What is wrong with this statement. Every Saturday morning is when my host parents go grocery shopping. It is fairly similar to stores in the US, but the products are just different. Apparently this milk is sterilized by boiling it 2 different times and then packaging it. I do not care how sterilized they say it is, that milk was yellow and it smelled a little off when I poured it into my glass. Other interesting parts of the store is that there is an entire isle, both sides, stocked with all kinds of vodka. The wine section is even more extensive than that too. Basically a store within a store. The fish and meat department is questionable. Of all the meat I have seen in the past 2 weeks, I would say 70% of it looked and tasted mysterious. The food is not so bad, it is not like it is unbearable. Unfortunately my body has been complaining consistently for the past week. Today it feels like every bone and muscle in my body is aching and things over the past couple days have been running a little more smoothy than normal, if you know what I mean. ; )
The things I have been reading for my courses is enjoyable, which is nice. It is so much easier to learn about what I am reading when I can walk out the front door and experience it as well. This weekend I will be leaving for a trip to Western Ukraine. I was told just today that if I was not feeling well then the food in the more rural areas we are going to probably won't help. Yay. I was talking with my host parents, Jos and Marliss, last night about how it has been being the only one here. Of course it would be better with even just one other person. It is daunting to think about going anywhere by myself. I know all of 3 phrases in Russian, and apparently it is common for the locals to take advantage of foreigners. This sounds encouraging, yeah? I suppose things could be worse, but at this point it is a little discouraging. Now that I have been sick for a week, my positive, flexable attitude is in danger of plummeting.
If you would like to keep in touch in some way, it would be encouraging. Nothing against hearing from the family, it is just nice to hear from more than just the family at times. Hope you are all in good health and persevering. The last chunk of the school year has arrived, and I am looking forward to this summer.
Blessings
-Joel
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Ukraine, By a Plane, Life's Insane
Alright, so I have now been in Ukraine for a week as of today. Honestly it has been really interesting, and I am already enjoying the history that I am learning particularly in relation to the Eastern Orthodox Church. I think the Orthodox Church in general is not very well know in North America. It tends to not be very disruptive or cause much attention to itself in the North American setting, but here in Kiev it is much more noticeable. But I will get to more of that in a bit.
My day of travel to Kiev turned into a more chaotic experience than was initially expected, by far. I was supposed to take a flight that left at 945am last monday. Unfortunately the luggage check system at the airport in Amsterdam is constructed horribly. WHoever designed this was not in his right mind and was paid way too much because it does not work. I woke up at 530 to leave the house by 630 to make the train to the airport at 645. I made it to the airport in plenty of time(2hrs) before my flight. I went to get in line to check my bags and there were 5 lines for anyone from 12 different flights to check in their bags= chaos. Hundreds of people want to check their bags for their flight at the same time. By the time I reached the front of the masses it was 29 minutes before my flight took off. I know this for a fact because the lady at luggage check told me I was too late to check my baggage because the cut off was 30 minutes before the flight. I was not happy. I proceeded to take a number at the ticket counter and then waited in line only for them to tell me to go to another desk which then told me to go back to the ticket counter and then the ticket counter sent me to customer service. I then spent more time explaining why I needed to reschedule my flight and there was no way I was going to pay for another ticket because their system for checking luggage was retarded. Finally they agreed, and then I went back to the ticket counter to get another flight, which took another 30 minutes. By this time it was almost 11am. The flight I ended up taking took me to Helsinki, Finland and then switched airlines to get to Kiev 5 hours later then originally planned. The one thing that actually went well was that I got through customs just fine. But then my luggage was lost/ left in Helsinki because of the switch in airlines.
All this to say that my day of travel was long and much more chaotic then expected. But I made it. This past week I spent most of the time at the Seminary that is just a short drive outside of Kiev. Then this past Friday I moved from the seminary to the host family I am staying with. Their house is amazing! It is considered an apartment, but it probably has more space than the average house in Seattle. It is right in downtown Kiev and the neighbors just happen to be a former general from the Soviet Union, an advisor to the current ukrainian leader, Yushchenko and various other rich and important people that are most likely affiliated with the mafia. Yeah, that commen about the mafia is not a joke. In fact most of the wealthy people in Kiev are either former communist leaders or have gained their wealth with connections to the Ukrainian Mafia. Apparently the mafia and the government are very closely connected and that's just the way it is...according to my host Dad. The last couple days I have been finding out just how much of a problem the mafia really is, and the basement of the building we live in is a perfect example. Over the past couple years the mafia has been illegally building a restaurant/ night club that is supposed to open in the next month or so. All the residents of the building are against the night club, but not even the advisor to Yushchenco has any influence to stopping the opening. The mafia just pays off or threatens any protest to the project. Good times.
The other large influence on Ukraine as a whole is the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is really sad to see how deceived these people are. I do not know what the Orthodox Church in North America is like, but it's influence here in Kiev comes across as very deceptive. We visited a couple different Orthodox Churches and a Orthodox Monastery today. The buildings are amazing and I will be sure to post pictures. The paintings and the architecture are so elaborate and everything is connected to the tradition of the Orthodox Church. There are many paintings of saints and religious icons all around the churches and many people come to kiss the icons on a daily basis. There is a common belief that as an Orthodox Christian one receives their salvation through the church. Many people come to their church daily to pay for the priests to pray for them and to forgive them of sins committed. But there is also a huge disconnect between daily life and what the church teaches. An example of this is a taxi driver that has multiple pictures of saints and religious icons and crosses hang from his mirror and on his dashboard and right next to them he has pornographic pictures posted. This is apparently common and there seems to be nothing wrong with this. If a man professes to be an Orthodox Christian and is cheating on his wife, his sin is seen as merely weakness that he cannot help. he is to just confess his weakness to the priest and will most likely continue with the affair.
In some ways Kiev is just like any other city, but there are also its quirks. In the same way the Eastern Orthodox Church here in Kiev has similarities to other denominations of the Christian Church, but there are some significant differences and dangers in fundamental beliefs. It is sad to see how people are deceived. Well I should go. This post is plenty long enough. I will post again soon.
-Joel
My day of travel to Kiev turned into a more chaotic experience than was initially expected, by far. I was supposed to take a flight that left at 945am last monday. Unfortunately the luggage check system at the airport in Amsterdam is constructed horribly. WHoever designed this was not in his right mind and was paid way too much because it does not work. I woke up at 530 to leave the house by 630 to make the train to the airport at 645. I made it to the airport in plenty of time(2hrs) before my flight. I went to get in line to check my bags and there were 5 lines for anyone from 12 different flights to check in their bags= chaos. Hundreds of people want to check their bags for their flight at the same time. By the time I reached the front of the masses it was 29 minutes before my flight took off. I know this for a fact because the lady at luggage check told me I was too late to check my baggage because the cut off was 30 minutes before the flight. I was not happy. I proceeded to take a number at the ticket counter and then waited in line only for them to tell me to go to another desk which then told me to go back to the ticket counter and then the ticket counter sent me to customer service. I then spent more time explaining why I needed to reschedule my flight and there was no way I was going to pay for another ticket because their system for checking luggage was retarded. Finally they agreed, and then I went back to the ticket counter to get another flight, which took another 30 minutes. By this time it was almost 11am. The flight I ended up taking took me to Helsinki, Finland and then switched airlines to get to Kiev 5 hours later then originally planned. The one thing that actually went well was that I got through customs just fine. But then my luggage was lost/ left in Helsinki because of the switch in airlines.
All this to say that my day of travel was long and much more chaotic then expected. But I made it. This past week I spent most of the time at the Seminary that is just a short drive outside of Kiev. Then this past Friday I moved from the seminary to the host family I am staying with. Their house is amazing! It is considered an apartment, but it probably has more space than the average house in Seattle. It is right in downtown Kiev and the neighbors just happen to be a former general from the Soviet Union, an advisor to the current ukrainian leader, Yushchenko and various other rich and important people that are most likely affiliated with the mafia. Yeah, that commen about the mafia is not a joke. In fact most of the wealthy people in Kiev are either former communist leaders or have gained their wealth with connections to the Ukrainian Mafia. Apparently the mafia and the government are very closely connected and that's just the way it is...according to my host Dad. The last couple days I have been finding out just how much of a problem the mafia really is, and the basement of the building we live in is a perfect example. Over the past couple years the mafia has been illegally building a restaurant/ night club that is supposed to open in the next month or so. All the residents of the building are against the night club, but not even the advisor to Yushchenco has any influence to stopping the opening. The mafia just pays off or threatens any protest to the project. Good times.
The other large influence on Ukraine as a whole is the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is really sad to see how deceived these people are. I do not know what the Orthodox Church in North America is like, but it's influence here in Kiev comes across as very deceptive. We visited a couple different Orthodox Churches and a Orthodox Monastery today. The buildings are amazing and I will be sure to post pictures. The paintings and the architecture are so elaborate and everything is connected to the tradition of the Orthodox Church. There are many paintings of saints and religious icons all around the churches and many people come to kiss the icons on a daily basis. There is a common belief that as an Orthodox Christian one receives their salvation through the church. Many people come to their church daily to pay for the priests to pray for them and to forgive them of sins committed. But there is also a huge disconnect between daily life and what the church teaches. An example of this is a taxi driver that has multiple pictures of saints and religious icons and crosses hang from his mirror and on his dashboard and right next to them he has pornographic pictures posted. This is apparently common and there seems to be nothing wrong with this. If a man professes to be an Orthodox Christian and is cheating on his wife, his sin is seen as merely weakness that he cannot help. he is to just confess his weakness to the priest and will most likely continue with the affair.
In some ways Kiev is just like any other city, but there are also its quirks. In the same way the Eastern Orthodox Church here in Kiev has similarities to other denominations of the Christian Church, but there are some significant differences and dangers in fundamental beliefs. It is sad to see how people are deceived. Well I should go. This post is plenty long enough. I will post again soon.
-Joel
Saturday, March 15, 2008
It's Been A While.
So I cannot even remember where I last left off, but there is no way that I will be able to update about everything. I think going to France for 10 days and making the transition to the Ukraine are the two biggest events that have occurred since my last post.
At midterm I had a few exams to take care of and they went fine, and then our whole group took a 10 day trip to S. France. We left on a Friday and traveled all night from Holland, through Belgium and Luxembourg and down through France until we hit the Mediterranean Sea at Marseilles, France. If that was a run on sentence I don't care. We took a bus and so the drive was about 18 hours from 8pm through to the next morning. This was my first experience with the Med. Sea, and all I can say is that it was phenomenally beautiful! We spent 2.5 days in Marseilles seeing a ton of sights. The whole week we were in France we might of had all of 3-4 hours of down time, not including sleeping. We spent most of our days from 7am until 9pm going all over to different historical and monumental sights and taking as many pictures as possible.
Some of the mentionable sights we saw in Marseilles were some greek and roman ruins, Chateau D'if Prison, some underground catacombs/ sarcophagi, and spending an evening sunset on the Med. Sea. After a couple days in Marseilles we then made a short 40 kilometer jaunt to a town called Aix en Province, and that was home base for the rest of the week. The place that we stayed was nothing less of a French Chateau. We each stayed in rooms for two people each and the entire property was incredible. The image above is the front of the Chateau. Unfortunately our jam packed days did not allow us to spend much time there.
While in Aix en Province we visited a number of the surrounding towns and sights. My favorite town was Arles. This is the place that Van Gogh cut off his ear and painted many of his works. While touring the town we stopped by the Van Gogh Cafe and a couple roman amphitheaters. If any of you have seen the movie "Ronin" with Robert De Niro, you might remember a part of the movie filmed in a roman amphitheater. The part of the movie where De Niro gets shot. That was the same one we visited. The town was sweet to say the least.
--SIDENOTE: Pictures of my trip to France will be posted shortly on Facebook. Stay tuned.
On the trip home from visiting one of the local towns we noticed an amazing opportunity that we convinced our leaders to let us stop to take a gander. This would be a level Aqueduct built by the romans. Furthermore the timing could not be better seeing as it was right around sunset. I collected a few rocks from the base of the Aqueduct that are not only ancient and astheically pleasing, but were also free.
There is much more to talk about, but I think I have already lost half of my readers with the length of this post. So I will leave an update on Ukraine until next time.
Tootaloo,
-Joel
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