This was only the second excursion we’ve taken outside of Kyiv since we moved here. I know, it’s sad. We hopped on our minibus promptly at 9:30am on Saturday morning and headed west. The tour guide sat at the front of the bus and gave a tour of everything we passed on the way out of town. It’s at times like these that I realize I know pretty much nothing about Kyiv. But it’s interesting to learn - particularly about the history and architecture of the part of the city that sprawls from the center. And I feel like you can get a sense of what things are culturally important based on what the tour guide chooses to emphasize.

After about 40 minutes, we pulled off the main highway and started travelling through small villages on bumpy roads. It’s interesting to see how people really live here - I know enough about Kyiv to know that life in the city is definitely not the norm for the Ukrainian people as a whole. Our tour guide explained how in many of these villages, even though the farmers have been given their own individual plots of land, collective farming is still practiced because of high costs. Of course, every small house had a garden (instead of a yard, in most cases) and I was surprised to see that most of them had the really old-style wells, with a bucket and a crank to lower and raise it.

So after a total driving time of an hour, we finally reached the ostrich farm. And there were indeed a lot of ostriches. I find ostriches to be pretty creepy in general (although not as creepy as emus), so I was a little hesitant to get close at first. But they were not shy. And they knew there was a tour going on, so they turned on the performance. First we went past three different enclosures with adult ostriches living harem-style (yes, this is actually what our tour guide said) - two females with each male.

Then we got to the enclosures with the adolescent ostriches and that’s where things got a little crazy. These birds were clearly not as calm as the adults. In fact, they seemed pretty fired up and charged to the fence as we approached. People from our group started posing for photos in front of the ostriches. The ostriches seized this opportunity to start pecking the people. But no one really seemed to mind, so I assumed they weren’t pecking all that hard. At this point, one of the tour guides (we had two and an interpreter) grabbed my camera from me and motioned for Shawn and I to stand in front of the ostriches for a photo op. We slowly backed as close as we thought was safe to the fence and smiled at the camera. Apparently we got a little too close because an ostrich suddenly nipped at my shoulder, managed to get my bra strap, and snapped it hard. Hard enough that I screamed. Not cool.

It was time to move on. The babies (4 days old and 1 month old) were much easier to handle. They were actually really cute and it’s hard to believe that they grow up to be the huge birds that we saw at the beginning of the tour.

Then things got a little weird (Ukrainian-weird as Shawn and I have started calling it) when our tour guide announced that the next part of the tour would be through their “zoo.” Why would an ostrich farm have a zoo? Because it’s Ukraine. So we saw the pigs, goats, sheep, donkeys, camel, and assorted fowl next. My favorite statement of the entire tour came during this part. I kid you not, as we were looking at the goats, our interpreter said, “They used to have a goat that could smoke, but they gave it to the film studio in Kyiv.” Awesome. And so Ukrainian.

We finished up our tour by eating various dishes made of ostrich meat and eggs. We were told at the beginning of the tour that the ostriches on this farm were not used for meat, so in theory we weren’t eating any of the birds we had just seen. (Although if it was that one that snapped me, I might not have cared.) Then we were back on the bus and back to Kyiv. Just another Ukrainian adventure.

That’s right. Eight years ago today we were busy gettin’ hitched. What can happen in 8 years? Here’s a rundown:

We’ve lived at 5 different addresses — and were homeless for about 5 months (by our own choice).

We’ve owned 3 cars.

We’ve had a total of 7 pets. (I have to admit, we had a little trouble even remembering the names of our hermit crabs. Either we did something wrong, or hermit crabs don’t live very long.)

Together, we’ve been employed at 13 different jobs. 6 for Jennifer and 7 for Shawn.

We’ve visited and/or lived in 12 foreign countries together.

And still counting…

When I went to pull my apartment keys out of my bag, I found that the zipper I know I had closed before leaving the gym was now open. I truly hope that my shouts of “No, no, no!” on the stairwell echoed as dramatically in real life as they did in the ongoing drama in my head. Because I knew what I was going to find. Or not find as the case was. My wallet and cell phone were gone. Luckily, the (insert expletive here) jerk that took them didn’t have time to dig around in the pocket they were in and find the envelope containing 180 US Dollars. So all he got was about $15 in local currency. And my phone. My pretty T-Mobile pink with the orchid wall paper phone. With all my phone numbers in it. Grr.

I have to say that when you’ve reached the point where about 90% of your feelings about a place are negative, something like this does not help the situation. And I keep running through all the things I should have done differently. Why did I get on the stupidly overcrowded bus? I’m normally so overly aware of my surroundings - what happened this morning? And now I’m going to be in the monthly security report that’s normally full of all the dumb Americans I make fun of. Can I get that humble pie “a la mode”?

As a side note on Ukrainian culture: I find it amusing that in the article they mention that “Live and Let Die” received the biggest reaction along with it’s pyrotechnics display. I cannot even start to explain how much they love pyrotechnics here. Honest to god, there are fireworks in the city at least once a week - often just a few blocks from our apartment, where there happens to be a large open space. Before we moved here, our cat was absolutely terrified of fireworks. Now they start up on, say, a random Tuesday evening, and she doesn’t even flinch.

We did make it down to Maidan yesterday to see the leftover carnage from the concert. (There’s a lot of grass that needs to be replanted…I’m sure they’ll get right on that.) Apparently it was freak-show day on Kreshatik. Anybody with a saxophone, microphone, random carnival game, or gospel to spout had set up camp along the street. I managed to snap a couple photos to share:

There’s nothing quite like a pudgy juggler. He should have shelled out the money for a clown costume - it seems appropriate. When we walked up he had started trying the trick where he would stop juggling and freeze in place until someone dropped money in his bucket. A common technique of street performers in the US, however, here the crowd just started wandering off, confused. We also wondered what the caricatures around his platform were all about. Perhaps if the juggling wasn’t going well, he would do your picture?

Captain Jack here had quite a crowd gathered. I was disappointed for a second time this weekend when I got close enough to see that it wasn’t actually Johnny Depp. The next thing I noticed was the funny little zebra car he was standing next to. (Can you see the tail? I didn’t even notice that part until I uploaded the photos!) I’m not really sure how he and his gear could fit into such a small car. Or how far he could get in it. We listened to him until a couple of police officers showed up and made him stop. From what we could understand, they told him that he couldn’t be in the street. But as I mentioned, there were tons of other performers in the street. My guess is that, as is unfortunately often the case here, the Captain was a little too dark and ethnic-looking for the comfort of the officers. Wouldn’t want the freak show to get too freaky - there are comfort zones to think about.

Other random things seen on our walk: a saxophone player, playing “My Heart Will Go On” accompanied by what seemed to be a karaoke CD; a guy shouting some sort of religious dogma - it appeared a group of teenagers were preparing to beat him up as we walked by; the world’s worse caricaturist; a test of strength game; and two different knock-over-a-stack-of-bottles games (prize: $2 bottle of champagne!). It definitely had the feel of an impromptu carnival. It was, in a word, weird.

And summer means strawberries. According to the Health Unit, we are not actually supposed to eat these, but how can I be expected to resist when they’re being sold on every street corner? And I’ve had 30 good years…who knows, maybe a little leftover nuclear radiation will make me stronger. I’ll be unstoppable!

I know it’s hard to believe, but here’s some photographic evidence of exactly what our little ball of fur has turned into in just one year’s time: