Monday

Today I woke up early, read the next to last chapter in Fast Food Nation, and then fell back asleep.


We packed some more, engaging in the usual deliberations about what to keep and what not to take with us. The big event of the day was our last trip to the train station to buy tickets. The Embassy needed to know all the details of our travels so we decided to go ahead and get the tickets. On the way to the train station we stopped at Potato Hut, again, for lunch. We order the same thing ever single time we are there (cheese, chicken, zaleny/green sauce, and pomodor/tomatoes) but what we get is different every time. Sometimes it is hot, sometimes cold, so it keeps things interesting.

Then we walked down the hill to the train station. Of course the last time that I have to do this is the easiest. We waited in line, and when I started to talk to the lady, this nice guy heard me speaking my very choppy Ukrainian, and asked if he could help. Absolutely you can! So I told him what we needed (tickets to Kyiv, then from Kyiv to Simferopol, then from Simferopol to Kyiv) and he helped order all of them. Awesome. He is just one of many people who, when they hear me struggling and they speak English, offer to help. So many people here have been so kind.

Here I am, writing down the details so I could show it to the womanbehind the window, before I knew I would have help.

Here I am making sure we buy chotiri billets in oden cabin.

We bought the tickets and proceeded back up the very long hill. I don’t like this walk bc I don’t like this part of town. There is nothing good to look at while walking, and the hill is very steep. Of course the woman walking in front of us was doing it in jeans that were like a second skin on her and 4 inch black heels. Not joking.

In front of the City Hall, all of Chernivtsi’s sister cities have a little plot. We saw Suceava, Romania, and several other cities in Poland and in Germany. Then we saw Chernivtsi’s only American sister city, Salt lake City!

We went to Olga to buy some gifts. I bought a small hand sewn cloth that has Chrystos Voskres sewn on it for my Easter basket, and also bought some cocktail napkins with traditional Ukrainian stitching and colors on them.

Then I went to workout. Good workout. I really will miss Ace. I will miss the blasting Russian pop music and how nice the people have been, especially the guy who works there who seems to have a 7 day per week job at that gym. He doesn’t speak English, and he writes my name KORTNI on my blue paper gym pass. After working out I talked with Tatiana, the tennis instructor. She has been emailing with some folks at a university in South Carolina, she tells me.

On the walk back from the gym, I continued to notice some of the street signs. Earlier in the day I saw that the street heading to the train station is named after famed Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin. That guy was a serious hero in the USSR. On the walk home I walked on a street named for Alexander Pushkin.

Tonight I cooked salmon with grits. We are trying to go through the many packages of grits my family brought to me.

Another good day!