Get Lost Kiddo!...

...but only so you know where you are.

So what a crazy couple of weeks it has been. I have been going no stop with all sorts of fun activities!

Soviet Bunker

I can say I think I am really getting in the zone now and with every week passing I add another thing to my schedule. I usually up early every morning, cook breakfast, iron my clothes and walk to work listening to “This American Life”. The obviously I teach a full day of classes, followed by English clubs 3 days a week, tutor students who are studying for theOlympiad competitions next month, or sometimes I am able to get a little basketball with the director in the schools gym. Then its home to change for the new gym I have joined, which by the way is something out of a Rocky movie. It’s a small gym in the basement of the technical college in town and its great! The 20 guys or so who are members are like a small sub-community. On arrival to the gym it is obligatory to make the rounds to each station and shake hands with every guy there, regardless of age or familiarity. Though it may seem a little dated, the gym has everything you need and because of its small core group, there is never a wait at any of the stations- something that can’t be said for many of the other newer gyms in town. It’s a cool place to hang out that’s for sure. After the gym its back home to cook dinner, shower, probably do some laundry, and plan lessons. It’s a pretty non stop schedule, but that’s what its all about right?

Memorial for soldiers who heroically held off the Nazi's until the last man.

I haven’t had a lot of time to being doing tourist-y things but when you are in a country you still know little about, who speaks a language you are pretty unfamiliar with everyday is like an adventure. It is funny having to plan your days around when the bazaar is open. If I know in the next few days I will need some food, or wall-paper (which I use to make giant dialogues for class) I have to wake up extra early. The bazaar, or “The Beast” as I affectionately call her is a maze of every product man can offer. There are hundreds of stands full of any kind of jackets, shoes, pants, shirts, sweaters and underwear on full display. Bags and bags of grains, fresh vegetables, jarred and preserved fruits, honey unlike any that I could have ever imagined. A huge fish section where you must tread carefully and look out for the splashes of live fish, which is pulled pout of the Dniper daily. One of my favorite sections is the meat department. When you enter youa re ment with the fresh smell of meat and the dominating color is obviously- red. Meat on the tables, hanging from hooks, rolls of salo (pig fat- a self described Ukrainian narcotic) pig heads, home made blood sausage, shanks, flanks, ribs, roasts, spines, livers, hooves, and any other cut of meat you can imagine. And this is no normal butcher shop, its an all out free for all with 50 or sixty vendors all pushing their products, but they are nothing compared to the vendors in the dairy department. Walking into the dairy department you all you see is white. Huge hunks of fresh cottage cheese called tvarog, and a cream cheese like substance called brensa and bottles and bottles of fresh milk, all homemade brought in from the surrounding villages. And the best thing about the bazaar is that you get to try everything before you buy it! A samplers dreamcome true.

The Meat Market

So I love walking around and do not even mind getting lost and since many of the stalls look identical and there are no landmarks visible, this happens pretty frequently. One thing I have started to appreciate over time while traveling is getting lost. For a moment you fell the stress, nervousness, maybe even hopeless, but if you can calm down and think to yourself about the fact that if you never got lost you would have never had the chance to see the things you are seeing at that moment. So getting lost is a good thing. It all works out in a few minuets anyway.

In other news, I finally had my first Ukrainian Sauna experience and it was awesome. Let me just say that on an unrelated note I took my first bath in probably 5 or 6 years Friday night- what else was I going to do?- and it was life changing. I plan on making it a weekly habit if I can help it. So adding to my relaxing a purified feeling from Friday night, on Sunday morning one of my neighbors downstairs took me to his friend’s sauna. The whole shabang, and of course with the traditional beating with oak branches. Now, to say that this experience was just a bunch of sweaty guys in a sauna whacking each other with sticks would be missing the point, and far off. The Ukrainians really know how to do it. We had 4 carefully planned and timed sections where we rotated between the hot sauna at 85 degrees Celsius, a room for sipping tea, a rinse area and of course spending some time outside in the freezing cold. During the last part we took turns hitting each other while lying down with oak branches and leaves that soak in water. This process is purifying to the skin and the senses. The smell is indescribable. Like Christmas cookies and raking leaves in the fall all in one. It was awesome. I went home cooked some spaghetti and went into repose for a few hours.

My Coat of Arms for the next two years.

So that is what I have been up to, sorry it has taken so long to get this last post out- but I am alive and well! Much love to my homies in the pen, see ya when I free ya, if not when they shut me in.