Spring Break Kremenets-- Volunteers Gone Wild

• Celestecoleman's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Kremenets

Trip Start Sep 30, 2005 Previous
Entry Trip End Dec 22, 2007 Next
Entry

  Kremenets, Ukraine
Thursday, March 30, 2006

Spring has finally come to Kremenets, along with a break with which to enjoy it! I decided to save up my vacation days for the summer, when maybe I can do some travelling. So, for spring break I've been exploring my very own Kremenets.
Highlights have included...
*Watching everything melt, in a very muddy way. This is not the beautiful- flowers- budding- through- the- snow end to winter I had been picturing. So far, the only thing colorfully budding through the snow is 6 months worth of burried trash. Mmmm. I'm amazed at how quickly this has all happened. One day it was snowing, and the next, melting. Two days ago, it got up to 21 degrees Celcius- ABOVE ZERO! That's about 70 F, which is the warmest weather I've seen since I got here.
*I found the coolest cemetery ever! I was aimlessly walking around on a foggy day, looked up at this hill, and saw all these ancient rock crosses

Early Spring hike

! So I was up that hill in about 5 minutes to wander amongst the Cossack graves (Cossacks are the cowboys of eastern europe). It was so cool!
* Making cheese with baba (grandma). Never knew you could make cheese like this. Here is what you do. Milk the cow. Don't try to boil the milk or anything sanitary like that. Put the milk in a glass jar, like a (what else) mayo jar. Leave it out at room temperature. Soon the cream will separate from the milk. Wait a little longer. You'll see lumps starting to form, but don't worry, it's all a part of the magic that is cheese-making. Just keep waiting, for like 3 days or so, until all that's left is clumps of white stuff at the top and clear-ish water stuff at the bottom. Then, put the jar without a lid on it into a big pot of boiling water- but don't let the water get into the jar. Leave it there for like 20 minutes. Then you're gonna need some cheese cloth- sold in America at the local fabric store, but seldom used for actual cheese. Take the jar out of the boiling water, and dump the contents into a cheesecloth-lined strainer. Let the white stuff just sit there till every last bit of water has drained off of it. Guess what- that white stuff is edible cheese! It's tasty and surprisingly won't make you sick. Craziness! I'm totally making you all cheese when I come home.
*Watching multiple episodes of the Soviet Union Children's Show. Straight outta the late-80's, when the USSR still existed

First snowdrops

. It's all in Russian, of course, so the dialogue I understand is minimal, but that's not important. It's about a bunch of kids playing pranks on each other. My personal favorite episode is when this skinny girl goes on the Americanski diet, where you only get to eat one carrot a day, and then she gets blown away by the wind, while her chubby friend is happily munching away on wholesome Russian food. Good times.
*Discovering the town nunnery. Where, randomly enough, I was hit on by the town's sole homeless man, who offered to walk me to my final destination. Though it seemed a well-intentioned offer enough, I politely refused. Maybe he's been hanging out with too many nuns...
That's about it so far, but spring break is only half over and I'm sure it has more adventures in store for me. Oh, by the way, I do read the responses you guys put on the little blog thing, but I never have time to reply to them. So if you want a reply, write me an email.
:o) Til later!

Slideshow Print this entry Share Kiev hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry