Spring Time Baby

If you haven't already figured it out, Spring is upon us (I guess that's not entirely true for the small percentage of Australians that apparently came across this blog). Anyways... now I realize for most of my friends and family in California this word doesn't really mean must seeing how everything weather related is pretty much constant however but people here take Spring very seriously and it's filled with many Ukrainian holidays. 

While I've already explained Easter, one of the other main holidays is Святом Перемоги (Victory Day) which happens to be today, May 9th! It's basically equivalent to the US's Independence Day.

This morning there was a large parade where we got to watch loads of soldiers, tanks, traditional Ukrainian garb'd children (which ironically looks like little Aladdins running around) and folk dancing.

We ran across a fair amount of our students we teach so it was fun to see them in a different setting then the classroom. There was a concert held after the parade where veterans still alive were congratulated and some sort of speech was given in their honor that I was unfortunately unable to understand.

And to top it off, later tonight there is supposed to be fireworks! After seeing Disneyland's firework show relatively recently I hope I haven't ruined my ability to appreciate such events - however I guess we'll find out tonight!