My Cluster Group Assignment!

Today was another full day at our Arrival Retreat in Chernihiv. I had my first Russian language lesson which went surprisingly well. I really LOVED my teacher...her name is Zhenya. There were actually about 10 of us in a language lesson this morning...but my cluster group will be composed of 4 other people (1 girl, 3 guys). These 4 people plus our language teacher (Zhenya) will be my extended family for the next 3 months. The city that we will live in is called Oster (pronounced Ostyer I believe)...which is about an hour northwest of Kyiv (the capital). It is actually located about halfway between Kyiv and Chernihiv (another large city)...so hopefully I will get to to do some exploring in those cities before I am moved to my permanent site for 2 years!!

We also had our first serving of borscht today for lunch...quite scrumptious! I'm pretty sure I consumed at least 7 pieces of bread today. Ridculous, I know. Let me TRY to explain :) For breakfast, there was yogurt and granola (which is more than plenty for me to eat in the morning), coleslaw, 2 soft-boiled eggs (I gave mine to the guy sitting next to me), bread (white and wheat), ham, cheese (I made a ham and cheese sandwich on 2 pieces of bread), hot milk, a juice box of fruit punch type stuff, and hot tea/coffee. That is about enough food to last me all day...and that was for one meal. For lunch, we started off with veggies on a plate (cucumber, red peppers, and tomatoes), bread, borscht (which had special rolls that were to be dipped in it...amazing!), and just as I was eating the last of the borscht, the main course came out...chicken and potatoes! It was too good not to eat, but I literally felt like I needed to unbutton my pants after that. It was all so scrumptious that I hated to waste any...so I basically didnt :)

Well, I need to go to bed now. More to say...but it will have to wait! Goodnight! I meet my host family tomorrow...YIPPEEEEEE :)