Сэт Спенсер
Областной Многопрофильныи Лицей
Ул. Ленина 12 Пос. Юбилеиный
Луганск 91493
Украина
So here is my address that should actually work from now on. You can send packages here, and anything else. Sorry there was such confusion before. The best way to do this is just copy and paste it into another document and then print this and tape it to a letter.
Anyways, I will try to fill you in on what I have been up to the past week. I am now on my third week of teaching, and have already learned a lot of very useful teaching skills, the main one being learning how to get your student’s to shut their mouths and listen to the immensely important information you are about to bestow upon them! This is of course a learning process, so for all those teachers/educators out there, any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
Last week was pretty exciting, what with tea with my 11th grade students, where we talked about anything and everything they could think of to ask me. Very interesting to hear what 11th graders think/want to know about Americans in general, but specifically American movies, music, and American men. The next day I was asked to write a letter in English about what I was doing at the lyceum for one of the teacher’s masters thesis she was presenting the next week. I thought this was kind of cool, so I wrote something up, not knowing that the next day I had to have a fully staged photo shoot with about half the students, many of whom I don’t even teach. We did a couple ones were I was ‘pretending’ to teach them, and so I just started speaking English, pretty quickly, and you could see a look of complete confusion pass over all of the student’s faces. It was interesting to say the least. My counterpart (Albina) has been very sick over the past two weeks, so I have kind of just been on my own. I come to class when I am supposed to, read a lot in my spare time, and plan for class. Not always the most exciting life, but I can’t really complain.
Last Thursday I went into Lugansk to write some e-mails and check out some more books in English, and I ended up meeting 3 different people who speak English at the internet café. The first one was a guy from Syria who is in Lugansk studying accounting. He has a friend who I have also met from Iraq, actually from Baghdad, who was basically forced to leave by insurgents… very interesting talking with him. Another one was a Ukrainian English teacher who just wanted to know why an American was in Ukraine, and the last one was probably the most interesting, basically cause I had heard so much about this problem, but had never met anyone who caused this stereotype. Basically what I mean was that he was a retired businessman in his mid-40s from somewhere in New York, and when I asked why he was in Ukraine, he immediately responded, “looking for a girl.” While I admit there are many beautiful women here, I still can’t imagine people coming here purely to find a wife… its not hard to figure out why not all Ukrainians like America all that much.
Anyways, spent the weekend going to the library to talk about brainteasers in English, and then Saturday night going to a Ukrainian family’s house who is a friend of Brian, the other volunteer here in Lugansk. It was a great night, and very cool to meet more people in the area. Not a whole lot going on this week, except going to a party that Brian is having tonight, and this weekend going to a city about 2 hours away from here, where another volunteer is placed.
I think that’s all for now, sorry not to exciting. Love to here back from all of you.
Miss you all,
-Seth
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
time flies
How time flies by when you are in another country and trying to figure out how life really works… I would first off like to thank everyone who has written to me or talked to my family about me, a. it makes me miss home a little less knowing that people are still thinking of me, and b. it helps me accomplish one of Peace Corps goals, which is to make Americans and Ukrainians a little more aware of each other.
As one of my 10th grade students showed me; when I had them draw a picture of what America meant to them and he drew a picture of the War in Iraq and wrote next to it DEMOCRACY, it is important for me to be here and paint a little different picture of America than they are used to from American movies such as American Pie, Terminator etc. and American Music such as Eminem, 50 Cent, and Nelly Furtado.
I especially would like to thank all of my friends from school, summer camps, other peace corps volunteers etc. it really makes it not as hard to be over knowing that you all are going through the same day to day struggles, from figuring out what time to wake up in the morning, to what to cook at night, to "WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!!" I would also like to thank Bjorn Betzler, a friend from Duluth who is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia (Northwestern Africa) who stated that while our experiences were "Completely different," the peace corps life still rocks. I would have to agree with him
This experience has definitely helped me figure out a little more about who I am, and while at times I find myself doubting whether I could ever be a teacher full time, in actuality I am pretty content right now.
I wrote about a week ago, and since then quite a lot has happened. On the 13th of January I moved into my new apartment. It has 3 rooms (my bedroom, a living room and a kitchen which currently has no stove, but besides that could be a cheaper apartment in any big city in America) and while at first was chilly, is quite warm now. I begin "the real life" on Monday. I have a fairly crazy teaching schedule. I teach 0 hour at 7:25, then don’t teach again till 2:25 in the afternoon, then teach at 4, 5, and sometimes 6. I teach 9 lessons of Conversational English, where I am trying to get my students to understand the basic structure of English and become comfortable speaking with a native English speaker. It is a little strange at times since they have always studied British English and I find myself about to correct them when I realize that, hey, maybe that’s actually the right way to say it in England. Another 9 classes a week is spent teaching my 9th-11th students Country Studies, which includes America, England, and Australia/New Zealand. I got America down, but I have the feeling that I will be learning a lot of new information about England over the next 4 months. So, technically I only teach 18 lessons a week, but this week there was a bad flu going around the school and on Wednesday night my counterpart (the teacher I work with, Albina) got very sick and Thursday morning called to ask me to take her classes over. So Thursday I ended up teaching 9 classes, and overall in the week 27 classes. I am not sure what the usual work-load for teachers in the States is, but I can tell you, I was exhausted at the end of the week. As another Peace Corps volunteer told me, it will build character.
Overall, it was a good first week, the usual bumps and disrespectful students, but I am trying to be fairly strict with only speaking English in class and once when the class was really bad, afterwards two students came up to me and apologized for their classmates… it is little moments like that that I know will get me through the next 2 years. So Friday rolled around, and after going to the local supermarket and grabbing some bread, bear, and vareniky (kind of like ravioli) I came back and fell asleep at about 4 in the afternoon. My usual dinner has consisted of delicious fresh bread (they certainly know how to make bread here) and a large bowl of vareniky (all I do is boil it, even easier then macaroni and cheese… I have been fairly lazy with cooking so far). Saturday morning I woke up, lounged around and at about 12 went into town (Lugansk) to go to the bank and try to get on the free internet that the Main Library offers due to an American grant that gives money to libraries all over Ukraine for internet and English books, movies, etc. (I am glad my tax money is going to something useful) So sorry if I wasn’t able to get off an e-mail to you last time, I only had 30 minutes and spent most of it just reading e-mails. After that I went to an English meeting that the library holds every Saturday and this week they were watching "The Breakfast Club" (a slightly ridiculous movie from the 80’s about 5 teenagers who all have detention one Saturday. I sometimes wonder why Ukrainians view Americans they way they do, and then I watch an American movie and I figure it all out again.)
Well, I could go on and on, but I think I will end it by saying that my first week of "THE REAL LIFE" is over, and every week that goes by I will get more and more confident. As my Dad recently said in an e-mail, "its strange to think that we are in the same part of the world, doing the same sort of thing." It was cool to have lived in Bangladesh and Belgium with my parents, but I think I finally have at least some sense of the everyday struggles and difficulties that my parents face and other ex-pats face living overseas. It’s not always an easy life, but its definitely not one I am quite ready to give up either. Miss you all,
Love,
Seth
As one of my 10th grade students showed me; when I had them draw a picture of what America meant to them and he drew a picture of the War in Iraq and wrote next to it DEMOCRACY, it is important for me to be here and paint a little different picture of America than they are used to from American movies such as American Pie, Terminator etc. and American Music such as Eminem, 50 Cent, and Nelly Furtado.
I especially would like to thank all of my friends from school, summer camps, other peace corps volunteers etc. it really makes it not as hard to be over knowing that you all are going through the same day to day struggles, from figuring out what time to wake up in the morning, to what to cook at night, to "WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!!" I would also like to thank Bjorn Betzler, a friend from Duluth who is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia (Northwestern Africa) who stated that while our experiences were "Completely different," the peace corps life still rocks. I would have to agree with him
This experience has definitely helped me figure out a little more about who I am, and while at times I find myself doubting whether I could ever be a teacher full time, in actuality I am pretty content right now.
I wrote about a week ago, and since then quite a lot has happened. On the 13th of January I moved into my new apartment. It has 3 rooms (my bedroom, a living room and a kitchen which currently has no stove, but besides that could be a cheaper apartment in any big city in America) and while at first was chilly, is quite warm now. I begin "the real life" on Monday. I have a fairly crazy teaching schedule. I teach 0 hour at 7:25, then don’t teach again till 2:25 in the afternoon, then teach at 4, 5, and sometimes 6. I teach 9 lessons of Conversational English, where I am trying to get my students to understand the basic structure of English and become comfortable speaking with a native English speaker. It is a little strange at times since they have always studied British English and I find myself about to correct them when I realize that, hey, maybe that’s actually the right way to say it in England. Another 9 classes a week is spent teaching my 9th-11th students Country Studies, which includes America, England, and Australia/New Zealand. I got America down, but I have the feeling that I will be learning a lot of new information about England over the next 4 months. So, technically I only teach 18 lessons a week, but this week there was a bad flu going around the school and on Wednesday night my counterpart (the teacher I work with, Albina) got very sick and Thursday morning called to ask me to take her classes over. So Thursday I ended up teaching 9 classes, and overall in the week 27 classes. I am not sure what the usual work-load for teachers in the States is, but I can tell you, I was exhausted at the end of the week. As another Peace Corps volunteer told me, it will build character.
Overall, it was a good first week, the usual bumps and disrespectful students, but I am trying to be fairly strict with only speaking English in class and once when the class was really bad, afterwards two students came up to me and apologized for their classmates… it is little moments like that that I know will get me through the next 2 years. So Friday rolled around, and after going to the local supermarket and grabbing some bread, bear, and vareniky (kind of like ravioli) I came back and fell asleep at about 4 in the afternoon. My usual dinner has consisted of delicious fresh bread (they certainly know how to make bread here) and a large bowl of vareniky (all I do is boil it, even easier then macaroni and cheese… I have been fairly lazy with cooking so far). Saturday morning I woke up, lounged around and at about 12 went into town (Lugansk) to go to the bank and try to get on the free internet that the Main Library offers due to an American grant that gives money to libraries all over Ukraine for internet and English books, movies, etc. (I am glad my tax money is going to something useful) So sorry if I wasn’t able to get off an e-mail to you last time, I only had 30 minutes and spent most of it just reading e-mails. After that I went to an English meeting that the library holds every Saturday and this week they were watching "The Breakfast Club" (a slightly ridiculous movie from the 80’s about 5 teenagers who all have detention one Saturday. I sometimes wonder why Ukrainians view Americans they way they do, and then I watch an American movie and I figure it all out again.)
Well, I could go on and on, but I think I will end it by saying that my first week of "THE REAL LIFE" is over, and every week that goes by I will get more and more confident. As my Dad recently said in an e-mail, "its strange to think that we are in the same part of the world, doing the same sort of thing." It was cool to have lived in Bangladesh and Belgium with my parents, but I think I finally have at least some sense of the everyday struggles and difficulties that my parents face and other ex-pats face living overseas. It’s not always an easy life, but its definitely not one I am quite ready to give up either. Miss you all,
Love,
Seth
Friday, January 11, 2008
I'm BACK!!!
So, the adventure in Ukraine continues as the days till “the real world” count down. By this I mean that I will actually begin teaching full time this coming Monday!! My schedule will be a little strange, with one class at 7:30am, one class at 2:30pm and 1-2 classes between 5-7pm, because they are adding on English classes to give the students more practice. So here I am sitting in my host-families apartment (which I will be sadly living in about a week and a half and moving into my own apartment) and thinking that I am rather tired and glad that I am not outside right now, as it is -18F out, with no snow.
I am also thinking that I should now try to describe how truly amazing my last 8 days were. Most of you know that I was able to go on an excursion (as they like to call them) with 15 of my students and my vice-principal to the Carpathian mountains, which are located in the far western part of Ukraine on the boarder with Romania. To truly explain what western-Ukraine is like (and those living in Eastern Ukraine really can’t get a picture of this until they go there) I would like to take some quotes from Lonely Planet Ukraine (a famous guidebook) since they put it much more eloquently than I ever could.
“The west is a special case in Ukraine. It likes to think of itself more quintessentially Ukrainian than the rest of the country; at the same time it considers itself more European. Thanks to its different history, it manages to be both. Having kept the nationalist home fires burning during centuries of Polish, Lithuanian and Austrian rule, it still shows greater pride in Ukrainian traditions and language than elsewhere. Yet overseas visitors will find this one of the most familiar feeling and friendly regions of Ukraine- poorer than, but not so different from, neighboring Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. Here where Moscow rules for only 50 years, there’s less of that surely ‘no-can-do’ Soviet bureaucracy that still permeates Eastern Regions.” (Lonely Planet Ukraine) I would like also to use the Carpathian mountains quote, which states “Those who know Ukraine regard the Carpathian mountains as a byword for hiking and skiing; they also call them a land that time forgot. Here horse-drawn carts clip-clop along potholed roads as weather-beaten folk till the neighboring fields, and babushkas (grandmothers) herd their geese home or take their solitary cow to be milked.” (Lonely Planet Ukraine)
I hope these descriptions can give you at least some sense of the wonder and beauty that the Carpathians hold. After a 28 hour train ride (dad, mom, and Morley, I am not jealous of your 40 hour adventure to Istanbul) my group arrived in Lyviv (the sort of capital of the west) and took a 3 hour marshutka (mini-bus) to Yaremcha (2 hours south of Ivano-Frankivsk on the map). Yaremcha is basically the Steamboat springs or Vail of Ukraine. Not quite as flashy, but still the entire town seems to base its survival on tourism. Only 40 min. from Bukovel, which is the best skiing in Ukraine, and right next to an amazing white-water river, it is definitely a place I would have liked to live for 2 years. (oh well, can’t have it all) The first day we were in Yaremcha (January 4th) our group walked around the city, climbed large hills that reminded me exactly of western-Austria, and saw some ‘wild’ elk and boars. (as wild as you can call something in a large gated pen, but it was still cool to see Ukrainian elk, I forgot the Russian word for them at the moment.) That night all of the students wanted to go to the local cultural palace, where they hold a disco every weekend. Lets just say that as the young teacher of the group, I was elected to go and show off my American moves. It’s a little strange to know that you are least 6 years older than a majority of the other people in a discothèque, but that didn’t stop me from dancing to a few Russian songs and to all the English songs I knew.
Saturday we went to a ski hill close by. It definitely reminded me of Spirit Mountain (at least in size anyways). I had rented skis for the day in Yaremcha for 10 dollars, and then went to the ‘ski’ hill, which had one ‘run’ which was basically glaze ice with rocks sticking up everywhere, and you paid 5 griven (1$) for a ride up the chair-lift. Most of my students had rented skis and snowboards, but as most of them had never tried either, didn’t do a whole lot of what you would call skiing. I went down a curvy glaze iced pathway and then thought it would be a good idea to walk back up the hill instead of paying to take the chairlift. (I didn’t make that mistake again, I fell about 5 times trying to a walk up a stair case with ski boots on) The 2nd time down I skirted a little fence and immediately saw movement to my left. (A little side-note before I go on: I love dogs, most people know that, but I have to put a little asterisks next to that, I love dogs: in America; dogs in Ukraine are… just downright mean. They would rather bite you then lick you. Dakota and Canoe would not exactly fit in here.) so here I am trying to stay in control on glaze ice going down this hill knowing that there are 2 dogs coming very quickly after me, so I basically just start bombing the hill, a little out of control but realize that one of the dogs is still gaining on me, so I take off one of my poles to give him a good wack in the face. I took a swing when he got a little to close and he immediately stopped. (I think he had had this experience before). So my adrenaline was a little high, but I couldn’t quite explain in my limited Russian or with my student’s limited English what had happened. It was good times…
On Sunday we went for a long hike the in the woods nearby Yaremcha, which are famous for having great caves, high cliffs, and beautiful trees. It was an amazing place, and as we were about 10-20 km from Ukraine’s highest mountain, definitely a good workout. (sorry, but another side-note. Not sure how many of you have traveled to eastern-Europe, well actually this is probably true in Europe as a whole, but in Ukraine women, especially young women do not dress… whats the word… practically. They wear tight pants and heels when they know they know they are going to be hiking up hills in snow, so a good part of the 3 hour journey was spent in trying to make sure my students and other teachers didn’t fall on their faces as they slid up and down the very hilly terrain.)
Anyways, I would highly recommend this area to anyone with future travel plans to the Carpathians. Sunday night was Christmas eve. and we spent it singing Russian songs and playing games. It was a nice way to celebrate the holiday.
On Monday we were able to go to another ski place, Bukovel, which I guess is where all the “New Ukrainians” (a term for all those who became rich and famous after the collapse of the Soviet Union) go. Anyways, it was a real mountain, and while fairly expensive (80 griven for ski rental and 20 griven per ski lift up) was definitely worth it. It reminded me very much of Steamboat Springs in CO. My students were not yet willingly to test their skills on a real mountain so I was the only one who ventured out. I was able to ski down the mountain with all my students cheering and clapping, very interesting. Later that day, on our way back to Yaremcha, we turned off onto a dirt road, and I kept hearing the President of Ukraine’s (Viktor Yushchenko) name, and as we approached a huge log-cabin mansion I realized that we were about 30 meters from his home. (somehow I don’t think you could get those close to Bush’s house in a large mini-bus full of student’s with cameras) But we continued down the dead-end road till we came to a gorgeous water-fall that was all frozen over. It reminded me exactly of Minnesota. While I have missed home at times, I was the most and least homesick right then. Most cause I missed the smell of pine trees and the water and snow that Lugansk seems to lack, but least cause I know it will still be there when I get back.
Tuesday we woke up at 3:30am to take the 7 hour Electrichka (electric train) back to Lyviv where we spent the day walking around, seeing a very famous graveyard which many famous Polish and Ukrainians are buried and looking around of the Lyviv McDonalds (luckily we never found it). We stopped in a couple amazingly beautiful churches (which I later learned where Catholic, not eastern Orthodox like a thought, I really need to learn the difference in architecture) and in one very beautiful church where a small mass was going on I lit some candles, for Uncle Tom, Aunt Cindy, and everyone else I love who has passed on.
Tuesday night at 1am we got back on the train and headed back to the other side of “the Tinfoil curtain.” It was an awesome experience, and know that if anyone wants to find a northern-Minnesota in Europe, (besides Slovakia, which I have also heard is beautiful) head to the Carpathians. Hope everyone’s New Years was wonderful and are living the winter up. Miss you, sorry this was so long.
Love,
Seth
I am also thinking that I should now try to describe how truly amazing my last 8 days were. Most of you know that I was able to go on an excursion (as they like to call them) with 15 of my students and my vice-principal to the Carpathian mountains, which are located in the far western part of Ukraine on the boarder with Romania. To truly explain what western-Ukraine is like (and those living in Eastern Ukraine really can’t get a picture of this until they go there) I would like to take some quotes from Lonely Planet Ukraine (a famous guidebook) since they put it much more eloquently than I ever could.
“The west is a special case in Ukraine. It likes to think of itself more quintessentially Ukrainian than the rest of the country; at the same time it considers itself more European. Thanks to its different history, it manages to be both. Having kept the nationalist home fires burning during centuries of Polish, Lithuanian and Austrian rule, it still shows greater pride in Ukrainian traditions and language than elsewhere. Yet overseas visitors will find this one of the most familiar feeling and friendly regions of Ukraine- poorer than, but not so different from, neighboring Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. Here where Moscow rules for only 50 years, there’s less of that surely ‘no-can-do’ Soviet bureaucracy that still permeates Eastern Regions.” (Lonely Planet Ukraine) I would like also to use the Carpathian mountains quote, which states “Those who know Ukraine regard the Carpathian mountains as a byword for hiking and skiing; they also call them a land that time forgot. Here horse-drawn carts clip-clop along potholed roads as weather-beaten folk till the neighboring fields, and babushkas (grandmothers) herd their geese home or take their solitary cow to be milked.” (Lonely Planet Ukraine)
I hope these descriptions can give you at least some sense of the wonder and beauty that the Carpathians hold. After a 28 hour train ride (dad, mom, and Morley, I am not jealous of your 40 hour adventure to Istanbul) my group arrived in Lyviv (the sort of capital of the west) and took a 3 hour marshutka (mini-bus) to Yaremcha (2 hours south of Ivano-Frankivsk on the map). Yaremcha is basically the Steamboat springs or Vail of Ukraine. Not quite as flashy, but still the entire town seems to base its survival on tourism. Only 40 min. from Bukovel, which is the best skiing in Ukraine, and right next to an amazing white-water river, it is definitely a place I would have liked to live for 2 years. (oh well, can’t have it all) The first day we were in Yaremcha (January 4th) our group walked around the city, climbed large hills that reminded me exactly of western-Austria, and saw some ‘wild’ elk and boars. (as wild as you can call something in a large gated pen, but it was still cool to see Ukrainian elk, I forgot the Russian word for them at the moment.) That night all of the students wanted to go to the local cultural palace, where they hold a disco every weekend. Lets just say that as the young teacher of the group, I was elected to go and show off my American moves. It’s a little strange to know that you are least 6 years older than a majority of the other people in a discothèque, but that didn’t stop me from dancing to a few Russian songs and to all the English songs I knew.
Saturday we went to a ski hill close by. It definitely reminded me of Spirit Mountain (at least in size anyways). I had rented skis for the day in Yaremcha for 10 dollars, and then went to the ‘ski’ hill, which had one ‘run’ which was basically glaze ice with rocks sticking up everywhere, and you paid 5 griven (1$) for a ride up the chair-lift. Most of my students had rented skis and snowboards, but as most of them had never tried either, didn’t do a whole lot of what you would call skiing. I went down a curvy glaze iced pathway and then thought it would be a good idea to walk back up the hill instead of paying to take the chairlift. (I didn’t make that mistake again, I fell about 5 times trying to a walk up a stair case with ski boots on) The 2nd time down I skirted a little fence and immediately saw movement to my left. (A little side-note before I go on: I love dogs, most people know that, but I have to put a little asterisks next to that, I love dogs: in America; dogs in Ukraine are… just downright mean. They would rather bite you then lick you. Dakota and Canoe would not exactly fit in here.) so here I am trying to stay in control on glaze ice going down this hill knowing that there are 2 dogs coming very quickly after me, so I basically just start bombing the hill, a little out of control but realize that one of the dogs is still gaining on me, so I take off one of my poles to give him a good wack in the face. I took a swing when he got a little to close and he immediately stopped. (I think he had had this experience before). So my adrenaline was a little high, but I couldn’t quite explain in my limited Russian or with my student’s limited English what had happened. It was good times…
On Sunday we went for a long hike the in the woods nearby Yaremcha, which are famous for having great caves, high cliffs, and beautiful trees. It was an amazing place, and as we were about 10-20 km from Ukraine’s highest mountain, definitely a good workout. (sorry, but another side-note. Not sure how many of you have traveled to eastern-Europe, well actually this is probably true in Europe as a whole, but in Ukraine women, especially young women do not dress… whats the word… practically. They wear tight pants and heels when they know they know they are going to be hiking up hills in snow, so a good part of the 3 hour journey was spent in trying to make sure my students and other teachers didn’t fall on their faces as they slid up and down the very hilly terrain.)
Anyways, I would highly recommend this area to anyone with future travel plans to the Carpathians. Sunday night was Christmas eve. and we spent it singing Russian songs and playing games. It was a nice way to celebrate the holiday.
On Monday we were able to go to another ski place, Bukovel, which I guess is where all the “New Ukrainians” (a term for all those who became rich and famous after the collapse of the Soviet Union) go. Anyways, it was a real mountain, and while fairly expensive (80 griven for ski rental and 20 griven per ski lift up) was definitely worth it. It reminded me very much of Steamboat Springs in CO. My students were not yet willingly to test their skills on a real mountain so I was the only one who ventured out. I was able to ski down the mountain with all my students cheering and clapping, very interesting. Later that day, on our way back to Yaremcha, we turned off onto a dirt road, and I kept hearing the President of Ukraine’s (Viktor Yushchenko) name, and as we approached a huge log-cabin mansion I realized that we were about 30 meters from his home. (somehow I don’t think you could get those close to Bush’s house in a large mini-bus full of student’s with cameras) But we continued down the dead-end road till we came to a gorgeous water-fall that was all frozen over. It reminded me exactly of Minnesota. While I have missed home at times, I was the most and least homesick right then. Most cause I missed the smell of pine trees and the water and snow that Lugansk seems to lack, but least cause I know it will still be there when I get back.
Tuesday we woke up at 3:30am to take the 7 hour Electrichka (electric train) back to Lyviv where we spent the day walking around, seeing a very famous graveyard which many famous Polish and Ukrainians are buried and looking around of the Lyviv McDonalds (luckily we never found it). We stopped in a couple amazingly beautiful churches (which I later learned where Catholic, not eastern Orthodox like a thought, I really need to learn the difference in architecture) and in one very beautiful church where a small mass was going on I lit some candles, for Uncle Tom, Aunt Cindy, and everyone else I love who has passed on.
Tuesday night at 1am we got back on the train and headed back to the other side of “the Tinfoil curtain.” It was an awesome experience, and know that if anyone wants to find a northern-Minnesota in Europe, (besides Slovakia, which I have also heard is beautiful) head to the Carpathians. Hope everyone’s New Years was wonderful and are living the winter up. Miss you, sorry this was so long.
Love,
Seth
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