Speaking Tour...

That is what this feel like, at least. 3 speeches on 3 different topics in 5 days. I feel like I'm in Greenville.

I planned to leave Wednesday night on the train and arrive in Kyiv Thursday AM, have a nice day in Kyiv to prep some for our joint presentation at this Local Government and Public Policy Conference where we are presenting at tomorrow in Kharkiv, about a 6 hour train ride from here. Then I will take the train directly from Kharkiv to Kamyanets-Podilsky so we can both make presentations, me on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, we'll come back to Chernivtsi, I'll teach on Wednesday, and then hop on another overinght train to come back to Kyiv to get my Mom, Aunt, and cousin. Yay!

So I was feeling sort of stressed about these 2 speeches (the second one I'm giving a version of later in April and it will be published so it needs to be decent) and the fact that all methods of transportation are sold out around Easter. All of them. Planes, trains, etc. I've had to get very creative figuring out how to get my fam from Kyiv to Chernivtsi when my fam gets here. More on that later.

So yesterday (Wednesday) I woke up and was getting ready for class. I found out two days earlier that my second class would be cancelled. No problem. Then, yesterday, I got a call thirty minutes before my class telling me that I only had 45 minutes to teach today. OK.

It ended up being a crazy day for a variety of reasons. The name of the game in this country is flexibility. People don't seem to like to give too many details or plan too far ahead. I feel like the OCD uber-planner American asking questions like: And what time should I be there? And how long should I talk? Will there be a projector? Will someone be there to pick me up, etc.

So, back to Wednesday... I went to the travel agent after my half-class to buy some tickets right after my class and they were all sold out. Not good. I decided to squeeze in a quick workout before I got on the train. In the middle of my workout I get a call from the US Embassy in Kyiv. I had been emailing back and forth with them regarding a conference they've asked me to speak at in June and I had told them I would be in Kyiv on Thursday.

They have a great outreach program that arranges for American scholars to make presentations to a variety of different groups. They asked if I could give a talk on women's history to a group of young lawyers. I asked when and they said tomorrow (Thursday). I said yes. I can talk about women's history fairly easily, and they gave me great flexibility with my topic (since the group was a group of young lawyers I decided to talk about the 19th Amendment). I told Inna, the woman at the Embassy that I would only be in Kyiv for about 7 hours and it would be great to take a shower before my talk. She was great and said sure you can shower at the Embassy before your speech. Awesome.

So we get into Kyiv this AM, grab some breakfast, I work some more on my lecture and then we get into a cab to go to the Embassy. Cab driver takes us to the wrong place. Language communication issues. We end up at the Kyiv State Tax Administration Office. Thankfully one guard spoke some English and so I called Inna. Inna got the driver and they came to where we were. When they were on their way, I ran into a restaurant to take my hair out of a ponytail and to put some lipstick on. Traffic in Kyiv is really bad and we arrived at the college about 10 minutes later No one seemed bothered. I asked if they could print out my lecture. No, sorry. OK, guess I'll just follow on my computer. I ran into the bathroom to throw on my suit, walked out and directly into the classroom.

The talk went well, the group was small but attentive and asked good questions. I was really glad I had the chance to talk with them.

Afterwards, the driver took us back to the Embassy where we were able to finally shower and get some lunch. After hanging out a bit at the Embassy's library, a taxi driver came to get us to take us back to the train station for our 6 hour ride to Kharkiv.

A view from the train of Kyiv:

There is still some snow on the ground throughout the countryside.

Great day!