Kiev, Ukraine

There are many different ways to spell "Kiev" ..Kiev is the English way, I'm not sure what Kyiv is but it's spelled like that too, and (if I'm remembering correctly) KNIB is the way they spell it. And to tell the truth.. I'm still not entirely sure how to pronounce it. Hah!  I just say keev, but I've heard people say it with 2 syllables though.

Woah.. look what I just realized I can do... ¡  .. that's not an i you see there, that is an upside down exclamation point!   ¡Wooh!

I didn't stay in Kiev long, only 2 days, but my time there was nice. Kyiv provided for me a breath of fresh air.. It wasn't really Kyiv that did it though. 

I arrived by train.. always an interesting experience on overnight trains.. lol, but for this one, nothing sticks out in my mind enough to tell you about. But I will mention.. that it only cost me 7€!  A 12 hour overnight train for only 7€!  ¡Awesome!  :)

When I arrived in Kiev, I had to take a Marshrutka to meet my host. A Marshrutka is a minibus.. they cram as many people as they can into these things, and drive them all around the town.. when you want to get out, you yell at the driver to stop lol. It was interesting.. I asked multiple people to help me, told them where I needed to get off and made sure the driver knew too (though he gave me a really mean look and seemed to ignore me lol).. this was all really hard to so when no one could speak English, and I could barely pronounce the street names.

Ok.. now I'll explain the breath of fresh air part. While I was wondering around the city, visiting beautiful churches they have, I went to more of a park area, it had a gorgeous view of the city and there was also many art structures and a playground with Mosaic all over it!  I was taking a picture at one point of this mosaic bench, rabbit thing, and so was this other guy nearby, He looks at me and says, "So, are you a tourist too?" He spoke English!  AND with my accent!  So I said yes and asked him where he was from. His name is Monk and he is from Chicago and living in Montana!  He flew to Istanbul from Chicago for $160 round-trip! He is also a couchsurfer, and was actually headed to have coffee with a local later in the day that he met on couchsurfing (this is normal to do through couchsurfing, if someone can't host you, they may get coffee or dinner with you instead).  We talked a bit, and then hung out the rest of the day, and met with the local together as well.

It was just soo nice to come across an American, and a cool one at that!  He works in a national park in Montana! Taking care of it, maintaining the trails, etc.. that would be soo sweet! And since it's winter, he has a lot of time off. I never noticed how much we depend on sayings and quotes in our language.  Others who don't speak English as their first language don't always understand because a lot of the quotes and saying we say don't make any sense!  I definitely have an appreciation for coming across and talking to people from the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia now.. don't get me wrong though, I love meeting and talking with people out here too.. I just really appreciate being understood as well without having to explain what I meaning 5 different ways lol. Any who, it's just really refreshing to have met and spent time with Monk, he was a great guy. He even came to the train station with me to figure out my ticket to Chisinau.  I'm soo happy we met, after we said bye and switched emails and stuff, I got an email later that night from him telling me that I was his "American Girl" (Tom Petty) of his trip.  :)

Next stop Chisinau Moldova to stay with some Peace Corps volunteers!

Oh, one last thing.. my pants ripped.
Good thing I wear leggings underneath! Because I'm sooo not buying new ones. I'll just chuck em or cut em before SE Asia!

<3 M