Day One

Day 1:

• Arrive in Kiev Airport at 3pm.





(A)

• Host mom picked Laria and I up and drove us to her house...which was incredibly scary. Driving here is ridiculous.

• (A) Came to the 'house?'...more like little apartment thing...and we unpacked our stuff and hung out on our 'beds'=couches. These couches are 5 feet long and I am 6 feet...it is super! I am already missing my queen sized tempur-pedic mattress! haha

(B)

• (B) 6-11 Dinner with the neighbors who are also hosting another girl from our group. We were contstantly offered vodka, beer, wine...and still are all the time even after telling them I don't drink..which in Russian basically sounds like "Ya nepew".

• My host mother is named Natasha, father is Dema, and 12 year old brother is Misha and often another girl, Aleera, age 8 is at the house because our host mother babysits her.

(C)

• (C) We have a guard dog named Roy. I swear he is like a Great Pyrenees/Newfoundland. He is possibly missing an ear and definitely is missing most of his tail. He is chained up and can't get off his chain but our host mother informed us that "Roy mean. No touch, he bite!" So, I will not touch that animal. It literally scares me more than anything else in this country so far.

• We have a house dog named Jack, yes Jack and Jill. He is..I think an Airedale Terrier. Whatever he is though, he is in dire need of a bath and a good haircut which I want to give him so badly. He is super helpful when I don't want to eat some food the mom makes us. He's like my own personal garbage disposal! 

(D)

• (D) And of course the house comes with PLENTY of spiders :(
• The restroom is interesting. The toilet flushes super weirdly and the toilet paper IS crepe paper for sure. AND you don't flush the toilet paper. You throw it away...
• The bathroom is a whole different story. There is a...interestingly colored bathtub with a little pull out shower head on it.. Apparently, sometimes it will hit the sweet spot between scalding hot and ice cold but it is quite a rarity. On Day 1 I was still too scared to take a shower so I just went to bed instead.

(Pictures of the house, bathroom, and restroom on their way and trust me, the closest you want to come to experiencing these things is through my pictures! hahh)