bit, but I, of course, panic a bit and turn to Kostia and point frantically to my right eye. He's totally calm and just takes me up to the surface to fix it. It was hilarious. It reminded me of one of my favorite Gary Larson (Far Side) cartoons. For any of you who know Gary Larson, he is hilarious. There's this one cartoon of two astronauts on the moon and one says to the other "We've made it Warren! The moon!" as he flings his arm back and breaks the glass on his partners helmet thing. Hahaha! That was the FIRST thing I thought of right when Emily whacked me. It was so great. We were cracking up afterwards. Guess how much this amazing day cost us? About 12 dollars. Crazy crazy. And that included a CD of 250 pictures Kostia took of us! It was such a deal. I'm so glad we got to go! After scuba diving, we went home, made dinner, and watched movies (Are you sensing a pattern in our "night life?").

Thursday: This day was also really fun. We went to Lavidia Palace, which was the summer home of the Romanof family and also where the Yalta Conference was held. It was pretty cool to see that. Then we went to another palace that I can't remember the name of. But it was pretty too :). At night, it was our usual routine. We all looked forward to our evenings together so much! It was so fun, just hanging out, laughing, making dinner, watching movies.

Friday: Packed up. That was about it, because we left at 12:30. Then it was another overnight train and here we are, back in Kiev! I think all of our prayers for a smooth trip really worked, because we had hardly any complications, where many were possible. One of the best vacations I've ever had!

Here's the latest news here in Kiev: NO SCHOOL! What?! That's kind of the reason I'm here! But, yes, it is true, the schools are closed for THREE weeks because of the swine flu freakout. That's half of the time I have left here. I'm not very happy about it. Of course I don't want to get sick. But...3 weeks of no teaching? What else do we do? Sheesh. I guess we'll all figure something out. I just like having a routine so I don't really like the sound of this. Oh well, what can ya do?

Well. I hope everyone is doing great! How are things? Write me and let me know! :)