Howdy,
It has been one month since my last post. I am starting to think once a month is enough. Ukraine now more or less feels like home so things that were once new and exciting are now normal which means there is not too much to blog about. Lately, I have been working more and more with a Donetsk organization in order to fill my time. The organization I work with in my community has not had much going on as of late which is probably because of summer so I have been trying to find other ways to keep busy. Right now we are analyzing how prepared Ukraine is for the Euro 2012 games. According to the gov, Ukraine is ready for the hundreds of thousands of foreigners that will venture into Ukraine for the 2012 football games (will take place in Kiev, Kharkiv, Donetsk, & Lviv) . I have not seen any changes take place so I find this hard to believe. Not to mention the fact that there are only a couple thousand beds available in hotels in Donetsk to accommodate an estimated 100,000 foreigners. There are also no systems in place to help people that don't speak Russian and if you don't at least know the Russian alphabet, you can't even ask about the names of streets or businesses. There will be plenty of work to be done and the organization I am working with has a few German volunteers (from a project that I helped write last year). It has been interesting to talk to the German volunteers about their experiences. One of the German volunteers speaks almost flawless Russian (far better than yours truly) and the other only knows a handful of words. The Donetsk organization has been sending the volunteer that does not speak Russian to various places in Donetsk to "test the system". She has had to go to the store to buy stuff, ask for directions, take public transport, buy tickets, etc... She posts her very humorous experiences on a blog - I will add her blog address later. It is funny to think about what will happen when Donetsk is flooded with foreigners.
Since my last post, I have turned the extremely old age of 27. ;-) I am just joking. I am by no means old but it is still hard to believe that I am 27! It seems like there is a chunk of my 20s that is simply missing. Maybe that is due to working at a desk for over 3 years with every min of every day planned. Or maybe, like my blog, as you get older you get more and more comfortable with life and you become desensitized to everything that was at one time "special or interesting" - causing life to simply fly bye. Who knows. Here I am 27 years old with a few gray hairs and already I am acting like some old philosopher. lol Anywho, I had my second birthday in Ukraine! It was nice. This time around I decided to be a little bit more social so I through a party for some of my Ukrainian friends. (remember that in Ukraine it is the birthday boy/girl's responsibility to throw their own birthday party). I did not invite any of my American friends which my Ukrainian friends thought was a bit weird. I am just not that into birthdays. I took my Ukrainian friends to a pizza place in town where we ate pizza, drank beer, and had a couple shots of vodka (in the spirit of tradition). It was a good time. My Ukrainian friends are awesome - there is still a language barrier but we make the best of it. I especially like the fact that the birthday boy/girl in Ukraine can call upon anyone at anytime to give a toast in their honor. After the pizza, we made our way to the park where we had beer, chatted, and listened to some nice guitar music. It was a nice end to a nice birthday and I am glad I have another year before the next one.
In 10 days my parents will be in Ukraine! This is going to be awesome. I have not seen my family for 15 months! It will be great to see them. I am going to meet them at the airport in Kiev where we will spend a couple days in Kiev visiting museums, exploring the city, and experiencing as much as we can in the short amount of time that we have. Then we will take an overnight train to my city where we will spend 3 full days in my community. I am excited to hear their impressions of Ukraine, the people, the food, and everything. I am sure they will like it. I am going to have them post an entry on this blog of their impressions. Then we will take another overnight train back to Kiev and then we will fly to Holland. This is going to be an amazing vacation. Once in Holland, we will be bicycling every day to a new location (~50 km per day). This will be an awesome opportunity to experience Holland's countryside. To say that I am excited is an understatement. I will be in Holland for over 2 weeks before returning to Ukraine. This summer will be deemed "The Summer of Traveling" because when I get back from Holland on July 9, I will be traveling to different cities in Ukraine on the weekends then in August I will be heading to Turkey for a week then Romania, Bulgaria, and possibly Moldova. Awesome. I will be pretty much out of vacation by the end of the summer though. It will be worth it.
Well, I can't think of anything else to post. I hope all is well everyone. I will try to post again before I leave for Holland. Take care.
Conor's Noteworthy Noteables:
1. Parents are visiting me in Ukraine!
2. Heading to another football game tonight with my site mate, the ballerina I met at the last game, and the German volunteers.
3. My Ukrainian friends gave me a traditional Kazak saber and a hookah for my birthday. Very nice.
4. I attended a "family business training" the other day. Family is extremely important in Ukrainian culture so it only makes since that there are more family businesses.
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