Catharine's visit!

There is something utterly amazing that all PCVs (at least in Ukraine) share a common understanding of, and that is how wonderful it feels to be able to hang out with someone who simply put, gets it. They understand that sometimes you just need to hang out with another person who speaks English. So, this past weekend, I kind of/sort of asked (whined) if Catharine would come visit me in k-grad. I wanted a girl's weekend where we laugh, stay up late talking, cook, shop, and overall just enjoy the presence of another American...and English. She obliged :) and we had a fun 24 hours of quality hang out time.

Catharine is from New Hampshire but now lives 2 hours to the east of me in Aleksandria. She's 27 years old and I am SO thankful that the big man upstairs was looking out for me when he placed us by each other. I feel like we've known each other way more than...2 months? Catharine is a TEFL (Teaching English as Foreign Language) PCV, so we didn't really have a chance to get to know each other during training.

She arrived in the afternoon on Saturday and after going on a hunt to find shwarma (a tortilla filled chicken goodness that has french fries, ketchup, mayo, cabbage, and maybe cheese?), we met Phil and Donna in the city center for a little down-time and people watching. Donna is another PCV who lives in K-grad, but she has been traveling all summer so I had yet to have the opportunity to meet her.

On our way to the city center, I snagged a few pictures of my city...because for some reason, you feel better taking pictures with someone else by your side. I am still too scared to take pictures at my bazaar...the looks you get from the locals are pretty priceless.

This is Kopilka--one of my grocery stores. Probably my least favorite, although I did find pumpernickel bread there the other day! The building has stores/shops on the second and third floors of the building...the first is the grocery store. Typical in Ukraine.

The back side of Kopilka houses a movie theatre...I have yet to go see a movie there because they're all in Ukrainian...but I will at some point while I'm here!

Awesome marshrutka...most of them are not this nice. In fact, most of them barely run.

After you walk down a hill, you cross the river (that is not clean enough to swim in).

However, that doesn't stop people from fishing! That rottweiler was GIANT.

Right after you cross over the bridge is Cilpo, my favorite grocery store. The second and third floors of this building also house different individual shops/vendors.

That's all the city pictures I took...however, y'all are in for a real treat tomorrow or Wednesday :) Catharine and I made paninis twice while she was here (ha, once for dinner on Saturday night and once for lunch on Sunday)...but she filmed the process on Saturday night. Piecing it together for a funny presentation :) be excited.

We also tried to make homemade brownies late Saturday night...they were a little on the gooey side but still delectable. We proceeded to stay up til 2 am laughing and telling stories. We did that the last time she came here also...it's just fun to have a visitor. Period.

Sunday was filled with shopping...I was on the hunt for buying a drying rack. I had priced them and found the cheapest one for 95 griev ($12)...but they are rather large and obtrusive and I would have felt quite odd carrying it all the way to my house alone. Strength in numbers :)

After Catharine left Sunday afternoon, I proceeded to eat half of the loaf of zucchini bread that she brought me (homemade). Today, I met my counterpart to buy train tickets for our HIV/AIDS training seminar in Kamianets-Podilskyi. Check out the castle in that city!! I'm excited to explore. I think a few PCVs and myself may hang around after the conference is over (in the beginning of September) and see the city.

Tomorrow, I will be entertaining some kids speaking English for an hour...any topics you can think of (American wise) that would be interesting for youth ages 17-20 are more than welcome! Phil is coming to help me out and entertain the kids as well. After tomorrow, it's unknown what I'll be doing with the kids for my hour each day. To be continued.

My tentative schedule for the next few weeks:

Aug. 9-12: summer camp at my Center

Aug. 15-23: maybe going to help at Camp Bereg which is on the Black Sea?

Aug. 24: Ukraine's Independence day (BIGGGGG holiday...we're having a celebration in the park put on by the Center for Creative Youth where I work)

Aug. 25-30: Environmental conference in Kiev

Sept. 1: school starts in Ukraine

Sept. 4: leave for Kamianets-Podilskyi

Sept. 5-9: HIV/AIDS Training in Kamianets-Podilskyi

Sept. 10-11: explore Kamianets-Podilskyi?

Busy next month...but I'm really looking forward to it to actually have things to do :) I'll leave you with one last picture...

This is the other view of the river..at sunset. Pretty, isn't it? :) The sunsets on the river here are pretty gorgeous in K-grad. Hopin' everyone has a glorious Monday!