Boryspil Airport Hotel Kiev

.Well, good news. Lauren won't need to hitchhike home afterall! After I finished up the last entry, Zhenia, Pasha, and I went back to the passport place and...success! The passport was ready to go and what a huge relief! We went from being stranded here another week to one foot on the plane home!

After picking up the passport, we needed to make some serious time back to Pasha's in order to make that evening's train to Kiev ...

Dear Friends,

Thanks for your patience. I am still here...still surviving in Ukraine. I'm sorry for the long absence, but many things in my life have changed since I last wrote. To catch you up quickly, I attended two summer camps where I taught poems in English and where I organized all of the meals. Both were fun, and both were stressful. I must say that I liked the second one better. I was amongst friends, and I was in a town that I had already previously been. Also, I became ...

... pizza kitchen.
The other English speaking service is held at 8:30 A.M. at St. Alexander Church. It is a Catholic Service. The big yellow church is located up the hill on Kostyoha Street, which is a street near the McDonalds on Independence Square. There is a nice park across the street from the church.

... and dozed under the veranda whilst a quick storm went over. Pasha finally arrived back later in the afternoon and it was soon time to leave, Oleg drove us all the way back to our hostel door in Kiev.


We experienced the legendary Ukrainian hospitality in our two days and one night spent in Borodyanka; Pasha's family made us exceedingly welcome despite the language barrier. We left the village feeling energised, refreshed and at least a stone heavier.

We made breakfast in the apartment, grilled ham sandwiches, the toaster didn't work! We begin our walk looking for St. Sophia Cathedral Monastery, this is the oldest stone made Kiev Church. It was built in the 11th century. Prince Yaroslav Mudry is buried here. This is now a museum. The doors are gold in colour, a beautiful alter area with incredible fresco pictures on all the walls arches and ceiling. Sorry no pictures here. Then through the ...

... of Orangeville, Utah, who changed residences seven times while a volunte** in Kazakhstan from 1999 to 2001. Travea Ghee of Cincinnati, a volunte** in Ivory Coast from 1998 to 2000, said that aft** three months of training she was told to find h** own way to h** site, the village of Gnagbadougnoa. "They basically said, 'You're on your own,' " Ghee said. The Peace Corps said in a written response to the Dayton Daily News that volunte**s are believed to be safest when ...

... and for about $9.00 (USD) I bought a ticket to Chisinau (pronounced Kis-i-now) the capitol of the country of Moldova. It took about a full day to get there but probably 3 hours were spent at the border getting our passports stamped to exit out of Ukraine and then subsequently to enter into Moldova. The bus driver just collected up everybody's passports and took them out to the man in the uniform and they went into the ...

... and it was so neat to see all the things that I had been reading about for so long. We saw the Golden Gate, St.Sophia's, a little village that was a monastary, the chernobyl museum, and more things. We stayed four days but unfortunately we had to leave. I hated leaving, Ukraine was really an amazing country. Except for Lesson 4: Prepare yourself for bathroom differences. In most public places in Eastern Europe one has to pay to use the restroom. You ...

Throwing in the towel: Well, site assignment was a definite huge disappointment and my worst nightmare - I had a pretty emotional and negative reaction. A cluster mate brought in a travel book that lists the following for my Oblast (state): Bardt's 2007 UKRAINE Luhansk -- Ukraine's easternmost city marks the final extent of one country and the beginning of the flat Russian steppe across which blows a constant wind. When the air is still, the scent of ...

... of negative sentiment towards the Russians. Read some recent political articles and it isn't that hard to figure out why. The other is the level of corruption. If I weren't so lazy I would look up their world corruption ranking but my internet is very slow. Anyway, I'm going to borrow a story from Sean to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Sean's company has an entire fleet of broken-down aging 1950's trucks that they would like to replace with ...