First Week in UKRAINE

Where do I begin? I AM here in Kiev and settling in pretty well, but it still feels kind of surreal. It's been a whirlwind of activity for the past 5 days and I am having a WONDERFUL time! Let me share a few of these exciting adventures with you...

I forgot to bring my camera cable, so you'll have to wait a little for pictures...

     On Wednesday, a new friend took me around Kiev to get acquainted with the bus (marshrutka) and Metro systems, to do some shopping and to get familiar with how things are done here. I love walking, but it was so much more than I've been used to lately, and EVERYTHING is concrete or stone, so I had a case of shin splints as a result. Ouch! A couple doses of Acetaminophen, some Deep Cold muscle treatment and almost a full day's rest...and I'm good as new.

     There are large supermarkets here just like in N. America, and similar types of items, but sometimes less selection than I'm used to. But in the first few days of being here, it is information overload, BIG-TIME! Some of the labels make sense when I read them in Russian/Ukrainian, but others I don't know because my vocabulary is still really small. Then there's the currency exchange -- I want to try to figure out if it is a reasonable price or not, but everything here has to be divided by 8 (that's the exchange rate of a Canadian dollar to a Ukrainian grivna), so that takes some time. And then, of course, things aren't always where I think they should be, so I wandered around looking for things -- which, on the positive side, is a good way to acquaint myself with the store.

     So, within my first day here, I had bought myself a few grocery items - bananas, milk, butter, bread, cheese, yogurt, water - as well as several miscellaneous items - towels, basket, garbage can, hangers, butter knives, mug, kleenex, a map of Kiev, notebooks, and a wallet. I also was treated to lunch at a Ukrainian buffet and I enjoyed a bowl of salad, meat-filled pancakes called "bleeniy" and cherry-filled pastry called "verenekiy." I also learned how to purchase tokens for the metro and pay for riding the bus.

     On Thursday, some more new friends took me downtown and we did a little shopping at the sidewalk vendor stalls -- I bought a few mementos and trinkets and a purse. Today (Friday), I experienced the largest open-air market I have ever seen!! It's like 200x bigger than the Thunder Bay Farmer's Market -- a whole city street is blocked off for the day and it's just a mass of people buying and selling everything from garden produce to fresh fish to clothing!
     Just about everything is less expensive than at the stores, and you can walk from one stall to another until you see what you like -- I bought 1 kg of potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, plums, apples, a container of raspberries, some oranges, and a couple of peppers all for less than 100 grieven, which is like $12.50 CDN. Then we ate "soshli," which is meat and potatoes barbecued Ukrainian-style, and BOY, did that taste yummy!!

     I have had some contact and communication with the other tenant in my apartment -- my landlady gets home this coming Thursday -- and she's really nice. I think we're going to get along just fine, especially when I can communicate more in Russian!! I am figuring out the trick with the toilet and bathroom doors (yes, the bathtub and sink are in a separate room from the toilet) and am working on arranging my food items in the kitchen. I enjoy sleeping on the sofa, my room is pretty well organized now -- YAY -- and the only drawback is that I have to go to a friend's place or take my laptop to the language school to use Internet. Hopefully it's just for a time...

     I also saw some tourist-y sites yesterday...including a walk all the way up to the top of the bell tower at St. Sophia's Cathedral - WOW! I got some awesome shots of the huge city of Kiev, Ukraine! We ate lunch at Celentano's Pizza (you pronounce it "Chelentano"), and enjoyed a few treats from "Lviv Handmade Chocolate" -- delicious!!

     Well, that's about all I can put into words at this point -- I have really been welcomed by the family of the SEND missionaries here in Kiev, which is awesome! I am SUPER excited about attending church here tomorrow and about starting language school on Monday!! Jet lag is not a problem, and I am feeling quite settled, which is a miracle and something for which I'm really thankful for!!

God is SO good ~ ALL the time!!