Kiev WWII park covered in snow!

This is just a cool park we stumbled upon this cool little WWII memorial park on our way to to a monastery.

Kiev

Ok it has taken me all week but here are Kiev pics. I decided I'll post seperate posts for different places because I have a ton of pictures from only two days!

First here are some pics of our train ride. It was Kathryn's first train and mine and Truc's first time to sleep on a train.

Sleeping on a train!

Me and my other to apartment mates (? do you call them roommates when you all have your own room?) are headed to Kiev, Ukraine tonight. Our train leaves at 23.23 (11.23 pm) and we will be in Kiev at 8.20 am. We got 2nd class tickets, kupae cart. This means there is a room with 4 fold out buck bed kind of things. All with pillows and blankets. This is a first for me. I have never slept on a train. So I'm pretty excited! There are bathrooms and our little room has a door and a lock on it. I was told it is really good.

Tickets cost us about $100 each way. Not too bad, but more than they cost last year when we tried to go and they were sold out. We only had to book one night in a hotel so that wasn't too bad. We will get there Sat. morning, spend all day Saturday sight seeing, stay the night in the hotel (which is in the city center and we got a good deal on), sight see all day Sunday, then our train leaves at 9.30pm. We will get back to Moscow at about 9 am Monday morning. We have Monday off of work for Armed Forces Day, also known as Mens Day. So thank you men, I will take a short trip!

We are pretty excited. This is the first trip one of my roommates has taken since she came to Moscow in August. It is supposed to be a tad bit warmer in Kiev than here but still snow all day Saturday. They speak Ukrainian and Russian but not much English. So we won't be able to totally escape from Russia but I was told it is much more of a European city that a Russian (even though it is part of the former USSR).

Many people have asked me why I am going, what is there, etc. Well I have been told there are 2 really great monasteries (which I love seeing), churches and museums, accompanied by food that is better than Russian food. Really it is mostly a bunch of history, which I also love. So it will be like visiting Prague back in November. We will be seeing the historical sights and eating good food! Plus it is small. I have been told we will be able to see most everything in those 2 days!

Sometimes it is really great to live over here b/c I can go to another country for the weekend for about $250, before food and attractions. Who else can do that?!

I'll post some fun pics when I get back on Monday!

Girls Nights

Sorry I forgot to take pics this week but I will try to do better next week. This past week was so incredibly busy but fun. It seems like I had some kind of girls night every night.

Tuesday night is always Bible study. It was great. We are doing a new study on Philippians, which happens to be my favorite book. I will enjoy this for sure.

Wednesday I went to work and had a private lesson after work. Then I met Lydia for a show. A colleague at work gave us free tickets to a show called Absent. Well the 4 girls who were in it had absolutely amazing voices but it was a little trippy. Apparently Absent is a form of acid. I had no idea. But the whole show is about an acid trip that these four French girls have. So it is in French of course and they are just moving around all weird and singing the whole show. Towards the end they somehow transform and have these bright colorful outfits on. Since it was not in one of the few languages I know, I really am not sure about what happened exactly. But the singing was great non the least and the tickets were free. We also had a crazy cab ride trying to find the theater. We had the address but it is incredibly difficult to find. Thankfully in Russia you negotiate the cab fare before you enter the cab so we didn't rack up a huge fee driving forever.

Thursday is tea night with the girls from small group. This week we went to Homemade cafe. It was a cute little place in the city center. I had some amazing homemade fresh strawberry lemonade. Amazing! It had fresh strawberries in it, mint leaves, lemons, and who knows what else. But it was good. And I had some pasta to go with it. We had as great time. One of my friends is a bag collector. She has a ton and her hubby has said no more until she gets rid of a few. Last week she sold her $600 Furla bag to Kathryn for $50. So she is about to go through her spring collection and let me know. I can't wait!

Friday night we had an 'American Night.' It was amazing. The 4 girls American teachers went out to have dinner at TGIFridays. Wonderful. Then we saw a movie in English! We saw Slumdog Millionaire. It was wonderful and I would highly recommend it. Apparently it is up for a ton of awards but I had never heard of it.

The rest of the weekend was spent at home. I got a nasty sinus infection and was feeling awful. So besides going grocery shopping, I stayed at home, watched Lost online, talked to mom and dad and my honey. A very low key Valentines. My roommates and I watched High School Musical 3 and made some dinner. I know very exciting right?

Promise some pics next post! Hope everyone is doing well!

A few stories

Well I really don't have any exciting new pics to post this time. The weather is yuck and I spent half of last week at home sick so things were a little dull. This week is crammed full though.

Yesterday I got paid and needed to take it to the bank. I get paid in rubles but have an account in dollars. Now I am glad I made this decision when I opened the account because the ruble is doing awful and the dollar is doing much better. I don't like to keep a lot of ruble cash laying around my apartment so I take it to the bank when I get paid. This isn't too bad of an ordeal. The bank is in the center of the city and the people who work there are really nice.

Well I guess I can't do things the easy way. I go to an Austrian bank in Russia and want to speak in English. When I opened the account the guy was practically fluent. Well I have yet to see him again. So I walk in and ask for someone who speaks English. There is one girl who knows about 50 words. This is fun. It is not a problem to put money in my account but this time I need to transfer some to my account in America. About an hour later between me, the worker who was Russian and a transfer document that was badly translated into English we manage to fill it out. I have this official document in Russian saying it will be there on the 12th. Now I am crossing my fingers as it was kind of a lot of money to just lose.

It kind of makes me sit back and laugh a little as I think of everything life things like going to the bank and how different it is. Then I laugh harder when I think of different people I know and how they would do this small task.

Another story:
I have mentioned my friend to you that I work with who is really seeking right now. Things are going great with our friendship. It is growing everyday and we talk eachotheres ear off. Well she loves hearing about my relationship with my boyfriend and asks me stuff all the time. She knows we do a Bible study together on Sundays so I told her about it this Monday. Cliff and I bought a book to help us study. We did it this past Sunday and love it. Both of us have wanted to read all the way through the Bible and have never done it. I thought I would buy this book to help us along.

Well with this study you have a lot of homework, which is good for us. Each week you study a new book, and some weeks several small books together. Well our homework this week is to read 7 chapters a day until we get through Genesis. I have an extra small Bible at home and I brought it to work on Monday. This week after work is super busy for me and I have some free time at work. So I decided that was a good use of my time and good reading material.

My friend came into my office yesterday while I was reading and asked about it. I had just read Genesis 1, the Beginning. I told her that I just read the most beautiful story about the creation of the world. She asked if I would read it to her. So we sat there in my office and I read the creation story to her.

Now I leave work earlier than her, but I get here earlier too. She asked if I could leave it here at work for her to read. I of course said yes. I told her it would be here the whole semester so she could read it whenever she wants.

I just thought was really neat.

My Angels Must Be EXHAUSTED

Well I have quite the story for you today. But first I must discuss this weather. Yesterday when I was getting ready to head to a friends for a chili feast I was checking the weather. I had noticed it was unusually cold in our apartment. As some of you know already, the heat is regulated by the city. It is really old fashioned and we cannot change the temperature unless we want to open up the window. So we get what we get. Well I looked at my computer and it said -8*F! When I walked out side and took a breath in, everything inside my nose froze instantly. It was really a weird feeling. Well today I think it is even colder. My computer said -10*F this morning and the metro said -20*C. Crazy! So I had to do more than just tights today, I had to bust out the cuddle duds. They are amazing by the way. And had to use the wool knit scarf, the fuzzy ear warmers, the super gloves, my amazing -40* goose down coat of course and my hood, with my fur lined boots. It was crazy cold. So I was feeling pretty warm except for my face. It was frozen. And it is a really weird feeling to breathe when it is that cold. It feels like you can't quite get a deep breath. Well this is the coldest I have ever experienced and I think maybe I could make it a few days in Antarctica now!

OK on to the story about my angels. After these 2 incidents on Friday, I decided that I don't thank God enough for keeping me safe over here and that I think my guardian angels are probably a little worn out. Well I have explained to some people about how it is not always that safe before, I've been chased down the street once, a man exposed himself on the street, stuff like this. Well honestly it doesn't happen that often and I think that some for the reason that is is because I try to use common sense and make good decisions. For example: I try not to walk alone when it is dark (which is hard when it is pitch black by 4.30 pm and I'm not home from work yet), I try to not speak very loudly in English in public, and I try to imitate the Russians, keep the headphones in and keep to myself. Usually if you don't bother them, they don't bother you.

Well I guess this past Friday was a special case. I have told some of you that alcohol is really a problem in society here, particularly in men. Now there are some decent non alcoholic, and even Christian men in this city too, but they are not the ones that harass me so they don't get put in the story.

Story #1:
Truc and I were on our way home from work and it was about 4 pm. We were headed to the grocery store. We were speaking in English of course, had a few glance but we kept it down and nothing was a big deal. Then about 2 stops out from ours, this old man came right up to us and started talking to us. Well he got about 2 inches from my face and wreaked of alcohol. I had no clue what he was saying, it was quite slurred in and was coming out in Russian and German. Though I know a little of both of the languages but it didn't help me much. The man just kept on in my face and was really creepy. What was really frustrating is that there was a woman next to him saying in Russian oh I understand you and laughing right after I said in Russian that I didn't understand what he was saying. Truc and I got off at our stop and I noticed that he did too. I grabbed Truc and we took of for the mall where the grocery store is.

Story #2:
I was headed to the Fishers to babysit for them while they went to an event at the British embassy. It was no big deal to go at 6pm as most people were still at work anyway. I got on the metro, walked halfway down the platform and got on. When I got on I was surprised to see there were a lot of seats open, odd for rush hour. I sat down, sort of between to men, but there was at least a persons width on both sides of me. No big deal this is normal.

Well i have 6 stops to Pushkinskya till I switch to the grey line and go 2 stops to Polyanka. So I am glad for a seat for a long ride. The man on my right pulls out a huge can of beer and starts chugging it. He already wreaks before that. But I don't think too much of it. He was dressed in a suit and a nice pea coat, not the kind of man you would think to be on the look out for. Well as the ride went on, he ended up scooting closer and closer too me. Apparently he had to speak to me. I had no idea what he was saying, his words were so slurred. He was so close to my face and spitting all over it when he spoke. He tried to grab my hand one time and talk to me too. I politely said the same thing to him, I don't speak much Russian and I don't understand what you are saying. Then I turned to ignore him.

By this point the metro is packed and there isn't anywhere to move to. So I just do my best to ignore him hoping he will give up and leave me alone. No. Didn't happen. So he just kept on trying to talk to me, about 1-2 inches from my face, spitting on me, etc. Then he grabbed my headphone and pulled it out of my ear. That was it for me. I was really tired of it. So I waited till the train stopped (one stop too early for me) and then I jumped up and pushed my way through the crowd at the last second to get out the door. When I did this he grabbed my arm. I had to jerk it away. And he was strong too. I turned around when I got off and there he was, he tried to get off but didn't make it before the door shut. Thank God. I forgot to mention he was about 6ft 3 and big built, not fat. After he grabbed my arm and I got out I was so thankful he didn't. I knew then how strong I was and knew I didn't stand a good chance.

Well now I am about the bust out in tears but I don't want to cause a scene in the metro. So I was doing well keeping it together. I spent the rest of my train rides thanking God for keeping me safe. I do have some pepper spray in my purse and maybe that would have helped if I needed it. I was going through all kinds of things in my head of what to do. When I got there and told the Fishers there said I did the right and that God really protected me. And that he did.

That is when I started thinking about my life here and how much God really protects me. I spend the whole metro ride home that night first thanking God for always keeping me safe and second asking His angels to keep surrounding me. I had zero problems going home that night. I could literally feel His arms around me protecting me that night. I think He knew I needed that because I was feeling pretty scared.

God is so good. He saved me from what could have been a really horrible thing for me. Harassment is much less traumatizing than what could have happened if I wasn't protected.

The US Embassy sent us a letter saying there have been a significant increase in hate crimes against Americans in Moscow. Most of these are against African-American and Asian -American people but non the less it is an issue. Now with what happened on Friday, I am feeling more scared to be here than I ever have. I definitely feel that God is telling me my time here is finishing up. So I would ask my loyal prayer warriors to add me to your list. Please pray that God will continue protecting me in the country. I would really appreciate it!

Oh and sorry mom and dad if this one scares you but I just had to share it.

Ice Skating!

We had such a blast ice skating this weekend. Though now I am a bit on the sore side. The Fishers came out with the kids and we got to help teach them how to skate. Here are a few pics!

Here are the girls of the trip: Charlette, Truc, Kate and I

Me and Kate

Me and Angus hanging out while mommy skates

Me and my other roomie Truc skating

My twin Charlette in our matching, amazingly warm, Lands End coats!

Daniel and Kate helping Amy skate


The lovely Mrs. Emily Fisher and myself

Some pics of the forest park by my apartment