Our Travels

March 30, 2009

1 whole year!

I never thought I would ever live overseas but, here we are one whole year later after starting this adventure. One year down, one more to go. We're not sure where we are headed next but we feel we are up for where ever.

Kyiv has proved to be an interesting place for our first post. There are definite quirks that I probably won't ever get used to; like the aggressive, bad drivers, parking on the sidewalks, getting scolded by the babuska's because Keenan isn't bundled up nearly enough or because I happened to sit on a cold surface, the water being shut off randomly... the list could go on. On the other hand Kyiv does nice parks, beautiful churches, great indoor play areas for kids in restaurants, malls, bowling alleys... and they have a great selection of juice in every flavor and it's cheap!

With all that being said, I am extremely looking forward to our trip back to the states soon. With the obvious of looking forward to seeing friends and family I am ready to do some shopping in stores that I am familiar with like Old Navy, Target, Gap, The Buckle... and get a Starbucks to go. The "to go" concept is slowly catching on here. It will also be nice to be able to fluently read the signs, product descriptions, labels, what have you ... It can be so frustrating trying to figure out exactly what you are trying to buy when there is a language barrier. Some restaurants have English menu's as well (extremely helpful) when they don't we sort of guess at what we going to be eating. We will know that we ordered say chicken but we won't know exactly how it's prepared or what is on that chicken or what it comes with. Yes, I have been taking Russian langauge lessons, which have been helpful, but I find it hard to be motived when I know we only have 1 year left. With that said, I'm hoping we are not going to another Russian speaking country then I will be mad at myself for not studying more. Maybe when we get to the next country and it's an entirely different language (highly possible) I will have rathered we go to another Russian speaking country where we at least know a little bit ... sigh...

2 comments:

Laura Olson said...

Wow. I can't believe it has been a year already. Good job you for making a go of it in such a tough country! I think I would have broken down with the language barrier by now. We're looking forward to seeing in CO soon!

mom said...

Only a year to go. Just enjoy the excitment of where you will be going next. Wish I was going. Love, Louise