Hi all. Happy Thanksgiving to all those back in America!! I will be celebrating the holiday with the 3 other peace corps volunteers in my cluster city, Rokytne. I believe we will be buying a chicken, and doing the usual pie, potatoes, maybe some jello. It's not really the same as back home, but we are going to try. A quick story that i thought was pretty funny about our attempt at thanksgiving in Ukraine.
Our group was in Kyiv yesterday afternoon, and we ventured into a fairly large (or large for Ukraine) Supermarket with so many amazing things in it (spices, hot sauce, chocolate beyond my dreams) and we were trying to find things for Thanksgiving. Well, i thought i saw something that looked like a Turkey. After using my faulty russian, and the help of other peace corps volunteers, we asked if it was Turkey or where we could find one. A very nice (yet eventually exasperate clerk) attempted to help us find some turkey. She showed us chicken, whole chicken, cooked turkey, turkey legs, and Ukranian man that spoke English even helped us. Eventually she asked us if we wanted a WHOLE turkey, and we said, yeah, sure. so we were asked to wait 20 minute while they got it ready. After about 5min. myself and another volunteer started to think, I wonder how much this is going to cost, so we asked to see the turkey. they went in the back, and held up a turkey about as big as a small child! we asked how much it cost, and they weighed it and brought out a small sticker which said that it would cost 320griven (62 dollars) and that it weighed 24kg (about 55 lbs!!) we then realized that there was no way we were going to fit this into a Ukranian oven, and so, sadly, had to leave the monstracity there...
anyways,Sorry that I have not been writing a lot lately, but for the last 8 days I was either in Kyiv or my new site, Lugansk. (Spelled Luhansk in English, take a map of Ukraine, go as far east as you can, find a larger city, and that would be Lugansk.) I will try to write a quick description of Lugansk. It is huge, 470,000 people, and one of the largest industrial cities of Ukraine. It is about 30 minutes from the Russian border, so while, officially, schools are supposed to teach in Ukranian, my school kids almost all speak entirely in Russian (its a good thing im learning Russian) But in my whirlwind tour of the city over 4 days, i was privy to the schools student body president elections with discoteque afterwards with about 50% american music, as well as a ice skating for 45min. at an indoor ice arena, and on saturday went to an EXTREME circus (lots of women dancing in skimpy costumes with okay clowns and no animals...) but my city has a first division soccer team which will be fun to watch, as well as tons of foreign restaurants as well as huge shopping centers.
talking to the people, it definitely seems like I am in Russia (many of their relatives live in Russia, and their politics often lie in that directions) it is going to be a very interesting next two years. I am excited, alittle nervous about how dirty the city is, but know that I will love/ and hate it, but overall, will be glad to be here and doing what I do. Hope all is well wherever you are!
-Seth
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2 comments:
glad to hear you are having such fun times over there.. we miss you here. Talked to Jeremy on the phone and even though he is only half-a-state away it's just not the same having Thanksgiving without you both.
miss and love you lots
~moo
seth;
great turkey story. back from madrid, although saw little of the city. quick anecdote: leaving our apartment in madrid sunday morning at 5;30 am to get out to the airport we walk out onto the street and there are people everywhere, taxis all over, looks like its 10pm. this is sunday morning and they are STILL OUT FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE. another story; first morning, I leave the apartment where I am staying (we rented an aprtment for 4 nights, 65 euros a night per person; get on the metro, wander around, find the next metro and then end up at the bus station, all in trying to get to the conference center. so, there I am at the bus station, massive, dark, underground. I am supposed to find the ticket counter and get a ticket, I go there, stand in line and then when its my turn stare at the woman behind the glass, she returns my stare, she says something in spanish; like "so where the hell do you want to go, dumbass" or something similar. I have no idea. So, I look at the window and see a name I can pronounce and just say it; her answer; one and a half euros, idioto. I then try to find the right bus. My buddy had texted me saying 'get on any green bus', great, which ones are green? I get on a bud I think is green. I give my ticket to the driver and sit down. We leave. I stare out the windows thinking "I wonder where in God's name we are going" I have no idea. I have no idea where to get off. I text my buddy, his phone is off. We continue on, I think I will end up in Portugal. Finally, without any warning we are in front of the conference center: 'yeah, we made it......no, wait, stop, no, don't just keep going....' I look around, we are back on the freeway, I've missed my chance to get off. I push the stop button on the aisle, the driver pulls over at the next bus stop; I am dropped off on the side of the freeway, cars blasting past me doing 160kph. I walk along the side of the freeway in the mud and garbage, I get to the conference with 2 minutes to spare before it begins. There has to be an easier way to live.
Love you,
Dad
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