Happy New Year, Ukraine Style!

I can't believe that Christmas, my birthday, and New Years have all come and gone in a week. It was a whirlwind of days with so many different celebrations I had trouble keeping my memory cards empty to document things!! That's a good thing though in my books.  I just got home from Kiev today in the late afternoon after staying up late and welcoming in 2012 with about 15 Peace Corps Volunteers...in addition to all of Kiev. 

The New Years tree in Kiev...they don't have Christmas trees in Ukraine.  I believe they call a New Years tree a "yolka."

Kym!

In true Ukrainian style, Kym and I rocked bright tights for NY2012.  I went with teal, while Kym went with purple. 

Cluster/link-cluster love.  Lydia, Kym, Matt, and Mary-Kathryn.  During this photo session, there was not one picture (on my camera at least) where we were all looking at the camera.  Typical Oster/Kozelets group pic.

I took a marshrutka into Kiev early Saturday morning, only to have my ceremonious McDonald's fries upon arrival :)  After some time at the PC office (where I snagged a full bottle of free hair spray in the volunteers room where people can put things they don't want/need anymore), the big group of us headed to our respective hostels/apartment to get ready for the evenings activities.  A late lunch was found in a cafe with a few brews to match.  I had a lovely veggie sandwich with feta spread, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers.  After hanging out for a while, we decided it was time to get going.

Kym, Matt, Simon, Lydia, and Chris in the front

I went to Kym's hostel with her to curl her hair in prep for the fun evening ahead of us.  Then it was off to the apartment I was staying at with other PCVs where one of them was preparing a lovely feast of eggplant parmesan with spaghetti.  It was to die for and makes my mouth water now thinking about fixing it again soon!

I am almost a full head taller than Kym.  Especially in heels...

I could not have asked for a better or more memorable New Years celebration.  We headed to the center where they had a giant stage set up for performers and a huge fireworks display.  I have video of the fireworks show, which rivaled Disney's nightly fireworks display, and was definitely one for the books.

Matt, Kym, Lydia

Can't believe how quickly 2011 came and went...with 9 months of it spent in Ukraine!  I will hopefully be updating the blog a lot the next week, trying to play catch-up from things that I have yet to blog about that were 3 or 4 months ago...whoops :(  I am in the process of transferring all of my older pics on my laptop to two external hard-drives (to be double backed up! so OCD, I know) at the moment.  I finished A-D tonight, which included over 5000 pics.  Some are from 5 years ago, which make me very excited to have some fresh material to blog about for Way-Back-Wednesday posts.

Here's to the next year of my life in Ukraine.  Happy New Year America and с Новым годом Украина! I have much to be thankful for now and for the past year.  Can't wait to see what the next year holds :)