20 January 2006

happy really belated holidays everyone! ours were so great that i was not able to post here at all, as you can tell. for yalls christmas, i went to sevestopol, a town in the crimea on the black sea. i visited with some guys from the peace corp that i met here on a train(i had a pic of them on a previous blog). i didn't get many pics though. right after that my sister ashley, spas, and his friend crissy arrived all in the same day! we were in for a couple of weeks of fun! heres a picture of all the visitors.
we did too much to talk about it all. we went to see some of the sites of kiev. andreavsky street, maidan(central square), lavra, etc. we went to a traditional western ukrainian restaurant, where the food was excellent. btw, the western ukrainians have cheese grits! except they cook the corn meal with sour cream instead of water or milk. mmmmmmmmm. the restaurant was a little dark, so this is the best that a pic that i have.

we walked over one of the pedestrian bridges in kiev.

after that was new years! we got reserved a table at a club called the ring (like a boxing ring, cause they had one in the middle). it was a really cool place, they had mice running in the bar! after midnight, they gave out free shots of vodka all night! needless to say my new years resolution the next day was no more vodka! they had a show, where a guy painted nude models and pressed them on canvas. pretty cool. here are some pics(taken by ashley).
notice the necklace lyala has on, my christmas present to her (handmade: silver and onyx)
spas and crissy
happy new years from lyala and i (with non-alcoholic champaign)
mice in the bar!
art show
after all this fun. spas and crissy left:( but it was great having them here! ashley, lyala, and i went to the mountains for 'our' christmas. the orthodox christmas is on the 7th of january for whatever reason. we went to a town call uzhgorod, which means snake-town. the river is called snake, for its reptiles! this small mountain town is on the border of romania and slovakia. it has a castle and mountain resort nearby where we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves even though there was not much snow to ski or sled.some people are strange, check out the guy on the right with his pointy shoes, a very common fashion here.
uzhgorod castle, someone let the moat dry up though, therefore we easily stormed it!
the view of uzhgorod from our newly conquered castleplaying in the "already was there and not enough to ski" snow
but we found some areas to sled on (a bit too rocky said the bruise on my knee)

any of you guys know what this is?? and yes the steering was on the right side.(notice the ears pinned back)

ok that is all for right now. a couple of other things to mention. lyala got accepted to yale! we are super excited, except for the part about moving to CT. we are going to apply for a delay of admittance for one year, cause the baby.

today, winter really hit. i thought the winter hit when it snowed, but no. today with the windchill in the middle of the day it was -40. i don't need to say C or F cause that is where they meet at damn cold!