It's 3am, and all is well! (Of course I would be up at 2am. I think my body is incapable of jet-lag due to me constantly subjecting it to odd or no sleep schedules, and it will figure itself out at some point.)
As my pictures will show, there are a lot of beautiful buildings with ornate architecture and designs in Kiev. There are a bunch of cool structures too (see: Gigantic eggs). I love all of the fountains, and how there are flower boxes in lampposts. There is also nothing to eat but ice cream--this is barely even an exaggeration. Oh, and returning to the stray dogs--one came up to me today while I was eating, and it looked so sweet and sad that I almost fed it. I knew that it would follow me if I did, so I told it "Niet", and shook my head sadly. Although I have no idea if I'll ever return, I really liked what I saw in Kiev. I also LOVED how they literally lit up the city at night, though this may have been because the next day was Independence Day.
I accidentally caused a bunch of bed-drama in the hostel. When I first came here on Thursday afternoon I chose a top bunk because those were the only ones left, but then I was sitting on the windowsill next to the bunk underneath and the woman who organizes the rooms asked me if I was going to switch to the bottom bunk. I said yes and switched, but then took all of my stuff except for a pen when I left this evening to explore. When I returned I put my backpack back on the bottom bunk, but then a man asked if I was sleeping there because Natasha (room coordinator) had made the bed for him in my absence (fair--I left with all of my stuff and therefore could not call dibs).
I moved all of my stuff to the bunk above (my original bed) without protest, but with a warning that I would be getting up extremely early in the morning. Another woman then entered the room, saw me sitting on the top bunk, said "Oh, so you are sleeping there?", and called in the activities coordinator (the only administrative person who was there at the time). I believe the AC then asked the woman if any of the other top bunks would suit her needs; they then left the room and have been gone ever since.
Today I woke up at 5:30am to take a taxi to the airport for my 9:30am flight to ISRAEL! I was incredibly glad that my mom had me bring a Kindle (product placement, woohoo!) because it A. staved off boredom, and B. allowed me to check into my flight without printing the boarding pass (boo lack of printer access, yay PDFs!). B elicited a few giggles at security this morning (by the way, SO MANY QUESTIONS, as expected, when going through security check. Also, I'm glad my lack of dignity/embarrassment kicked in today when male security agents rifled through my suitcases during the usual bomb-check.).
Waiting for the flight afterward took FOREVER, and then there were crying babies and other irritations on the flight, but I'm in Israel now so none of that matters! I performed my usual get-through-customs-in-two-minutes-or-less magic then caught a train to Haifa where I am now staying in a hostel for the weekend.
I have a lot to learn about personal boundaries (or the complete lack thereof) in Israel. On the plane the family next to me kept putting their baby food and trash on my tray, which would have been fine if they had asked, but oh well. Also, their son basically stood over me (I had a window seat yet again) when we were landing so that he could see out the window, which would also have been fine if he didn't just do it, but I'll get used to this. Later on the train, a woman (again without asking) put her toddler up against my suitcase so that he could use it as a jungle gym. This was adorable even though I was exhausted. (Also when I met Orit and let her daughters use my notebook for sketching, her younger daughter leaned up against me to show me her drawings even though we had just met ten minutes prior.) I think years of babysitting and being a camp counselor have trained me for this, so I'll get used to it fairly quickly if this is how it is throughout the country.
The woman (who knows people from Manitoba who I know from school!) who was helping me out but who didn't really know what she was doing had me get off at the wrong train station (oops), but it obviously worked out. Another woman at the train station spoke to me in all Hebrew and did not seem to realize that I was blindly following her (though she did start laughing at me at one point, so maybe she either figured it out or decided I was an idiot). Either way, she somehow got me to an area with taxis, an dafter a long, somewhat expensive (oops again) cab ride, I finally got to my hostel.
Of course the first person with whom I would have my first major interaction in another language (I don't count the woman in the train station because I had no idea what she was babbling on about, though I did understand a few of her directions, so yay!) would be a Spanish-speaker. I believe she was in her 50s or 60s and from Colombia; she was supposed to be one of my hostel roommates but left hours ago because of the deafening music from the street party outside. I wonder if she went to a different room or to a different hostel altogether. Then I fell asleep from 6pm until about 2am, and now we're all caught up!
Love to all,
Becca
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