I flippin' LOVE Sephora

I'm pretty sure I've always (really really) loved Sephora, but I think I love them an extra lot today since it feels like somewhat of a miracle that they could send my favorite makeup all the way to Ukraine. And not only did they send my makeup, they sent me 3 free samples - two perfumes and some eyebrow powder... I mean, hello. I love that place.

I'd go as far as to say that there's nothing like new makeup to make a girl feel really excited about life. Ok, maybe some new shoes, but I'd have to sell my first born in order to buy a pair here.

It's SPRING, hooray!!

The weather has been so beautiful recently. And I cannot begin to explain how much I appreciate it. After months of gray dreariness, it feels like heaven. I live for sunshine.

Traci and I went for a five hour gander the other day with the two littles and took lots of pictures of the cathedrals we see regularly. I adore the churches here - they are so ornate and beautiful. Then Annie and I went out all day yesterday through what felt like every part of the city. And we took enough pictures to prove it. It feels so good to get out and walk. And it's good to finally see the city in a different light.

Can I just say again that I LOVE springtime? It's just so.... hopeful.

our cathedral up close

the Pakrovski convent

St. Andrew's cathedral

a view of the gold domes of the Lavra

WWII monument

I just love views like this

the kissing bridge - people come here to kiss, attach a lock, and paint their initials on... how cute is that? I mean, when you have someone to kiss of course

a cleaning crew comes once a year and cuts all the locks off and repaints the bridge but before the year is up it's full again

the cleaning crew was there yesterday, so I'm glad I got some pictures... (I LOVE my sister's camera, btw)

Kiev from the top

the Arch of Friendship

what can I say? springtime in Kiev makes me feel this way...

Annie in the wind. I love catching candid moments....

this is my Ukraine.... the Maidan (city square), Kiev

I had to.... because I'm a cheese puff.

this says "stop drinking," which is hilarious considering we are in the land of excessive vodka consumption and public drunkenness

Gifts of the Sea

One of the many things I have noticed since being here is that Ukrainians love seafood.

I mentioned in my truly Ukrainian adventure post that I ate a lot of fish when I went home with my friend Annie. And by a lot, I mean it was part of a meal (or more than one meal) everyday. I also posted pictures of the frozen seafood bins at Mega Market in my Notes on Ukraine post. One of my favorite things is the individual street vendors that sell fish laid out on plastic bags outside the Metro stops. And the vast array of "fresh" fish arranged artfully on beds of lettuce (with dead staring eyes) behind the glass in the meat section at the grocery never ceases to amaze us.

So yesterday when we were out walking, Traci suggested that we go to дари моря (Dari Morya or "Gifts of the Sea"). It's a grocery store where you can get little else but fish and other sorts of sea life. You could smell it a block away - that oceany seafood smell, sort of how Pike's Place Market smells in warm weather. Along every wall in the square-shaped market was glass casing where fish of every kind was arranged and on display for everyone to see. We walked along and looked at all the sizes, shapes, and kinds of seafood that they had available. I have never seen so many different kinds of fish in one place. (Except maybe at Pike's Place Market...)

Anyway, we were just walking along, minding our business and having a good look at all the fish when we came to a long line of people that were standing next to these huge tanks of fish. So we stood behind the last lady in line to see what everyone was waiting for and as I glanced over her shoulder, I witnessed one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen...

There was a man with a net that was catching fish from this giant tank (that, by the way, was so packed that the fish could hardly swim around) and tossing them into a pair of crates that were up on the counter. Then there was a woman that was taking the fish out of the crates and bagging them (still very much alive and flailing around) as people picked the ones they wanted. After she bagged them, she handed them to the men who were working in the small room behind her. What were they doing in that room, you wonder? Oh, I'll tell you what they were doing in there... They were slamming the fish against the counter top to kill them! And if they didn't die after one or two hard slams, they would lay them on the counter and take a big rubber mallet and beat them dead. Yep, you heard me.

But that's not even the worst part... After they beat the fish to death, they held them by the tail and de-scaled them. They had these metal grater things that they were running up the fish's body, against the grain of their scales, and rubbing all their scales off. Not only did it sound like staples flying around in a blender, but there were scales flying everywhere.

I'm usually pretty good at the dead-pan face when there are things that shock me. I mean, I've walked past the street vendors selling rolls of pig fat, skinned rabbits, fish, blood sausage, and various kinds of panties and I've been able to keep my jaw from dropping. But yesterday as we stood in that line of eager fish-buyers, I could not hide my shock. Apparently Traci turned around to say something to me at one point, and my eyes were like saucers and my mouth was hanging wide open. I'm pretty sure that was when people realized were were from "out of town" because then everyone started looking at us. The seemingly inconspicuous shots I was trying to take with the not-so-inconspicuous Nikon could have been the giveaway too, but I don't know.

Anyway, it was quite the experience. One that I will probably never forget, no matter how much I'd like to... I left thinking two things: 1.) How do people eat the fish that they just watched get bludgeoned to death before their eyes? and 2.) I can think of a lot of other "gifts of the sea" that I'd enjoy much more.

The over-crowded tank of fish

Spring Reading Thing 2010

Since I love to read so much (and since I'm on the topic of reading - sorry for my endless blog posts on the matter), I've decided to join an online reading challenge.

The reading challenges are hosted by a lady named Katrina who has a cute blog called Callapidder Days. She blogs about her life, her family, her faith... and books. Twice a year she hosts a reading challenge - once in the fall and once in the spring - so you can join and make goals for the books you want to read over a three month period. It really is a pretty fun idea - you should do it too!

Traci has joined the challenge a couple times and she is the one that turned me on to it. She has always been my example when it comes to reading - she used to read to me at night when she was a teenager and I was clueless kid, and although I didn't understand half of what she was reading to me most of the time (or why on earth is she crying about this book?...), I always thought it was so cool that she read so much because I knew that smart people read a lot. She has always inspired me to love books. (And just for the record, I have since read Charlie's Monument, the book that I remember her crying in and I cry every time I read it. And I've read it quite a few times.)

Her list is always so diverse and has books from well-known and classic authors (hello... C.S. Lewis and Leo Tolstoy?), so I feel a bit silly about some of the books I read on a regular basis. I'm all cheesy love story and random and she's all classic literature and deep. It's clear that literature is her forte. However, most of the books that I have read recently are ones that she has read as well since I am reading from her library. And I feel pretty good about that. For those that I don't finish here, I will (thankfully) be able to rent from the library back in Arizona...

I'm still working on my "reading while roaming" goal - the 12 books I wanted to read while I was abroad (that I'm keeping track of on my goodreads) - but since it is only a quantity goal and not a specific book title goal, I thought I could overlap the two and just continue reading forever... I love the idea of it.

Anyway, enough of all that. Let's get to my list for the Spring Reading Thing 2010:

Wait, a quick preface to my list: I decided on 8 books... I will be back in the States and job searching (and hopefully working a secure 40 hours a week) before this reading challenge is over, so I'm trying to be realistic. Otherwise, I probably would have gone for ten or more... :)

1.) Austenland, Shannon Hale - I just started this one. Traci just finished it and since I am an Austen lover, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

2.) Shadow of The Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon - All murder mystery and intrigue... not my usual pick for a good read, but I'm trying to be diverse. Plus I heard it was good, so I think this will be my I-must-have -a-book-on-the-beach for Portugal.

3.) The Venetian Mask, Rosalind Laker - I liked her book To Dance With Kings so I think I will really enjoy this one. Plus it's set in Venice... need I say more?

4.) A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini - I missed the band wagon when this and The Kite Runner were being read by the masses, but I think it's high time that I read at least one of them. The Kite Runner will be on my next list...

5.) Wicked, Gregory Maguire - I loved the Broadway (if it still counts to call it that when I actually saw it in London...) and I loved another book of his called Confessions of a Wicked Stepsister so I thought it would be fun to read it. Also, Traci really liked it - what more convincing do I need?

6.) Emma, Jane Austen - This is my favorite movie of all time (Gwyneth Paltrow is my idol), but I am embarrassed to admit that I have never read the book. Even more embarrassed since in the first book on my list I claimed to be "an Austen lover"...

7.) Persuasion, Jane Austen - Digging myself in even deeper..... I haven't read this one either. It's time.

8.) Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen - Perhaps my only redeeming quality when it comes to being such an Austen lover - I read half of this book in college. I know half doesn't really qualify me for much, but at least it's something, right?

Anyway, I'm excited to have another goal to add to my list of goals... It's nice to have things to work towards!

HAPPY SPRING!! And happy reading!

So, as it turns out, I really like to read.

I know I've posted about this before, but I just had to mention that I have almost reached my I-hope-to-read-12-books-while-I'm-abroad goal...

I just finished reading number nine; a book called A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg, the author of a recipe-filled and fabulously witty blog called Orangette, which I like to wander to once in a while.

Traci told me about Orangette a while back and then ordered Molly's book from Amazon (our FAVORITE place) a couple weeks ago. She read it and then passed it on to me. And I L-O-V-E'd it. Her stories are fabulous and her writing is so vivid and witty, I couldn't hardly put it down. For any of you who like to cook (or like me, like to think they like to cook...), it should be your next read. Seriously. I laughed out loud several times, I BAWLED at one part, and I adored her stories and recipes. It was a seriously satisfying read.

Anyway, I'm on to Austenland next, which I hope will not be a let down... After that, I hope to start in on the real Jane Austens (since the only one I've read - or partially read - is the first half of Pride and Prejudice in college). So Emma, Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense & Sensibility are on their way from Amazon as we speak... Yay!

Really, what I should be doing is, I don't know, exercising...

Houston, we have a problem.

I think I have an eating disorder. How do I know? Well, let me just tell you - I cannot. Stop. Eating.

This isn't really a new development, but I do a lot more sitting around than I usually do so I guess it's just a lot more noticeable. In fact, I do so much sitting around that my butt has really started to hurt and my left hip has become unusually sore from leaning over the arm of the couch to be on my computer which sits on the end table. But not only is my butt feeling sore, I'm pretty sure it's getting bigger.

It really is a problem. A big one. (No pun intended.)

So after much contemplation, here's my top eleven (ten just didn't cover it) on how you (aka, me) know you have an eating disorder:

11.) When you're not sitting on your bum on the couch, you're in the kitchen scrounging around for something to eat. With not a lot of anything else in between.

10.) You eat three bowls of cereal for breakfast and then sit there contemplating having another.

9.) You have a Twix and a glass of Sprite mixed with peach juice (yum) twenty minutes after your fourth-bowl-contemplation.

8.) 10:30 rolls around and you wonder if it's lunch time yet.

7.) When it finally is time for lunch, it consists of half a peanut butter and honey sandwich, half a bag (full size) of potato chips, two glasses of really thick strawberry-banana juice, a chicken tamale with sour cream and salsa (because the sandwich, chips, and juice just wasn't enough), a fruit roll-up, and three Twizzlers (because you need something sweet to wash down the savory).

6.) You justify everything you eat.

5.) You eat so much rice and stir-fry for dinner that you feel like you are going to blow up (which could partly be blamed on the pre-dinner Sun Chip snacking you did) and then you empty the rest of the rice into a cereal bowl, pour some cinnamon, sugar, and milk on it and help yourself to a second little dinner.

4.) You have a secret stash of Jolly Rancher lollipops, Dolci chocolate, and Haribo coca-cola gummies (not to be specific or anything) in the drawer next to your bed that you eat when no one is looking.

3.) You tell everyone how exciting it will be to have American food again when in reality you can get all the American food you want at the Embassy Commissary. In fact, you consume more sugary American goodness than you ever do living in the states.

2.) You eat a handful of chocolate chips and then take a bite of a Nutter-Butter and enjoy way too much the taste of them together and chew extra slow as to not miss a single moment of the sweet union you've just created in your mouth...

and

1.) The Wii takes it upon itself to add visual weight to your Mii character by adding a few inches to the waistline and making the tiny little t-shirt bulge a little, exposing a bit of pudgy tummy skin.

Hopefully I'm recognizable when Averi comes to get me at the airport in a couple months- what with my increased BMI and brunette hair, it might be kind of difficult.

Schizophrenic weather is not my favorite.

I share a room with my nearly 3 year old nephew Charlie who wakes up every morning around 7 or 7:30 and whispers across the room to me, "Aunt Jo, I want out..." So I roll out of bed, get him out of his crib, send him out the door to find his dad, and then crawl back in bed and go back to sleep.

But this morning Charlie woke up extra early - before anyone else was up. I could hear him rustling around in his crib so I looked at my clock and saw that it was only 6:30. So I whispered, "Charlie... it's really early.... nobody's awake yet." And he said, "But it's morning - look," and pointed at the ceiling where streaks of sunshine were coming through the small cracks in the window and illuminating the room. And I knew there was no way to prolong getting him out.

So I stumbled out of bed, put a blanket around my shoulders and came out to the living room with him to watch cartoons until someone else woke up. And strangely enough, I wasn't grumpy about the fact that it was really early and I was not in bed. Why? Because the sun was shining. There are few things that can make me as happy as sunshine can. I walked into the kitchen and it was so bright and beautiful outside that it hurt my eyes and I had to squint. The cathedral's domes were glowing bright gold from the rising sun and it was hard to look straight at it. And it made me happy. Yep, today is going to be a good day, I thought to myself with a satisfied smile.

So I went back to my bed after Traci came into the living room to be with Charlie and I went back to sleep for a few hours feeling very warm and happy about the sunshiny day that lay ahead.

And then I woke up to this:

What would be really great is if it would just make up it's mind. No more of this oh-yay-it's-getting-warm-maybe-spring-is-on-its-way...-no-wait-it's-definitely-not-spring-cause-it's-still-snowing-like-crazy-outside business. I mean, it's the middle of March - let's just get on with the sunshine and butterflies already. I'm ready for a little more brightness and a lot less dreary. And definitely less snow.

All I have to say is thank goodness for bright yellow daffodils and the prospect of Portugal...

a truly Ukrainian adventure

So, I have a new friend. Her name is Anya, Annie for "short." I met her at church when I first got here five months ago but we have just recently started hanging out and getting to know each other. She is a doll and her life is full of fascinating stories. She took me home with her last weekend and I had a true Ukrainian experience - outside of the city.

She lives in a little town called Romny which is about four hours (on the bus) north of Kiev. The two biggest attractions there are the train station (where both her parents work) and the bread factory that makes bread all day long, seven days a week. Whatever part of the town you are in, you can smell fresh baked bread in the air. Ukrainians love their bread.

My first experience in Romny was getting stuck in the ice on one of the back roads that led to Annie's house. A family friend of hers, Vanya, picked us up from the bus station in his tiny little car and got stuck, nose down in an 8 inch deep tire track. So we got out of the car, tied a rope to the back bumper and pulled with all our might. No dice. So we pushed. And we dug at the ice, and we pushed again and pulled again. And it still didn't budge. So we looked at the stars for a while (which were amazingly visible outside of the city) and then Annie and I walked the rest of the way home. Another car eventually came and helped pull Vanya out of the ice and he was able to bring our suitcases home. Normally getting stuck and having to exert physical effort like that would have been irritating, but strangely all I could do was smile.

I don't even really know how to explain the time I spent there. Everything was just so adorable. Her parents have lived in the same little house for some thirty years and have just recently done some work on it to make it more modern and put in indoor plumbing. Her grandma lives in the house next door, and happens to be the cutest babushka I have ever seen. They make all their food from scratch and they don't waste anything. And they are always eating yet stay in good shape from all the walking they do. They walk everywhere. Even the oldest, frailest people.

Annie and I rode the bus for two hours (one way) on Sunday to get to church. The closest church is in Sumi and in order to get to church on time we had to wake up at 6, be ready to leave by 6:45, walk twenty minutes to the bus stop, buy tickets, and be ready to board the 7:20 bus. When it dropped us off two hours later in Sumi, we had to catch a local city bus that dropped us at the corner by the church and made it in time for our 10 o'clock meeting. It was a Russian-speaking branch so Annie translated for three hours for me, the doll. All I could think about the whole time was how amazing Annie is that she would go to so much trouble to get to church every time she is home visiting her family. And how grateful I am for the church building that is literally up the street from my house in Arizona. It really put things into perspective for me.

Above all the other experiences I had over the weekend, the experience of eating the food was the best. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a seafood lover. And we had fish every day for the four days we were there. But surprisingly enough, the fish was one of the easier things for me to swallow. I wouldn't say that I am a picky eater, because I like a wide variety of food, but I guess you could say that I'm pretty particular about what I eat. There are some things I have eaten all my life that sometimes gross me out because it doesn't matter what it is, if I think about it too much, I just can't do it. And it's not fair to say that things are "gross" because it's not really true. Food is is just one of those things - it's all relative. Having said that, I'm going to list the things I ate because, well, I'm pretty proud of myself for trying them. (And just for the record, there were a lot of things that I really really enjoyed.)

• Salo - thick, white pig fat.... nuff said.
• Borscht - traditional Ukrainian stew, that I usually l-o-v-e, but this one had SARDINES in it. Gulp...
• Fish with tomato and onion sauce. I don't know what kind of fish it was (neither did they...) but it was good. Besides the fact that it still had bones and skin! Eek.
• Blinchiki - little miniature pancakes made with flour, eggs, sugar, raisins, and kefir (a fermented milk). We dipped these in jam and they were pretty tasty. As long as I wasn't thinking about the fermented milk.... :)
• Plov - rice in oil with chopped carrots... one of my favorite Ukrainian dishes. This one had chicken in it (I couldn't think about what parts of the chicken were in there, but it was good....)
• Blini - Ukrainian pancakes, similar to crepes. We had some with a cottage cheese/egg mixture and some with sauteed meat and onions. De-licious. The best part about these though is that I learned how to make them!
• Pashdet - liver, carrots, and salo fed through a meat grinder and made into a paste and covered with butter to spread over bread. Um, again, too much thinking.
• Fried, battered fish. Good, even though it was the WHOLE fish - tail, bones, and all.
• Smoked fish. Uh, no le gusta - this one's head was still attached.
• Vyinigret - quintessential Ukrainian salad made with chopped beets, potatoes, pickles, carrots, peas, and whatever else you want to add... Love it.
• Olevye - salad made with boiled eggs, mayonnaise, peas, white beans... It was pretty good.
• Stuffed peppers - red bell peppers stuffed with meat, rice, and onions. My mom made something similar when we were growing up and I love them.
• Kolbasa domashna - homemade sausage made with different kinds of meat and big chunks of salo... not my fave.
• Cabbage salad - salad made with cabbage. And apples, carrots, walnuts, cucumbers, and raisins. Super tasty!
• Piroshki - bread balls stuffed with cabbage or potatoes or peas and deep fried. Mmmmmm.... so good!
• Zapikanka - cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, rice, raisins all baked in a casserole dish and served warm with sugar sprinkled on it. It was.... interesting...
• Napoleon cake - layers of baked dough with a bavarian creme type of filling. Delicious.
• Compote - one of the only non-alcoholic Ukrainian drinks (kidding...). It's cherries and apricots and whatever other fruit soaked in water with a little bit of sugar. They drink it all the time - at room temperature. It's interestingly good.

* I don't know how to spell most of these things in English so I just went ahead and made up the spelling... just fyi.

Yeah, that was a long list of food. But seriously, the majority of my time with Annie was spent eating. Monday was Women's Day - a huge holiday in all former Soviet countries where they celebrate (and drink to) all women - and we celebrated all day. And by celebrate, I mean eat. And eat. Lots. Of. Food. I literally felt like I was going to explode. More so than I ever have on Thanksgiving.... and that's saying something.

Living in the city you don't get a lot of that "true" Ukrainian experience because it's all apartment complexes and bad driving and lots of people. I mean, don't get me wrong - it's still a great cultural experience. But going home with Annie gave me some good insight to how most people grow up here. I learned a lot about her and her family and I had a great time watching them interact with each other. And I did so many things I never thought I'd do. I had my first "hole in the ground" bathroom experience at a bus stop on the way. I sat on the kitchen floor with Annie and learned how to crack and empty walnuts and I learned how to make blini. I squatted in the bottom of the bathtub and sprayed myself to get clean. I watched a movie in Russian while Annie told me what was going on and I ate sardines and liver. I ate lots of fish.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it was something I will never forget. I loved every minute.

Romny

I liked this little gazebo

For the love of salo!

We got flowers for Women's Day at church... aww

Sumi... Brrrr

Me & Annie and a pretty church - city square in Sumi

To keep the street dogs out?

All the vendors on the street selling flowers for Women's Day

Having ice cream... What?

Annie's adorable grandma - making piroshki

Annie's family friends, Vanya & Eira - love loved them!

The Women's Day feast!

Annie's mom Tanya, dad Tolya, Vanya, Eira, and me - they were the best.

Feast #2 at grandma's house... Annie's grandma, aunt, cousin, cousin's husband, and kids

How I felt about the fish...

Leaving Romny and meeting the taxi at the end of the road because he refused to drive on the "back roads" - yep, that's Annie's mom pulling a sled with the suitcase on it.... classic

Good times.