Far past due.

So I decided before I came to Ukraine that I was going to try and blog every day. Yeah right. My life has been so hectic and busy that I haven't even been able to THINK about writing this post until now. So much has been happening and I really want to write more frequently so I don't leave out all of my favorite details.

This week was my first week of teaching. Ouch. Teaching is much harder than I even imagined that it would be. The kids really don't have a desire to learn English which makes it even harder. They just go crazy. So I teach 10 ELE classes all together and then I have my one little class of Elementary students that I teach twice a week for 3 hours. ELE is my least favorite. It's so difficult. I just have to get up in front of a real school class and teach. The school teacher is supposed to stay in the room but for some reason they think it's okay to just leave me alone with the kids this semester. The kids go crazy. For example, I was teaching 1st graders the other day and the teacher just left. & like 2 minutes after she's gone a kid in the back of the class takes his pants off and runs around. Everyone starts dying laughing and pointing at him and I don't understand what they're saying. It was impossible to get the class to focus again after that so I just played hang man with them. The classes here also echo so badly. Every little noise makes tons of noise so I have a headache after 5 minutes of trying to yell over all of the distractions. & there is also that ONE kid who has to goof off and ruin it for everyone else. I just really hope that it will get easier. I just need to get into the groove of it and figure out my routine. My elementary class is fantastic though. It consists of 4 boys: Artem, Vova, Ivan, and Tima. Tima hardly speaks ANY English so it's really hard because the other 3 are practically fluent. The other day we were even able to have a conversation about why the coat color of wolves is different based on the climate they live in. If they stay in this program they're going to speak better than me. We eat meals at the cafeteria of the schools that we teach in. It's always really interesting food. & there is ALWAYS a soup and always some bizarre flavor of compot which is like boiled and then cooled berry juice. Not my favorite. But the soups on the other hand are amazing. I love them and there are like a gazillion different kinds. Here is what we ate one day:

Delish. Love me some beet root soup errrrrday.

The Kiev 2 group got here today! Shout out to my home girl Rachel! I can't wait to see you!

We had 2 birthday parties that we attended this week. One was for a little boy in the ward and the other one for my 6 year old host brother. They were so much fun. I just loved celebrating the Ukrainian way. I just felt like I was in a movie or something the whole time.

This was AFTER we had all eaten. Haha. They party hardy. Mostly with fruits and veggies though.

Backyard volleyball. This backyard was seriously magical. So nice and so green.

Some other random shots from around town:

This is at the metro closest to my house.

One of the schools I teach at.

The never ending escalator. This was after like 30 seconds of already riding it.

Random market.

The churches with gold roofs are all over the city. They catch my eye every time.

This poor stray dog stole my heart. I was so sad for him. He even followed down into the metro

A famous library I guess? That's what someone told us at least. Haha. 

Walking from one of my schools to the metro.

One of the hallways in my school. Aren't these curtains absolutely ridiculous? Haha.

The metros are reppin' the country colors. Love that!

The little slippers that I have to wear around my school. I got the ugliest ones I could find.

Some weird colored "cold soup". I will probably never try it thought just because of the way it looks.

My first real purchase in Ukraine! Thanks for convincing me to buy them, Abbs! Love you!

Speaking of Abbs, me her and Megan went out on the town the other night after a Young Single Adult activity at the church:

Abby, Megan, and yours truly.

 I love Kiev this much!

There were some awesome painted whatever these are by this church that we found.

BFFs in Kiev.

Sorry this post kind of turned into my week in pictures. Not much else to say. I just still can't believe sometimes that I am here. I have just looked forward to this experience for SO long and it's already here and I am almost 2 weeks into it! It's already going by too fast! I love it here and this experience is so amazing!