Why I Love Teaching

This week I have wanted to pull my hair out because the children have just not been listening or behaving. The group of teachers, including me, have ended each day exhausted and wondering what we having been doing wrong.  I have been complaining and wondering why I came to Ukraine to teach kids that do not even care if they learn English or not.  But then a good day comes along and I remember how cute this 3-5 year olds are and I grow to love them more and more.  Yesterday was that good day.  They were all behaving very good and singing their little hearts out when we began class.  Then when I was teaching them and making yogurt parfaits, they were listening to me and were excited!  Most of them spoke English the whole time too and answered my questions with little prompting.  The three other teachers and myself were so happy with how well the kids were behaving that we could not help ourselves that we fooled around and laughed with them.  I am so grateful for this successful day.  It helped me remember why I want to be a teacher.  These Ukrainian kids are so darn cute too!

Nastya was making this cute surprised face that got all of the teachers laughing

Enjoying their parfaits

Yum Yum!

L'viv

This weekend was so amazing!  One of the teachers that lives in Ukraine, named Christina, needed to renew her visa so she needed to cross the border to Poland this past weekend.  She invited my group to tag along with her and stay in Lviv, Ukraine while she took a couple hour bus ride to the boarder.  Only 5 of us could go with her because we did not have to teach on Monday morning.  I packed up my stuff for the weekend and took it with me to school on Friday.  Then after we finished teaching, Haley, Megan U, and I all headed to Christina's apartment.  We went to the grocery store to stalk up on food for the train and also food for the night.  Our train did not leave until 4am on Saturday morning so the 5 of us partied at Christina's until we had to head to the train station.  Haley and I made pizza and crapes which we filled with nautili and bananas. I burned my hand 3 times......

 Once Peter and Megan H got there we were going to watch a movie and pig out on food, but instead we got to talking and just ended up eating and talking until our taxi came at 3 to take us to the train.  We got to the station, then got on our night train.  Four of us were in 2nd class and the other two were in 3rd class.  Haley and I were in a compartment together with another couple.  They were already asleep when we got there so we had to get up on our beds and all situated for the night in the dark.

Then I feel asleep until about 11am.  Megan H came from her compartment after we were all awake and hung out for a while.  Then Christina found us and took us to the 3rd class car which is much more open and not so claustrophobic.  We spent the rest of our time with them until we arrived in Lviv at 3 (we were supposed to get there at 2:30, but our train broke down for about a half hour).  The bus that we needed to take us to our hostel was not running so we walked the cobblestone streets of Lviv until we found where we were going.  It was very nice to walk because we got to see the whole city with its amazing European architecture.  I destroyed my duffle bag though, one of the wheels got totally shaved and there is also a hole in the bottom.  Oops!

We stayed in a hostel called Cosmonaut.  You can look it up on the internet if you want, it was decorated pretty interesting....but it was a really nice hostel.  We dropped our stuff off and went out exploring for the night.  Christina took us to the main square and and showed us some of the more popular tourist sights.  We saw the opera house and watched some street performers.  Then we found the chocolate factory and watched them make truffles.  We also walked through the store and saw all of the things made out of chocolate.  It was pretty cool!

This is chocolate, can u believe it?!

After that we mostly just strolled the streets of Lviv and found a place to eat dinner.  The menu was in English and I ordered alfrado pasta.  It was really really good, but the portion sizes were so small.  We went out and got gellato after.  We headed back to our hostel and played games and laughed until we went to bed at 1:30.

     The next morning Christina had to go to Poland so we were on our own.  Haley and Peter both had books about Ukraine that had a walking tour that we could take around Lviv by ourselves.  We started at the Shevchenko statue and passed the Museum of Ethnography, Arts and Crafts that had the cast of stone-carved characters, one of which resembled the statue of Liberty. 

We walked past the Solomiya Krushelnytska Lviv Theater of Opera and Ballet to the memorial spot of the Grand Synagogue which was built in the 17th century and destroyed by Nazis in August 1941. From there, we went to the next memorial site of the 1845 Progressive Jews Synagogue that was also destroyed by the Nazis.

After that we went to the Church of St John the Baptist, Lviv's oldest church.  We went inside for about 50 cents and an old Ukrainian Babushka tired to tell us the history.  I didn't understand anything, but Peter knows a little Russian so he tried translating for us.  

We then walked up the street and up a hill with a lot of stairs to what we thought would be a castle on  Castle Hill, but there was no actual castle. We were pretty disappointed, but there was a great view of the city!

Haley and I on top of Castle Hill

We hiked back down to vul Zamkova street and walked past Gunpowder Tower, built in the 16th century and part of the old system of walls and bastions. Straight from there we went to the Greek Catholic St. Michael's Church were we went inside and saw a baby blessing. The church was beautiful inside.  All of the walls were hand painted in 1918.

We got kind of lost after that, but we think we walked past the brick walls on some street that were the last standing section of Lviv's medieval fortifications. We then went through the archway and yard of St. Bernardine Church and Monastery, then went inside, and we got to watch a wedding.  This church was gorgeous as well, all covered in gold.

 After that, we walked around pl. Rynok square and ended at Amadeus restaurant by the Boyim Chapel and Roman Catholic Cathedral.  We were so hungry by then that we were so excited to eat.  This restaurant did not have very good service though.  We waited about an hour for them to take our orders and then waited a while for our food.  Then after we finished eating they cleared away our dishes, but never brought us our bill.  We sat for about another hour and a half until Peter finally got up and found our waitress.  After eating, we walked to a market and looked around for souvenirs.  Christina finally made it back from Poland so she met us there.  We then spent the rest of the night walking around the streets and enjoying the night life.  We went into this cafe that had smoothies.  Mine was delicious!  I did not realize how much I missed those.  We saw some more street performers.  Amelia would have liked this because there was a very talented violinist.  It was getting late and we were all feeling tired from the day so we sat on a bench listening to the violin and laughing and taking funny pictures of each other.  Christina got a model shot of me.  I said that if there was ever a movie made about me, this would be the movie poster.haha

After laughing too much and drawing a lot of attention to ourselves we headed back to our hostel to get our bags and then walked to the train station.  Our train left at 1am Monday morning.  We were all in the same area this time in 3rd class.  My bed was broken though and not very comfortable.  I woke up a lot that night because I felt like people were watching me (because we were in a community car).  We made it back to Kiev by 11am and then I went to school to teach.  This weekend was so much fun!  I'm so glad I got to go out and see more of Ukraine.  Lviv is defiantly my favorite city.  But we haven't been anywhere else yet....haha

Futbol in Ukraine!

What a wild and crazy night last night!  Our ILP group all got tickets to the Ukraine vs. England soccer game.  Some people got really into it and even bought jerseys for the event.  We pushed our way through the crazy crowds to the stadium and found our seats.  We were pretty close to the field, but some people were in a few of our seats.  Good thing we sat next to some nice men that spoke english and they told the others to move.  I don't really have much interest in watching soccer games, no offense but I think they are kinda boring.  The crowd and fans were defiantly very entertaining!  The whole time the stands were filled with people chanting the teams name.  We finally figured out what they were saying so we joined in.  We did draw in a lot of attention though because we made two full rows of girls in a stadium that was full of men.  Some Ukrainian's were trying to teach us a chant and then a nice man that was sitting behind me told us to not say it because he was teaching us bad words.  Oops!  I guess that's what happens when we don't know any Russian.  Good thing we had some nice people sitting around us to help out these poor innocent American girls.  Other fans wanted their pictures taken with us.  I guess I never would have thought it would be really fun to get my picture taken with foreigners, but people in Ukraine like it!  The game ended up with the ending score being 1 to 1.  Not much excitement from that, but I highly enjoyed the crowd!

Sick

Why does it always seem like everyone gets sick at the same time?  I thought I was doing fine and then all of the sudden a few days ago I woke up not feeling too great.  Then I learned that the kids in my host family all have colds.  I then came to school and all of the teachers are feeling sick too.  We all sound so wonderful talking with our raspy voices trying to teach these kids English.  Most of the students in class have colds too.  I guess a bug is just going around in Ukraine!  I hope it hasn’t reached America yet.  I hope I get over this quick because it is really hard to be motivated to teach when I am not feeling 100%.  I have been going to bed early though because my days have just been so exhausting.  Even though these 3-5 year olds have been sick, they still have tons of energy and know how to keep us teachers on our toes!  I am starting to get the hang of teaching, but it is still a challenge to keep the students attention for a half an hour at a time.  The kids are responding to my questions, so at least I can tell they are learning something!  It is still early on in the semester to tell how much they have learned so I am excited to see what the kids will have learned by December.  Right now I don’t think I can last until then, but hopefully once I start feeling better I will have a better outlook on life.

Grocery Shopping

I got to the school really early this morning so I could get to the grocery store to buy the food I need for my lessons this week.  The two other girls that where here could not go with me because they had to teach class.  So I got to go all by myself.  I took the bus far down the street and then walked to the grocery store. They have lockers in the front to put big bags and purses in.  If you carry a big bag around the store they will charge you extra because you could put stuff in your bag and walk out of the store.  I put my backpack in the locker and then went to the produce section.  Their produce is very different then ours.  A lot of the fruit was already very ripe and rotten so I had to dig through the bananas to find some good ones.  I then had to wander the isles seeing if I could recognize any of the food that I needed (because I can't read).  I found everything, except frosting.  I don't know if they have that here (they don't have peanut butter so I wouldn't be surprised).  I don't know why, but being in a place where I don't understand anything really stresses me out, so when I got up to the counter to pay I treated myself to a bag of peanut m&ms.  The lady at the register kept asking me questions and I just shook my head.  Oh and by the way, if you want plastic bags for your groceries you have to pay extra for that too.  I gave her the money and she gave me change.  Then I loaded up my backpack with my food.  I probably looked like I was stealing it!haha  It is very interesting to go to the grocery store though because everything is so different there.  Their milk comes in bags and all meat they cut and bag for you.  I think I like American grocery stores better(:

Trying to Find my Way

Ok so I bet you all were waiting to here a story about me getting lost in Kiev.  Well today is your lucky day because it has finally happened!  My host dad drove me and dropped me off at the metro stop where we were all supposed to meet up to go to church together.  We did this same thing last week.  I walked down into the station and I was the first one there so I sat to wait for everyone else.  Fifteen minutes passed and still no one showed up.  I was beginning to worry.  Then I got a text message from Katie in my group wondering if I was coming to church.  I called her and told her I was at the metro station.  It turned out that I was at the wrong station.  I don’t know how this happened, but my host dad dropped me off at the wrong place.  I told Katie where I was and it was about 11 stops away from where I was supposed to be.  I had never used the metro before so I did not know how to get to them.  She said she would just come get me while the rest of the group made their way to church.  I waited in the station for about 45 minutes for her to get to me.  Then she took me back to the right spot.   Along the way she showed me how to read the metro map and gave me some tips for using the metro.  We finally got to the bus that we need to take to our church building and then got to church about an hour late.  It was defiantly an adventure.  But now I know all the tricks for using the metro!  Katie was such a lifesaver.  I really would have had no idea what to do if she didn’t come to get me.  But this isn’t the end of my story….

            After church I was going to get myself home.  I rode the metro to the stop that has the bus that I took last night with a few other girls from my group. I am pro at the metro now.haha We then parted ways at the metro stop because they had to take other metros to their houses.  I left the metro station, well tried to because this metro station is so huge and has many ways to get out of it.  I went up and down about 3 different escalators trying to get to the right exit.  It really doesn’t help that I can’t read Russian.  When I finally made it outside onto Independent Square, things finally started looking familiar.  I made it to my bus stop, got on my bus, and drove to the end of that bus route.  Then I switched to my smaller bus.  This is where it gets interesting.  So last night Lila told me that this bus that takes me to my house cost 4,50 but I only had a 10.  I gave it to the driver and expected him to give me change back.  He looked at me and kept on saying something in Russian.  I showed him that I only needed one ticket, thinking that was what he was asking me, but he just got mad at me and kept on trying to talk to me.  I just sat down and shrugged.  He continued to take money and give change to everyone else so I was really confused with what he wanted from me.  An older woman tried helping me, but I didn’t understand what she was saying either.  Then a man tried and then a mother and her daughter.  I was getting so frustrated and embarrassed because the driver was really mad at me and everyone was looking at me.  Then they told me to write something and I finally figured out that they wanted to know where I was going.  I told them what stop I was getting off at and then the bus driver gave me my change.  I guess this bus does not have a flat fee like every other bus that I have been on.  It cost depending on how far you are going.  Then I just sat back and rode the bus, but everyone was still looking at me like I was crazy.  After about a half hour I finally get to my stop and escape that bus as fast as I could.  I was so embarrassed that I wanted to just go home and cry.  It really is so hard to travel alone, especially when I can’t understand anyone.  I thought it was going to be so simple to travel home today by myself because it was easy with Lila the night before, but she knew what everyone was saying.  I am really having my doubts about public transportation now, but I need to use it if I want to stay out later with my friends.  Hopefully this experience today will make it easier to travel home next time.  I now know that I have to say my stop to the driver.  I really need to learn Russian though.  Good thing our Russian classes start tomorrow.

Finally Saw Kiev!

After a week of just going to school and then coming straight home with my host family, I finally got to spend a day in downtown Kiev with my group.  I haven’t been out to see anything because my host family did not want to show me how to use public transportation.  They don’t like to use it so they usually just drive me everywhere.  I haven’t been able to go out and explore, but on Saturday I finally did!  It was so much fun.  Some parts of downtown kind of reminded me of LA, only I couldn’t read any of the signs or understand what anyone was saying.  We met at a McDonalds on Main Street and Oksana showed us around.  We walked down the middle of the street because it was blocked off so cars could not drive on it.  There was a huge stage, lights, and filming equipment set up in the middle of Independent Square because at eight o’clock that night they filmed a dance TV show that is kind of like So You Think You Can Dance, only with a whole bunch of dance groups from all across Ukraine.  Oksana told us to try to get on TV, but we were not close enough to the stage to be seen.  We then walked to Saint Michael’s Cathedral.  This is the place that everyone comes to take their wedding photos.  A few people in my group joked that it reminded them of Temple Square.  We saw about 6 different wedding parties when we walked up to the cathedral and then probably 6 more when we walked out.  We went inside (the girls had to cover our heads with our jackets) and looked at all the spectacular architecture.  It was just recently remodeled so everything was extra visible and shiny, lots of gold.  Then we went to Souvenir Street.  This is a long street with a lot of different booths set up with a whole bunch of different knick-knacks and hand made crafts that people sell.  It was so much fun to look at all of the different Ukrainian art and styles.  This street goes on forever too! There is so much to look at.  We then got to go on a boat ride around the river that goes down the middle of Kiev.  It was really fun because we got to see a lot of the major sights of Kiev and how they are scattered all around the city.  There were also beaches!  I don’t think they are going to be occupied much longer though because the weather is starting to turn cold.  When the boat ride was done we switched tour guides.  Lila, a principle at another one of the schools that some of the people in my group teach at, met up with us.  She then took us up a hill to a park that had a statue of a priest (can’t remember his name) that was responsible for starting the Catholic Church in Ukraine.  We had a lot of fun taking pictures up there because it was a secluded place so we could finally act like crazy tourists.  We have learned how to pose for pictures the right way in Ukraine and now do it in many of our pictures. You can’t smile and you have to stand in the most awkward position.  It is hilarious! Then from there we walked to the Arch of Friendship.  It is a representation of the friendship between Russia and Ukraine.  I thought it was just going to be an arch off in some trees, but when we got there it was like a party spot under the arch.  There was American music blasting and also some little carnival rides.  We again got to take some crazy pictures because the environment wasn’t so serious and we didn’t stand out too much.  This ended our tour of downtown so we went back to Main Street and met up with some other people from the other groups that are teaching in Kiev.  We broke off and did our own things.  My group headed back to Souvenir Street, we started at the very top this time, and made our way down more slowly.  Then we went back to Independent Square, on Main Street, and tried to watch some of the dance show being filmed.  I didn’t see much because I had to leave to head back home.  Lila showed me how to use public transportation.  FINALLY!!  I learned which bus I have to take to the edge of town, then I get off that bus and go to a smaller bus that drives me out of the city to my willage (that’s what they call villages).  It takes me about an hour and a half to go home from downtown, but now I know how to get home!  This means that I can now stay out with my friends after we are done teaching and explore more.  I’m so excited.  But I was so tired when I got home.  We did so much walking that my legs were so sore.  I’m so glad I was able to go out and about though.  Kiev really is amazing!

Saint Michael's Cathedral

Sarah and I  with a famous Russian Author

Souvenir Street

Peter, Sarah, Diana, Megan, and Hailey

Katie, me, and Megan

Ukrainian Beaches

Big Mama

A view of the city

Jump!

Arch of Friendship

Under the Arch of Friendship

We are all friends!

Russian nesting dolls

Independent Square at night

Any Suggestions?

Ok, so I am working with the children in the kitchen at school.  I was just told that in my school I can no longer feed the kids because some of the parents complained.  Now I need to think of ideas of things that we can make in the kitchen, but are not edible.  I really have no ideas except for play dough and making paper pizzas.  If anyone has any wonderful ideas that they would like to share with me I would love to hear them!  Please let me know as soon as possible.  It can be a website or a recipe that you have.  This would be a great help to me and relieve a lot of stress that I am having right now.  Thanks!

My House

This is what the back of my house looks like

This is the view of my back yard. 

I came home from church on Sunday and my little sister had made this for me.haha!

Not Such a Good Day

            I do not know what happened today, but school did not work out very well.  There was a small group of children during the opening of class and they were all acting very well.  We went through our first rotation, which went smoothly, and then brought them to snack.  During snack, a few more kids came and we did our opening with them.  They were also behaving very well.  Then once all of the kids were together again something happened.  I do not know what they were fed at snack, but we could not keep them under control.  When it was time to line up they would not stay against the wall and we had to repeat ourselves multiple times.  When we got them in their rotations in smaller groups this still was happening.  They were all very loud and would not stop speaking in Russian, no matter how many times I would remind them that it was English class.  Some kids would run out of the class too and the administrators would have to help us bring them back.  The administrators asked me during closing when the kids started acting like this and I told them after snack.  They were surprised.  I’m glad they noticed how the kids were acting and it wasn’t just me or the other teacher’s faults.  And of course when it was time to leave most of the parents were late picking their children up so we had to keep them contained and entertained even though they were ready to go home.  I really hope that these kids will not be like this a lot.  I don’t know how many days I can handle this.  When I got in the car to go home I realized how tired I was.  Those kids can really take a lot out of me.  I came home and just laid around the rest of the day.  Tomorrow, there will only be three teachers at the school instead of five.  I hope the kids are going to be better behaved.

Pictures So Far

I finally was able to upload pictures onto my computer.  Here is what we have done so far:

Here is a picture of Germany for Amelia

Me with all of my luggage

Squished in the van with all of our stuff coming from the airport.

My host sister Christina jumping off her slide

Christina with the kitty

Nastia with the baby ducks

On the worlds longest escalator

The opera house

The college

This is the statue of the man that the college is named after.(of course I can't remember what it is)

Ice Cream! I had banana and it tasted exactly like a banana. It was delicious!

Feeding the hourses

Horseback riding!

First Day of School, First Day of School!

Well today was just crazy hectic.  I got to the school early because the other teachers that will be teaching with me wanted to go shopping for some school things before we had to teach. I teach every day from 3-6pm and there are five of us there at that time.  Right now I am in charge of teaching kitchen so I wanted to get some things to make food.  No one in my group could get there early enough so we did not have time.  Good thing I brought pancake mix with me.  We were served lunch at the school at 2 and then kicked out of the kitchen because they had to set up for dinner.  The five of us got the dinning room all to ourselves.  We guessed it was because no one wanted to eat with the American teachers.haha!  After lunch we hurried back upstairs to get ready for our class.  Once the kids arrived we had them stand in a line and introduced ourselves.  They are all around 3 to 5 years old and most of them do not know any English.  They all have very cute Russian names though.  Of course I can’t remember any of them.  One of the girls that live at my house, Nastia, is in my class.  We then went through what day it was, the weather, and sang some songs.  We will do this every day in the beginning of class.  Then we broke the kids up into smaller groups and went to our centers.  Today I had the kids help me make pancakes that they could decorate with sprinkles.  It was very difficult dragging that out for a half hour and keep them speaking English the whole time.  My voice started hurting at the end because I had to repeat myself a lot.  But that’s how they learn!  It was very hard because we really had no idea what we were doing and we had no teacher to show us what to do.  After all the rotations we met up in the main classroom and sang a few more songs and gave the kids stickers.  Then they left with their parents.  I was so exhausted after that, but I still had to clean up all my dishes in the bathroom sink.  I really have no idea what I am going to make with these kids for the next month because I am in charge of kitchen every day until October.  That will be fun.  I am going to have to get very, very creative!  These kids were so cute though so I know I am going to enjoy myself.  This will defiantly be a good learning experience for my future classroom.  

Church

               The ILP group decided to go to church at the international branch in Kiev.  Normally they only have about 10-15 members, but when ILP comes in the fall and spring the congregation triples in size.  They were all very happy to see us there and the branch president welcomed us with open arms.  The primary has about 4 kids in it and the youth consists of one girl. Since our group is all women, except one boy, we make up the Relief Society.  It was very different from what I am used to at church, but it is nice to see that the church is growing and reaching all parts of the world.  The meeting was held in a building where the church was given the third floor.  It’s across from a casino.  The church has done a very good job of designing the floor to look like the inside of a normal church.  Testimony meeting consisted of a lot of our group bearing testimony on our journey so far.  I have gotten to know our group a little bit better of the past couple of days and I can tell they will be great friends and examples to me.  We then had gospel doctrine class given by a lady from Ukraine who was transferred to Kiev on a temple assignment.  She was a very entertaining teacher and I can tell she enjoys having the ILP visitors come.  Then we had relief society, which was lead by the branch president because there is no relief society president.  The one boy in our group, Peter, stayed with us that hour because the branch president wanted to get to know us a little bit better.  We went around the room telling why each of us decided to come to Kiev.  Many of the girls said because their families were Ukrainian.  I found that interesting.  Then the branch president told us that in the beginning of October church would be moved to the chapel at the Kiev temple.  I was very excited to hear about that because then we will get to see the temple every week!  They are moving the meeting place because then more people will be able to commute easier.  It will be a long commute for me though, but I am willing to do it. 

            After church, we road a bus and then a metro to the park across from the college.  I am so bad with names that I can’t remember what it was called.  We did some more training and also got to see some more of the city.  We also walked by the opera house.  A few people in my group, including me, really want to go to see a ballet or opera while we are here.  Our group leader told us that we could get really cheap tickets.  That is defiantly something that I want to do while I am here.  When training was done, my host mom and dad picked me up and we went grocery shopping.  I got bottled water finally so I could drink clean water!  Then we went home and picked up the rest of the family to go ride horses.  We drove a little ways down the road to a horse ranch.  Everyone that worked there only spoke Russian so I had no idea what they were saying and they were looking at me like I was crazy.  I could tell that when I was riding around on the path that the workers were talking about me, but oh well!  It was a lot of fun though.  I rode around with Christina and she talked to the people so I didn’t have to.  We came home and then at dinner.  My host mom made what she called pizza, but it was more of a very thick crust with a cream sauce, fish, and olives on it.  Surprisingly it was very good, just as long as I didn’t consider it pizza.

I Made it!

I have finally arrived in Ukraine after a very loooooooooong day of traveling.  It all started on Thrusday morning at 6:30 in the Salt Lake City airport.  I checking in all my bags(luckily they were both under 50 lbs), went through security, and headed to my gate to wait for the rest of my group.  We then boarded our plan to fly to Washington DC.  After a 3 and a half hour flight, we got off the plane and searched for our next gate.  Half of the group was heading to Frankfort, Germany and the other half went to Munik.  We made our way to our gate (which took forever by the way, the DC airport is huge!!!  We had to ride a bus across the landing strip and then take a metro type thing underground).  Right when we found our gate, they were boarding so we rushed to get in line.  Two people stayed behind because they were on the flight to Germany after us.  Then came to 8 hour flight.  Our plan was very nice though.  We each had our own TV screen the head rest in front of us.  We could choose which movie we wanted to watch out of a very big choice of movies.  I sat next to a girl that was heading to Poland with her family for a vacation.  We had a good chat until we both got tired and tried to sleep.  Then came dinner and she spilled her cocktail all over me.  So I had to deal with smelling like alcohol for the rest of the day.  I also had a lovely little baby sitting behind me who was constantly crying and occasionally kicking the back of my chair.  It was lovely...  I tried to get as much sleep as I could because I did not want to have to deal with jet lag.  I made it to Germany at 5:30 in the morning their time.  The group of us then had a little over a 3 hour lay over because we were waiting for the rest of our group to arrive on different flights.  I tried to sleep more, but it was very uncomfortable.  Finally, we could board our plane to Kiev (but they spell it Kyiv)!!  Right after I sat down I passed out asleep.  I guess they served us some lunch on that plane because when I woke up right before we began landing the man sitting next to me saved me my tray of food.  I didn't eat it, but thanked him for being so kind.  We got off the plane, loaded on a bus that took us to the terminal, went through the visa check, and then collected our bags.  I had no trouble with any lost lugage or anything.  We headed out the door where our coordinators from Kiev welcomed us.  Some of the other Kiev group's host families were there to pick them up.  My group had to sit around the airport for another 3 hours waiting for the rest of our group to arrive from Munik.  We got to know our corrdinator, Oksana, very well.  She is a very sweet girl who speaks very good english.  I also got to know the three other people in my group well too because we were sitting together for so long.  We were so tired though.  Finally, the rest of the group arrived.  We headed out to our van to load our bags up and drop us all off at our host families houses.  I do not know how we fit all of us plus two bags per person in a 14 passenger van (there was 12 of us to fit in there!).  It was very hillarious.  I took pictures, will put then on here later.  The driver dropped us off one by one all over Kiev.  It took about 4 hours to drop us all off.  We were all so tired that we would all be asleep on top of our stuff until the van stopped, say goodbye to the person getting out, and then fall back asleep again.  I didn't see much of the city. 

     I was one of the last ones dropped off.  I was let out in the front of the school that I will be teaching at.  My host family was there to greet me.  They loaded my stuff up in the car and then drove home.  My family lives outside of Kiev in another city (I don't know what it is called because i can't read the signs!)  It takes about a half hour for me to get back into the city.  My host family has to drive me in and out because no metro or bus can get to me.  Everyone is a crazy driver and no one wears set belts!  We had to go offroading to get to their house.  I had no idea where we were going because it was so dark.  But we made it by around 9:30.  I got all my stuff carried in and my host mom showed me my room.  Their house is beautiful.  I got very lucky.  A lot of my group lives in apartments with their host families, but my family lives in a three story house.  I get my own space and bed/couch to sleep on.  I showered off the two days worth of traveling and got ready for bed.  I passed out basically when my head hit the pillow. 

     I guess I should introduce my host family now.  I live with a family that consists of a dad, mom, 5 year old daughter name Christina (she will being going to the school I teach at), and a 1 and a half year old boy.  There is also another woman who lives in the house with her daughter who is about 3 or 4, but I do not know how they are related.  I do not know anyone elses names because the only people that speak any english is the daughter and the mom(kind of).  I guess I will really need to pay attention in my russian classes.  It was very interesting trying to figure everything out and will be a struggle the rest of the time that I am here.  I don't know what I was expecting, but it is very hard and frustrating not being able to communicate with them.  They are very nice though already so I am sure I will have a fine time.  It will deffinalty take a while to get used to it though. 

     Now for today's activities.  I got to sleep in (thankfully) and I think that really helped me get used to the time difference.  I might already be used to it.  I ate breakfast with my host mom and sister.  She made me oatmeal (from the box so nothing strange yet) and then I had some milk.  That will be something I never drink again.  It was sour and kind of chunky.  I guess I will stick to water.  My host mom also keeps on trying to offer me coffee or tea to drink.  She looks at me like I am crazy when I say no.  Then I got ready to go to training at my school.  My host dad drove me along with Christina.  She showed me exactly where to go.  We then began training after the rest of the group arrived.  We all had a lot to talk about, sharing stories of our host families and seeing if we all survived.  I really enjoy my group a lot.  They all seem really nice and we will deffinatly have a great time traveling and teaching together.  We were at the school for most of the day, until 5, and then I was picked up again by my host dad and brought back home.  He tried talking to me in the car ride home, but he bairly speaks any english and I speak to next to nothing of russian.  It was very entertaining, but he did get out of me that I am from California and that I have a mom, dad, and three sisters.  Once home I finally got to get unpacked and see the rest of their house.  They live right up the hill from some body of water (don't know what it is yet.haha).  Christina walked me down their stairs that lead to the water and we walked along the water while she corrected rocks.  She is warming up to me know because I got a lot more talking with her then I did earlier.  We then headed back up and into my room.  I sat and watched while Christina and the other girl played with the Disneyland stuff I brought the family.  I live in the place where they keep all of their toys so I have a feeling I will be doing this often.  It was very cute watching them.  They even put on a show for me of them jumping off a slide that they had set up.  Christina then introduced me to her kitten.  I feel sorry for that cat because she was dragging him around everywhere!  But I guess that is how all little kids treat their pets. 

     I am really enjoying my time here so far.  It is deffinatly different then what I am used to in America.  I love my host family already.  They are all very kind and I can tell that my host mom is trying to make me as comfortable as possible.  I can't wait to go around the city tomorrow.  My group is going to the International branch of church tomorrow so I will get to experience the metro and see some of the city.  Well, it's time to eat!  Hope everything is well in America!