Friday

I bought this fun, cheapo watch on my first visit to Kalina Market with Veronica and Andriy, and it broke recently. It will always remind me of my time here.

I forgot to mention that Jeff made a mammoth bowl of varenyky with sauteed onions and cauliflower for dinner last night (and lunch the next few days).

Speaking of lunch, I forgot to mention that on Wednesday, I took a package of Lance peanut butter crackers and a Diet  Pepsi with me for lunch. Mom brought a few packages of the crackers with her. As I sat there and had my lunch between my classes, I was reminded of the stories Mom has told me about how she used to have the exact same thing for lunch when she was teaching before I was born. I enjoyed my lunch all the more because of that memory. And now, I will enjoy the memory of my lunch. I only drink soft drinks a few times a year, but I will drink them even less now after reading Fast Food Nation!

Today (Friday) was a bit more eventful than others this past week. I’m still not feeling great, so working out is still several days away.


I started reading the book I reference above, Fast Food Nation, last night and became completely engrossed in it. Around 2:30, my usual going to bed time around here, I closed it to go to sleep, but as soon as I woke up I started reading again.

We went to Potato Hut for lunch around 3. They have good burritos, and aside from the "kissadias" at Reflection, is the only place in town that has anything remotely Mexican.

 Then, we saw that there were some tables and umbrellas set up in the square. The on e thing I thought I would do today was get out to read a book if it was nice, so this looked like a great thing to do. We had both brought books just in case.

We got some coffees, sat outside on a Friday afternoon, and read. Occasionally I looked around at the action. I enjoyed listening to the accordion player. The accordion is big here.

I’m sick of espresso. It is too strong and too little. They don’t have skim milk here, at least not when you order kava, so I try to drink it black as often as possible. I may have to go with some kava Americano with molokom a few times.

There are two smells that I think will always remind me of Ukraine, maybe three, now that I think about it.

The first is trash. I have to pass at least one and sometimes two, depending on my path, trash drop off on the side of the street whenever I go anywhere. There are usually stray dogs loitering and someone digging though the trash. Oftentimes the person digging through the trash is nice looking…a woman in a suit, with a purse, etc. I just cannot figure it out. Today, Jeff left a pair of shoes at the very top of the dumpster, hoping someone would take them and use them. We passed that same dumpster less than 3 hours later, and sure enough, those shoes were gone. I’m not sure if a man who needs shoes got them, or some babushka is going to clean them and resell them. Regardless, I hope they help someone.

The second is the smell of yucky feet. That is a remnant from my Lviv-Chernivtsi train experience.

Finally, the smell of burning paper will remind me of Ukraine. We used to light newspaper. Then we ran out, so now we use paper. The smell of burning paper gives me a serious headache. The virtue of burning paper as opposed to newspaper is that, while it doesn’t hold the flame as easily, it also doesn’t burn so quickly, and the flame doesn’t grow as big. Thus, the controlled explosion that occurs when the flame hits the natural gas is smaller. I think I would have become more comfortable with the heaters at an earlier time if I had started off using paper and not newspaper.
After we returned from a brief stop at the market, I decided to take a photo of things we have in the kitchen here in Ukraine. Just one of many reminders of my daily life here.

Friday night we went to Pizza Park for dinner. I had pizza with chicken, corn, mushrooms, cheese, and tomato sauce. I enjoyed sitting outside. The German restaurant across the street was busy. Maybe I’ll give it another shot sometime.