Spring finally arrived in Kyiv late last week. All the signs are there: mid-day public drunkenness, gratuitous makeout sessions on public park benches, and, of course, the return on the summer-length skirts.
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One month from today will be my last full day in Kyiv. Wow. There were some moments in there where I wasn’t sure I would survive long enough to make that statement. As challenging as the last two years have been, there is a list (albeit a short, weird one) of things that I will miss when I leave. Well, I’ll miss them in 5 or 6 years, when the memories of the daily struggles have faded and everything surrounding Kyiv has that glow of “our first overseas post.”
So far, this winter has been much colder than last winter. If I’m trying to be positive, that means that it’s also been a lot sunnier and snowier than last winter. Which is good. (Trying to hold on to the good here…) Anyway, today, being very cold, started out with snow flurries and then the sun broke through. I’ve been trying to come up with a new photo for my header anyway, so the camera went with me today - first on my walk with Laika and later when I travelled to a friend’s apartment. Of course, my fingers quickly froze as I tried to get the perfect photo, but here are the results:
Somehow this morning I forgot that New Year’s is the BIGGEST HOLIDAY EVER in Ukraine. And I made a horrible mistake: I went to the grocery store. I cannot adequately put into words the scene that met me when I entered the store (after wading through the pack of street dogs that had taken residence just inside the entryway, of course). Being from the Midwest, I would liken it to what would happen if the biggest blizzard of the year was being predicted to hit the night before Thanksgiving. But add in the general pushiness factor of Ukraine, and subtract the general overly-polite factor of the Midwest. It was not a pretty picture. I think I even saw riots breaking out at the Kievsky Tort counter. How I managed to survive, I don’t know.
I think it was about a year ago when we noticed the first piece of tree art in our neighborhood. Across the street from one of the local expat hangouts, a tree trunk had been carved to look somewhat like a Native American totem pole. Pretty interesting, we thought. And a hopeful sign that Kyiv was moving in the right direction, if they had figured out the idea of turning nature into art, rather than just plowing down a dead tree and leaving an ugly gap. A few months later, another one appeared - a woman and child that appeared to be hailing a cab (although there was a bird on the woman’s outstretched hand - I’m not really sure what that was about). Both of these were tastefully done, leaving the tree trunk intact and simply varnished so that the wood grain was visible. Then they did the typical Ukrainian thing and took it a step too far, right into crazy-land.
I’ve decided that one thing I’m going to miss in Nassau is Fall. I love the changing leaves and the crispness in the air. After way too much rain last month, the past week has been filled with beautiful fall days and evenings. Although I’m already feeling like the evenings are starting too early - I’ll miss you, sun!
Last Friday, while Shawn was at the airport getting someone “special” out of the country and on his merry way, there was excitement in our neighborhood.
In Kyiv, September 1st is the first day of school. This morning the sidewalks were packed with parents walking their children to school. It was easy to see which kids were headed to class for two reasons. First, kids here dress to the nines on the first (and last) day of school. All the girls were in their best dresses with fluffy white bows in their hair approximately equivalent to the size of their heads. And the boys were all wearing suits - I even spotted a couple little boys dressed in tuxedos. Very classy. Second, it’s traditional here to take flowers to your teacher on the first day of class. From small bouquets of 5 roses to huge flower arrangements (again, approximately equivalent to the size of their little heads) - I can only assume that most classrooms look like funeral parlors on September 1st.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever really discussed parking in Kyiv before. All you need to know is that it’s a free-for-all. Pretty much any place will do as a parking space - the sidewalk…the local park…partially blocking traffic… You get the idea. Today seems to be particularly bad in our neighborhood. Laika and I had trouble getting out of our building because of a car parked on the sidewalk directly in front of our door. Then we had to squeeze by two cars that had left just enough room on the sidewalk for me to pass by sideways (there’s a fenced lot next to our building). And when we got to the grassy area where Laika usually “does her business,” there was a huge black SUV parked in the middle of it.
As I was initially forming the idea for this post on my bus ride home from the gym this morning, it was going to be about how insanely full the bus was. And about how I ended up forced to stand incredibly, uncomfortably close to (and facing) a Ukrainian man. Like so close I could feel his breath on my face. You’ll have to believe me when I say that it was going to be really funny. However, when I finally got to my building I realized that at some point my ride had become the WORST worst bus ride ever.
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