Back from Ukraine

I made it back from Ukraine safely, after way too many plane difficulties. Suffice it to say that even though I got back 8 hours after we were supposed to, I made it back safe and sound and happy. I do already miss being in Ukraine, for multiple reasons. The first being I made a few good friends there, and it's hard not being able to walk down the hall and chat with them or go out to dinner at cool places that they don't have here in America. The second is that I am so busy here at school and I miss not having to do much besides what I want to do. I also miss the city and the country and the food and pretty much everything about it. At least I'm not letting myself get lazy-I already walked a ton today, all the way back from St. Thomas which is about 25 mintes walking. Other than that there really isn't anything similar here. I did see a few guys from my group at St. Thomas this morning, which was pretty cool.
The last few days that I was in Ukraine nothing much was going on-people were writing their papers and we had our final exam, both of which I'm pretty sure I did well on, which is reassuring since I didn't put as much into this class as I have with other classes. I was much more focused on enjoying my trip and the city as much as I could! The train back from Lviv was very funny. Everybody was in a pretty good mood, and one of our professors had a beer with a couple guys in our group who everybody knew drank a ton, so it was so funny to watch them drinking together. There were also a lot of other people in our car this time, which there really wasn't on the way to Lviv, so we had a chance to interact with them. Our favorites were the drunk German people, 2 ladies and a guy. They were so weird, and kept asking us the same questions, but I know some German so I was able to chat with them, as was another girl in my group. It was fun to use my German, even if they were drunk and weird and gave a lot of people some kind of business card that we couldn't figure out what it was, and the guy said it was a man card or something, so that was pretty funny too. It was actually in Ukrainian, because he wasn't german, so our professor told us what it said and it was really just a construction business I guess. Nothing exciting, but funny anyway.
I've already gotten my pictures back, but since they aren't digital I can't post any up. They all turned out really well which I'm extremely excited about, because they really show the city fairly well, and the sights that I saw almost every day, so they will be a good reminder for my of my trip, which is basically unforgettable anyway. I think that everybody should study abroad or spend some time in a foreign country at some point in their lives, because it was an extremely fruitful and once-in-a-lifetime experience. I loved it and I would do it again in a heartbeat. But I am also happy to be home with my fiance, and to eat American food (I've already had hamburgers twice) and everything else except being so busy and having to worry about stupid stuff that doesn't even really matter. That's one of the things I liked most about my trip, is the lack of worrying about time and things that weren't important, and I'm really trying to bring that back with me, except it's hard to do that in our society!

Lviv

I've been in Lviv for 2 days now, and I am in love with this city. I want to come back in the summer for sure. It's much closer together than Kiev, not as spread out, and in a way more beautiful. It's extremely cold, which is why I want to come back in the summer, but still very beautiful. The builidings are even better, and our hotel is gorgeous. I am so lucky that I got to travel this J-term, and if I have figured anything out during this experience (besides the fact that a lot of americans should never travel) is that I want to travel much more throughout my life, to anywhere. I can handle the food, the walking, the language barrier somewhat, although I think it would be great to know the language. This is probably my last blog from Ukraine, since I come home next Friday. I have enjoyed my trip to no end and will hopefully, for all of your sakes, write more detailed information about it when I can actually sit down and think reflectively on my trip, instead of just being here trying to enjoy it.

Food

Now that I've written a little (as much as I can really) about the architecture, I'll write about the food, something I have more to say on. Lunches are all with my group, and we have very traditional ukrainian food at them, such as borsch, which is basically a beetroot soup with cabbage in it (yes, I actually like it quite a bit surprisingly!), vareniky, which is a dough-like thing with either potatoes, meat, or cabbage in it (so far we've had none with meat, and the others are gross), lots of things with potatoes, cabbage, and other veggies, unfortunately which I don't like very much, but I'm eating a lot of things that I never would have expected to. at a few of the restaurants they've had chicken and pineapple dishes, so i tried one of those and it was extremely good. the quality of food that you get here for the price is so unbelievabe-i think the most expensive dinner that i've had was $12, drink included. i haven't tried much alcohol, although about 1/2 of most grocery stores here are devoted to alcohol, but i've tried one kind of wine, and most people on the trip tell me the ukrainian wine pretty much sucks, so i don't really want to try it. i have had hot chocolate, which is amazing, since it's pretty much their chocolate bars melted, and it is so delicious. they don't really drink milk here, which is too bad because i'm probably not getting much calcium otherwise. the breakfasts at the hotel consist of bread, meat, cheese, pastry things, these amazing pancake like things with jams, yogurt, juice, and fruit. if i didn't walk so much i'd get fat. i'll have to take a picture of the food they give us too, it's so amazing. well, that's all from ukraine for now i guess!

Architecture and More

The architecture in Ukraine is, like I said, very different, unique, and the city structure is interesting, with some nice buildings and some falling apart. Apparantly the city was worse a few years ago, and worse still a few years before that, and you can see construction happening on some buildings, so the city is trying to rebuild and beautify their city. It is very hard to describe their architecture, although their churches have domes, mostly gold (today we visited St. Sophia's and St. Michael's Golden-Domed monastery), their are churches all over the place. Our hotel is within 15 minutes walking distance of 3 major, and beautiful, Orthodox churches, 2 of which I just mentioned, the 3rd of which is St. Andrew's. It is so hard to describe the architecture, so I'm trying to take lots of pictures to show people. Baroque style was used for a lot of the churches, if that is any indication, and they have many frescoes and mosaics and icons. The colors that are used for the buildings are a lot of blues and pinks and yellows, they look very beautiful and cute and all that. It is definitely different from Minnesota. They also have a lot of squares, and statues in every single one. There are a lot of statues here.
I'm getting pretty used to the city, the subway system, figuring out my way around, that sort of thing, but I'm also experimenting and trying new things. There are so many restaurants that I see that I want to try, and I hope I can get them all in before my time here is up! We walk everywhere here, and my hotel is on a hill, so I'm getting in pretty good shape. Unfortunately it's very cold here as well, and it's not fun at all. Oh well, it adds to the experience I guess. It would be nice to see the city in the summertime though, I think it would be very beautiful. I'm getting to be a pretty good street bargainer, but have to take a break for awhile before I spend all of my food money on souvenirs! I haven't bought much for myself but I got some people some small, cute, cheap things, which is awesome.
I don't really know what else to talk about, except that I saw a very unique interpretation of Romeo and Juliet yesterday (thank goodness I didn't spend more than $6 on it, but it was certainly interesting) and tomorrow I get to see a ballet, which I'm looking forward to immensely. Please comment on what you want to hear about my trip, what you don't want to hear about, or anything else.

Ukraine

Here I am in Ukraine! This is the first time I've had real internet access, and it's wonderful to finally be able to write stuff, even if just a little bit. It's 1 o'clock here, meaning it's about 5 am in Minnesota, and 6 am in Tennessee, where my fiance is. Ukraine has been quite interesting...the city has both beautiful architecture and buildings that are pretty much falling apart. I haven't taken a lot of pictures yet because I've been really busy with other stuff, but I'm sure I'll come home with many rolls of film. My hotel (Vozdvyzhensky) is really nice, and I'm enjoying staying there. The people in my group are interesting and fun, and I haven't been doing a whole lot of homework. Oh well. That's the only part of the trip that I'm not enjoying so much. The food has been interesting, most of which I don't like but I hope I start getting used to. Tomorrow is Christmas so we're having a traditional 12-course dinner tonight. No meat, some sort of fasting thing, but plenty of food! This in no way sums up my trip, but it's a very, very general idea of some things that I've noticed/experienced. I'll try to post a bit more during my time here, and feel free to comment/ask questions about what you want to know more about.