So schools in Ukraine celebrate autumn by taking a week off, or in the case of my school, two weeks. So in light of a week with nothing planned, I decided to go visit my clustermate Mary-Kathryn at her site in Chernivets'ka Oblast and help her at her work for a couple days and then do some site seeing in the area.
Starting off at her site, the Jamaican sounding town of Kitsman, I managed to take only 1 photo (which MK was not too pleased about) however I feel it definitely encompasses all that is Kitsman.
While in Kitsman, I/we managed to...
- cook mac and cheese for her work English club
- "correct" her apartment
- meet her cool sitemate who also is fond of making fun of midwestern accents
- be presumed as MK's Romanian "man"
Like any good excursion, I had to check another Oblast center off the list. With my guilde book not prompting any real excitement for what could be found in Chernivtsi, and I quote, "with Chernivtsi such a jumble of sights, and perhaps only the university a crucial one...", MK showed me around. Chernivtsi isn't any major city in Ukraine but it was very pleasant. I always seem to time weather in the West because it was an awesome day. My one word description of the city would be pastely, and it has a crazy university. Examples can be found below:
From there, we moved on into the Ivano-Frankivs'ka Oblast. The place with the giant egg (an annotation I added to my guidebook), or to Kolomyia was our next stop. Kolomyia is actually home to our first of many LCFs, so we got an expedited locals tour because he had to be on our way to Ivano later that day.
 |
| symmetry makes me smile |
Ivano is like a mini L'viv, with tourism slowly building. A stronger ability in the Ukrainian language is needed here over L'viv, with English rarely heard. Speaking Russian here would definitely grant you a few stink eyes - which I kind of enjoyed. I've observed that certain regions claim more pride to their Ukrainian heritage over others. Coming from a region where both Russian and Ukrainian is spoken interchangeably, communication is often more complicated. Anyways, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:
 |
| surprisingly good food |
 |
| a young Shevchenko |
 |
| safety first |
Good times followed on our train back to Kyiv, platskart (4th class) you never let me down.
So truthfully if you remove Fievel's jacket, cow boy hat, gun (because they're outlawed for the public to own), and add a mustache he could probably pass as a Ukrainian cossack. I'm now realizing I've put way too much thought into this - maybe I should go to bed?
While in Kitsman, I/we managed to...
No comments:
Post a Comment