And the City You Will Live In Is...

Kharkiv!!  Yaaay!!  We found out Thursday after several tense moments of anticipation.  Before finding out, Erika and I agreed: this placement would change the rest of our lives.  Although the melodrama may have been unnecessary, I was legitimately nervous.  And then sad.  I have a problem with getting close to people in that I can do it almost too easily.  The past week of living in Kiev has seemed like a whole month, during which time I bonded to greater or lesser degrees with most of my new peers.  There's something about being thrown together with a small group of strangers into a foreign culture that makes all of them become your best friend within 45 minutes.  The past week has been a saga, complete with a beginning, middle, and end, doused in drama, intrigue, conflict, and resolution.  Well, at least by some stretch of the imagination.  I am genuinely quite sad to have moved away from most of my new friends.  But on the other hand, that means I'll be much more motivated to make friends with locals.

So after days of theoretical and practical training, followed by nights exploring Kiev's bars all together, Olga sat us down and told us each our placements.  It was about 4:30.  Turned out, our tickets out of Kiev were in six hours.  Since I'd never really unpacked, this time constraint wasn't so much a practical problem as much it was just discombobulating.  And although we'd been promised a sleep train, we went in an overnight bus.  Don't get me wrong: I always look forward to nine hours of exploring the sleeping potential of various human pretzel positions.  What could be the perfect pose: curled up sideways with my feet crammed between the two seats? head against the window with feet draped over the seats in front? head in between the seats, right foot against the window, left in the aisle?  Unfortunately, I'll never know.  Once we arrived, we were informed that one of the people who had lived in the apartment Jodie and I were to share hadn't left yet.  So I am sleeping on Jodie's couch for the next couple of weeks.

I really like the apartment, though.  It's light and, although actually small, it feels spacious.  Figuring out the hot water was an adventure (turns out the sink faucet and shower head have to be on simultaneously for enough water to be used to start the water heater), but I came here looking for adventure, right?  And it's a five minute walk to work.  Our regional program director is darling and seems to be bending over backward to make everyone happy (although this explains why I'm on the couch so that Stanley can stay longer :P).  Last night we even met one of the teachers who was already here and she showed us around.  The city is really beautiful, and I'm excited to live here.

I wanted to put some pictures up but I can't find my camera cord! :(  Hopefully I'll find it soon.  Just imagine lots of snow....  In the meantime, here's a picture of where I live (the tiny "A" in the middle of the screen):

And my commute to work :) :