My Dearest Readers...

...I am in love with Kiev right now. I can't even explain it. What we have --- it's something special. I had a wonderful Saturday exploring the north-east corner of the city center with my new Ukrainian tour-guide friend. We walked through Andreevskiy spusk/uzviv/street/whatever, which is a famous old street that turns into a giant flea-market during the day. We also found our way on top of an abandoned building to take some sweet pictures of St. Andrew's Church:


Afterwards my fellow intern and I went to the Kiev National Opera which was BALLER as I'll get out. We saw Tchaikovskii's "Yolanta," about a blind princess who grew up not realizing that there was such a thing as light. It's a crazy plot, but it got lost in the fact that they were singing complicated unintelligible arias... I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have understood it even if it was in English. Good thing I read the synopsis on Wikipedia beforehand :) Anyway, it was really fun, and a good excuse to get dressed up. Ta-da!


The other day I FINALLY was able to explore my neighborhood a bit, and found out that there is a GIGANTIC park just a few blocks away. I spent my Sunday afternoon walking around the trails there, people-watching and listening to the Russian and Ukrainian conversations around me. It was kind of nice. Also there were lots of dogs, ducks, and babies which made me happy :)

Then Monday happened, and now I'm back at work. I loooooooove my students, they are so COOL! (some of them are reading this... Hi guys!) They tell me that they will celebrate my birthday with me, with poppy-seed pie, pirozhki, coffee and 3 liters of milk. We might celebrate at McDonalds, but perhaps we'll go to Barcelona. It's all up to Serendipity. My life is fantastic.

Sarah