A friend comes to visit!

My apartment is straight up cold.  There are a few reasons for this: 

1)  It gets no direct sunlight due to the courtyard that my apartment looks over.  This was great during the summer because it meant it was cool and I didn't even have to open my windows.  This is not great when I want clothes on my balcony to dry in less than 2 full days.  

2)  This is an old apartment building made out of cement.  As soon as you walk into it, it has got to be 15-20 degrees cooler than outside.  

3)  My apartment is on the first floor.  Warm air rises, cold air sinks.  You do the math.

I could probably turn on my electric heater that PC gives us, but I feel like a baby because it's still September.  So, instead I just bundle up.  This morning when I crawled out of bed, I put on my North Face "light" long underwear bottoms (the same ones I've sweat in all week when I've jogged.  nbd.), a pair of studio pants (lounge pants) over them, a t-shirt, and my Eastern Europe 2004 long sleeve tee on top.  And I was still cold.  You can see your breath outside in the mornings now just to give you an idea (fyi: highs have been in the 70s, lows in the 40s or 50s lately).  Anywho, just had to have a pity party because as I sit here at 10 pm, I'm cold.  

In other news, a friend of mine visited K-grad today!!!!! It was gloriously fun to see Theo, whom I met at Camp Bereg.  I also got to spend a week with her at the environmental training I went to in Kiev (which I still have on my list of things to blog about.  give me a little more time...).  When I describe her to people, I often use the words, "I want to pick her up and put her in my pocket."  She's adorable...AND, she just chopped off 10" of her hair to send to Locks for Love.  

Her counterpart took tried to get the flower stands in the background...kinda missed.  

Theodorable :)

Theo lives in Smila which is about 2 hours north of me.  She went on a photo excursion a while back with another PCV in my city, Karin, and today was the day that the photo exhibit began featuring some of their pics.  So, Theo came to K-grad with 4 of her students in the 11th form (seniors) and her counterpart.

We ate at my new favorite pizza place in K-grad called Mania's.  Their veggie pizza (never thought I'd say those words) is to die for.

I'll leave you with one more Lydia factoid: The best news I've discovered lately is that I can go three days without showering.  Count it. 1. 2. 3!  I only do this when I haven't gone jogging.  However, since my apartment is fairly freakin' cold (refer to the beginning of the post), I FREEZE when I get out of the bath.  And actually, I freeze while I'm in the bathtub.  So, to discover that my hair can last for 3 days without having to get wet was a miracle.  Now, I'm in no room to complain because I actually have an incredibly luxurious PC set up which includes: hot water, running water, and a bathtub.  So, how do I go 3 days without shampooing?  Curls and a braid, which also conveniently fool Ukrainians into thinking I spent a lot of time on my hair.  I'll go more in depth on this discovery another day...just had to share the news :)

El fin!

P.S.  There is a cat meowing INCREDIBLY loudly outside in the hallway.  Totally normal in my life here.