Important things to remember:

1. I’m not a very confident driver.

2. I refused to drive in Kyiv, therefore, I’m pretty out of practice.

3. They drive on the wrong left side of the road here.

4. To get to the grocery store from our house, you have to go through 4 roundabouts.

4a. I hate roundabouts (I have been known to go way out of my way just to avoid them.)

4b. See Number 3 – entering a roundabout from the wrong left side can be mind-boggling.

Add all of this to the fact that Bahamian drivers can be rather erratic, and I think you can see that this morning’s trip was quite an accomplishment for me.

The grocery store itself was not too bad today. I got there kind of early, which helped. Unfortunately, it was a bad produce day. I have never seen so many green tomatoes for sale. The trick here is that all the produce comes into the island on Thursday, so it’s best to shop late in the week. But I get the feeling that we get the Grade B produce, so sometimes it’s pretty sketchy. I have to remind myself that we hardly ever had fresh produce in Kyiv (I think Ukraine gets Grade X or something), so I shouldn’t be disappointed about having to go a week without here.

I can’t remember if I’ve said much about the grocery situation here. It’s pretty weird that we can get almost anything we would get in the US. Of course, you have to be willing to pay for it. The first few weeks I was obsessed with looking at the price of everything. I still find myself looking at all the prices, but I don’t freak out as much anymore. It’s typical to pay almost $4 for a half gallon of milk, or $5 for a bag of chips, or $6-7 for a box of cereal. But then some things are priced about the same as in the States, which is where it’s all coming from, of course. Very strange.

First of all, the most immediate sense of loss will be felt for our housekeeper, Alla. Just the idea that we would be able to have a housekeeper here was awesome in itself and then we lucked out and got the amazing Alla. She has not only cleaned our house and cooked us dinner, but more importantly, she has helped me hold on to my remaining bit of sanity in this crazy place. Granted, we have had our communication stumbling blocks, but between my shaky Russian and her ever-improving English, we’ve made it work. And she has gone above and beyond to help us out in many ways, particularly with Laika. And Laika LOVES Alla, bestowing upon her the most exuberant of tail-wags. (And when your tail is only an inch and a half long, it takes a great amount of exuberance to get that thing going.) Alla will be sorely missed by us all.

And now for the weird things I’ll miss:

Kiosks. When you spend a great deal of your time outside walking your dog (who is not allowed inside any stores), it’s nice to be able to simply walk up to a kiosk and purchase a soda, beer, chips, etc. And the fact that there’s one about every 2-3 blocks makes them more than convenient.

Juices. Kyiv has a crazy, crazy juice selection. Want orange juice? No problem. How about mango? Pineapple? Strawberry? Apple? Cherry? Banana? Lime? Grapefruit? Blood orange? Grape? Strawberry-banana? Orange-grapefruit? Aloe-kiwi-grape? Pumpkin-banana-carrot? Or my personal favorite, multivitamin? And that’s only about a third of what they have to offer.  The juice aisle at the store is twice as long as the soda aisle.

Cheap food. No, this does not always equal good food, but once you know what you’re doing, you can get a decent lunch for under $3. Hitting up the cafeteria-style restaurants at lunch time can be dangerous, but if you go at times when not every single Ukrainian in the neighborhood is there, you can feast for next to nothing. And when you know which street food stands are the best – namely the mlintsi stand at O’Panas in Shevchenco Park and the Kyiv Perepichka stand on Hemelnitskova Street – you can eat for even less.

The traveling salesman on the number 18 trolleybus. This guy amuses me every time I’m lucky enough to get on the bus he’s riding for the day. I actually recognize the sound of his voice as he starts his “My Dear Passengers” speech. Then he proceeds to pull out something cheap and probably pretty crappy and demonstrate just why everyone on the bus needs said item. One day it was a sweater de-fuzzer and he had actually brought along a sweater to show just how “well” it worked. Another time it was some sort of magic self-threading needles. (He worked those pretty fast, so I could never figure out quite how they worked.) And then he lets us all know just how affordable the item is – usually less than a dollar – and I’m constantly amazed at how many people actually make a purchase. But he’s not done yet. As interest begins to fade for his bargain-of-the-day, he pulls a supply of flashlights out of his bag. Everyone needs a flashlight! And what about tape? Or super glue? I have no idea what all this guy carries around with him, but I have a feeling that if you have a need for something, he’s going to be able to supply it.

So as you can see, I was not kidding when I said the list was short and weird. But on some many days, it can take something as small as a glass of tasty  juice or the lively demonstration of a sweater de-fuzzer to turn a really bad day into a tolerable one.

The Student Driver: This may look like a “Y” to the average American, but here it’s a Cyrillic “oo” and it means that the driver is a student. I’m not really sure exactly how long a driver is considered a student, but some days it seems like half the cars I see on the street have one of these stickers in the window.

The Female Driver: Yup. That’s really what it means. When I first saw one of these, I was totally disgusted and offended, but it definitely is a reality of Ukrainian life that it is totally acceptable to stereotype the sexes.

Baby on Board: This craze may have ended years ago in the US, but it’s still going strong in Ukraine. There are many different versions of this one – in English; in Russian; in Ukrainian; some even have Winnie the Pooh on them.

I’m not sure what to call this one, but it’s my personal favorite, as I feel it says a lot about what’s going through the minds of Ukrainian drivers. This (it’s a “sh” in Cyrillic for those of you keeping track) means that the car uses studded tires during the winter months. Which is supposed to let other drivers know that it will actually be able to stop on icy/snowy surfaces. In my thinking, this means that the majority of cars on the road are expected to slip and slide all over the place like a bunch of bumper cars. How inconvenient of some drivers to essentially turn their vehicles into brick walls on the road by equiping themselves to be able to stop on the ice.

No. That can’t be right.

Maybe they just don’t know what it is. (Not that I think that Ukrainians don’t know what penises look like – there’ s cartoon penis graffiti all over the city, for crying out loud. Just maybe they don’t understand the concept of novelty pasta that’s really only appropriate at certain events, like, say, a bachelorette party.)

Wait. They have to know what it is.

Oh my god. There’s penis-shaped pasta at the grocery store.

And as it sunk in, I started giggling like a 13-year-old. In the middle of the pasta section. (My apologies for lack of any sort of photo-documentation of this discovery. Gah! When I’m I going to figure out that my camera must be with me at all times?)

As if that weren’t enough silliness for the day,  there was still the bus ride home. A few blocks from my stop, the guy in front of me gets a phone call. I would describe this gentleman as being in his mid- to late-50s and dressed typcially for a Ukrainian male of that age – black leather jacket, conservative cap over his graying hair. He clearly wants to be taken seriously. But what comes blaring out of his cell phone when it begins to ring?

“It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette.

The juxtaposition of Pretty Woman‘s heartfelt ballad to my present situation – mashed into a sweaty, smelly, Ukrainian bus – is enough to again resurrect my 13-year-old self and send me into another fit of unstoppable giggles. Luckily, my stop was next, so I could escape the suspicious glares of my fellow bus-riders.

I’m planning on staying home for the rest of the day. I think I’ve had all I can handle.

But on a more positive note, I have a finished craft project to share. A few months ago, I stumbled upon this site with a crochet pattern for mini safety cones. My first thought was that they were the most adorable things I’d ever seen. And then I started reading about how people associate these orange cones with safety and protection. I realized that after a year and a half in Kyiv, my associations are totally different. Here, orange cones are either used to designate where one should not park – there’s absolutely no authority associated with this; it’s often business owners trying to keep cars off the sidewalks in front of their shops – or I’ve also seen them used by the traffic police as just another way to extract bribes. And I realized that Ukrainian orange cones would not be the happy-go-lucky cones that the pattern shows. They would be cranky…surly, even. And so I present to you, Surly Ukrainian Traffic Cones:

Aren’t they cute? In their own cranky post-Soviet sort of way?

The fabric store I ended up at was a rather large one that a friend of mine pointed out to me soon after we moved here. However, I remember thinking that all the fabric there was overpriced and had not made a trip back. Apparently after living here for almost a year and a half, my perception of “overpriced” has changed. I found quite a few things that I liked that weren’t terribly expensive. Granted, not JoAnn’s bargain section priced, but not too bad. But I was on a mission. And fabric/notion shopping here isn’t exactly a one-stop sort of experience, so here’s how it went down.

First I find the fabric. I haven’t a clue what it actually is, but it’s a little shiny, a good color, has good drape, and comes from Japan (that much I could read on the label). Then I figure out how to get the attention of the guy behind the counter. There’s no moving the sample piece from the wall, so I point frantically and say “this” repeatedly until he figures out exactly what I want. He asks me how much and I tell him 4 meters. (I think I bought way too much, but I forgot to take into account that I’m using a pattern from the 1940′s and apparently fabric wasn’t as wide back then? Oh well, maybe I can make a camisole out of the leftovers.) Then I pay him and head upstairs – which actually involves going outside – to look for notions.

I take my bag of fabric to the woman behind the thread counter. She takes it from me and picks out thread that matches. That’s right, there’s no touching of the thread. I have to say, she did an awesome job, though. I suppose if that’s what you do all day, you get pretty good at it. So I pay her for the thread.

Then I take my fabric and thread and head to the zipper counter. I again hand my fabric over and manage to say “I want a zipper, but I don’t want to see it.” (This was the closest I could come to saying “invisible zipper” with my limited Russian. She seemed to get what I meant.) She pulls out the closest colors they have and shows me that they don’t have an exact match. But she’s nice enough to explain that there is another store across the street that sells a wider variety of zippers. So I take my fabric back and head to where she’s directed me.

Turns out it’s another “All for Sewing.” And this one’s the size of a closet. So I figure out what zipper I need and then stand back to see what the procedure is here. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be one. So I push my way to the front and shout out what I need at the first available opportunity. My tactics work and my shopping is complete!

All of that took about an hour and a half. I’m so glad it went well, but I’m not sure if my nerves can handle another fabric shopping trip here any time soon. But that will give me a good excuse to “catch up” on buying new fabric when I get back to the US.

Last weekend we all took a trip to the Crimean Peninsula. We flew the unfortunately named Wizz Air, which allowed the four of us to fly for the price of one on the competitor’s airline, but being a budget airline it meant we did not have assigned seats. So the parents got to see just how pushy and obnoxious Ukrainians can be. Shawn and I impressed them by pushing our way far enough up to be in the second group allowed on the plane. (When in Rome, right?) That was only the beginning of our weekend experiences with Ukrainian transportation. We had several white-knuckle taxi experiences, including when our driver decided to pass a car while it was passing another car – on a two lane country road. And we checked out the bus stations in Sevastopol, Yalta, and Sudak – including their squat-toilet restrooms. (I thought they weren’t so bad, but my mother, having never been to China, did not agree.) Shawn did a good job describing the various locations we visited over the weekend, so I won’t describe it all here. But here are some photos:

The Khan’s Palace and Holy Assumption Monastery in Bahkchisarai

The “beach” in Yalta

The ruins of a Genoese fortress and the Black Sea in Sudak

Back in Kyiv, we did a tour of Pirogovo, which I had visited before, but it was nice to have an English guide this time. And we also took a walking tour of “Old Kyiv,” which happens to be the neighborhood we live in. Once again, our guide was great and pointed out a lot of things that I either had never before noticed or had no idea what it was. So I felt like I learned just as much as my parents. Our final adventure was souvenir shopping along “The Spusk.” Until my mother said, “Whoa, I need to catch my breath,” I had forgotten that my parents would not be used to the art of bargaining for souvenirs. But besides the first booth where she paid full price for everything, she did really well. It helped that we went at the end of a really hot day and the booth owners were desperate for sales at that point. I even managed to get myself a little something.

So now I would really like to know exactly what my parents have to say about Ukraine. Besides the fact that we’re crazy for living here. It will be interesting to see what stories they tell and what really left an impression on them. Maybe it will be that the police wear big hats. (Dad, I honestly don’t know why — maybe they have big heads?)

But how? One theory is that there is a day in every devushka’s life when she wakes up and is suddenly, tragically, a babushka. Her stiletto thigh-high boots have been replaced with ankle-high nylons and plastic house slippers; her breasts have shifted much too close to her waist; her Louis Vuitton handbag is now a plastic shopping bag filled with miscellaneous garbage; and, of course, her overly-dyed bleach-blonde hair is now back to its natural brown, streaked with grey, and tucked in a trademark babushka scarf.

I bring this up because I was a little worried that today would be that day for me — I am now (*gulp*) 30-years-old. Granted, I would not call myself a devushka — in Ukrainian terms, I tend to dress more like a middle-aged mother of three (that is to say, sensibly) — so I didn’t expect my downfall to be quite as extreme, but I have been feeling as of late that this birthday is more than just a number. I know, I know, I’ve always said that I wouldn’t be one of those people who gets all freaked out about turning 30, but now it’s here and it’s a little worrisome. Not that I feel any older, really, it’s just that I thought I would have things a little more figured out by now. That I would “have my shit together” as they say. And let me tell you, mine is all over the place.

This last year has been a pretty rough one for me. It goes well beyond culture shock and into the realm of having to do some serious work re-defining myself. Not an easy thing. But I’m getting there — I’m feeling better about who I am, the decisions I make, and where (literally and figuratively) that takes me. I feel like I still have a long way to go, but since I didn’t get things together for this milestone, now I have nothing but time until the next one. I’m sure I’ll have it all figured out by then…right?

Today is such a rainy day. Even Laika doesn’t want to leave the house. Every time we get to the bottom of the stairs and I throw the door open, she just looks up at me as if I’ve asked her to jump into a pit of hot lava. And then I’m forced to remind her that she’s the one that has to do her business outside and I’m the one that should be angry. At least she’s been calmer since Shawn decided to start her on a new diet. Throwing half a chicken down on the balcony and watching her chomp on it isn’t the most pleasant thing, but I feel like we’re already seeing some benefits. Most importantly, some calm time in the afternoon. There were days in the past she would literally be running circles around me while I stood screaming for her to please, for the love of god, just lay down. These were not good days. So the fact that she just went into the living room and laid herself down for a nap is pretty great.

I had a Ukrainian Life realization earlier this afternoon. I was working on cutting out a pattern for a summer dress, and our housekeeper came in and asked if it was from Burda. After I finally understood what she was saying (trust me, “Burda” with a Ukrainian accent is not easy to understand), I showed her the pattern envelope and said I bought it online. She looked confused and asked if the pattern pieces came out of the envelope as well. I suddenly realized that I have never seen individual sewing patterns here. So I asked her and she verified that the only patterns available are in Burda and one other magazine. How sad is that? To only have access to whatever patterns are printed in those two magazines each month? So then I pulled out my big box of patterns to show her how it works in America. She seemed to think our system was much better until I mentioned the difference in price. Burda magazine costs about $3 here and comes with about 30 patterns each month; my Amy Butler pattern was $11.95. Again life comes down to economics. But who can put a price on the memories I have of sitting in the fabric store thumbing through pattern books with my mom searching for my next great 4-H project? I’ll stick with the American way.

Yes, I’m probably a little too excited about this development. But just let me have the little things, okay? Somehow the fact that a coffee place has finally acknowledged that people might want to have coffee to go gives me hope that things are moving forward here. Slowly forward.