We're not in Kansas anymore...

One weekend when I was sitting at Heathrow to fly back to Paris, I received a phone call from my Dad. He offered to come with me to Ukraine so that I could “have some company” on the journey to my new home. Any desire that I may have had to come across as brave and independent gave way to massive relief.

Last Tuesday, having met at Heathrow at 6am, we flew in over snowy fields to Kiev in the north of Ukraine. The excessive politeness of the British Airways stewards and freely flowing cups of tea were our last tastes of the UK before being met with swarms of aggressive taxi drivers in the arrivals hall. I was very keen for my Dad to get a good impression of the place, and to understand why I had chosen to come back to Ukraine, which was not particularly helped by the thick layer of grey snow which covered the run-down apartment blocks and the grey fog (you can see that grey is a theme) that hung in the sky on our drive into the centre of the city. Once we had navigated our way through a maze of underground tunnels at the train station to the left luggage, we set off for Майдан Незалежності (wooo get me and my Ukrainian) or Independence Square. The last time I was here we were able to watch the recording of a TV show consisting of huge group dances by teams from various Ukrainian cities. 

Unfortunately this time there were no dancers, but instead a huge Christmas tree and some beautiful lights. 

Even if we did come dangerously close to falling flat on our faces, braving the icy pavements was worth it. Whilst we were in town we also paid a visit to St Michael’s Monastery and the Saint Sophia Cathedral, which Jamie, Mollie, Rhiannon, Penelope and I had loved when we spent a short time in Kiev nearly two years ago. 

Then:

Now: slightly less hyper.

Here is my Dad looking generally cold and somewhat mysterious.

After a great dinner (one of the many plus points to having a parent around) we went back to the station for the overnight train to Odessa on the Black Sea. The cabin was really cute but SO HOT. Like Greece in August has nothing on that cabin. 

But we eventually arrived and met my boss and landlady at my flat which was a welcome surprise; despite being in a, shall we say, ‘aesthetically-challenged’ tower block, it is clean and warm and certainly bigger than the flat I shared in Paris, not to mention less than half the price.

What a view!

Bedroom. I make use of the space by dancing to the very high quality Russian music channels.

I started teaching English on Thursday, which seems to be going okay (touch wood), but my Dad and I had some time to have a wander about until he left on Thursday to go back to Kiev. It was so lovely to share this exciting but frankly bloody terrifying time with him. Big love to Papa. Since then I have enjoyed various drinks outings, a shocking amount of dumpling-based meals and a wonderful church service in a disused factory! Here are some photos and anecdotes from over the last few days:

Here is my church! Seriously :)  it's a disused factory with loads of big rooms that get rented out by different groups, one of which happens to be"Живая Надежда" (Living Hope) Church. It's a bilingual church with some lovely people! This said, perhaps my favourite part of going to church this Sunday was getting shouted at by the fairly drunk security guard (this wasn't the good bit) who was then told to shut up by a passing old lady wearing a magnificent fur hat. Respect. 

For some unknown reason there are no switches for the lights in my corridor, which makes opening the door with multiple keys a slight issue. But no fear, for I am equipped with a torch, and not just any torch, but what appears to be some kind of wind-up vampire penguin.

I don’t have any photos of my students, but they have all been lovely so far. There were lots of questions about whether I have met the Queen (expected) and twice I have been told that I "no look like British woman". Apparently I look like I could be "native American" "Indian" or "Asian" (less expected). Take your pick.

To finish off, here is an enormous crisp.

What left can there be to see, I hear you say.

Self-indulgence

I am about to do something very self-indulgent and use this blog as if it were my personal diary. This is not because I have any particularly enlightening or thrilling inner-thoughts, but more because I want to look back on this after the Year Abroad and *hopefully* see how stupid I was for being so scared.

I recently got back from a couple of days in Cambridge. It was surreal but lovely to be back in the ‘bubble’ and even better to see some fantastic people who have been fairly absent from my life these past few months. As the train rolled noisily out of Cambridge station, past the ‘Home of Anglia Ruskin University’ sign which usually amuses me no end, I felt sadder than I had done in a very long time and had to bury my head in my coat to avoid the man next to me noticing my oh-so-attractive puffy eyes.

Whilst it was wonderful to be back in college, and despite the genuine kindness and friendliness with which I was met, there is a certain painfulness in being a guest in your own home. Although there was no awkwardness and in some ways it was as if nothing had changed, there is something intrinsically saddening about having to ask for the ‘gossip’ and for a re-cap of events in your own group of friends. I was ashamed when I realised that my first response to any news was not ‘Good for you!’ or ‘Oh I’m so sorry to hear that’ but ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me?’. As not everybody had arrived for the beginning of term it wasn’t possible to see all of our close friends, to which my gut reaction was a fearful ‘What if he forgets me?’. Even worse than that, when I learned that a fellow Year-Abroader (who is a wonderful friend and generally gorgeous person) would be spending a couple of weeks in college, the overriding emotion was (undue) resentment! All I could think about was that she would get more ‘in’ with the group, probably staying up late chatting with the girls, taking photos and creating happy memories bla bla bla while our times together would fade into the distant past....

Cringe. This is of course a hugely selfish way to think, and perhaps my friends will read this and decide that I am in fact a horrible person. Coming to terms with my gross self-centredness highlighted to me what I had tried to pretend did not exist: fear. Not of being kidnapped, not of falling over on the ice in the Ukrainian winter, not even of loneliness, but of losing what is so precious. Fear of the people you love gradually slipping from your sphere of existence, and you from theirs, unnoticed.

Nothing will give me more pleasure than to read this back in 9 months time and to realise my own ridiculousness. 

You can take the girl out of England....

Yes, I have already made myself a survival pack, the key components of which are teabags and a rather cute tiny pot of Marmite. Well, you can’t have vodka for breakfast, can you? At least not every day.

The last post I wrote on this blog was about our last trip to Ukraine, and now I’m back for more.

This time next week I will hopefully be in my flat in Odessa in the south of Ukraine. This depends on me being able to navigate the streets of Kiev with multiple suitcases/being able to explain to inevitably delightful and helpful taxi drivers where I want to go (despite 2 years of Russian, this will be through mime)/ surviving a 10 hour train journey without a run-in with the police (note to self: learn from past mistakes and have passport easily accessible at all times). The *idea* is that I will be there until mid-April, teaching English and learning Russian before going on to Moscow.

A couple of weeks ago I returned from a special 4 months in Paris, and I must admit to having looked a few times at Eurostar prices, because quite frankly the idea of going back to the land of baguettes, fromage and cheap red wine (plus the wonderful friends I was blessed enough to meet) is just so tempting.

But, the show must go on. Or the ‘vin chaud’ as we used to say (okay Emma, yes I make terrible puns).

Desperate times call for desperate measures...