I LIVE here.

I have been having such a good couple of weeks! I am finally starting to feel like I really live here. Which is both very strange and very exciting. I love the feelings of being settled, being in control, knowing where things are and how to get places. I have been feeling like this more and more everyday as bus routes, street names, and different types of fatty sweet cheese, poppy and cabbage pastries become familiar to me.

As well as having local things that make this feel like home, I have found some ways to incorporate aspects of home locally. One of the things I was really worried about before coming here was that I was going to get really fat because of all the delicious (and some not so delicious) fatty and unhealthy food. This is still a concern, as we all know I have a weakness for all things sweet/chocolaty/buttery. But I have found some exciting things in the past week that have allowed me to cook and eat some more healthy things: Boneless-skinless chicken breasts, lettuce, eggplant, kiwi, non-sugar coated cereal, fresh ginger, brown rice, .5% milk (fat free is non-existent here), avocado and broccoli. I have also become a little more daring, feeling free to actually use my host family’s kitchen…which is to say I make everything in a pot or a frying pan because I never see them use the oven…I think because of gas prices. We do have a toaster oven that I used one time to make lavash “pita” chips.

Speaking of apartments…JDC is working very hard to find me one! For whatever backwards reason, apartment prices in this city are very very high, comparable to what we pay in Boston, but people make far less money here. So, finding me a centrally located apartment for a reasonable amount of money has proved difficult. In the past three weeks, using four brokers, we have seen one apartment. It was not far from where I live now (one metro stop farther from the city center, and 20 minutes more on foot). I was hoping for something a little closer, although I was ready to take the place any way because 1) I am ready to be living on my own, and 2) the apartment was pretty sweet. It had a big living room, TV, cable, CABLE INTERNET, a big bed, a nice bathroom with a washer, and a good kitchen with a microwave (this is rare here). It was so clean and free of the cat hair that has taken over my life (in my food, all over my clothes...did I mention I hate cats?). In the end, the woman at JDC who is helping me find an apartment said she thought we could do better for that amount of money. So I’m waiting…but very excited about what I will end up with given what I saw.

Other American things that make Kiev feel like home? AMERCIAN FRIENDS! I didn’t realize how valuable these would be. I met a girl who is here for the year working for the Kyiv Post (the local English language newspaper, I accompanied her to sample some Chicken Kiev (delish!) for an article she had to write about different Chicken Kiev’s in town…this weekend we are trying salad bars…), and she introduced me to a whole group of American kids here, mostly Fullbrighters. Very cool, fun people. I spent last weekend with them, and plan on spending a lot of time with them whether they like it or not…I think they like it. It was so nice to be able to just speak English without having to choose words carefully so non-native speakers could understand me, and to have people get any cultural references, and to joke/complain about aspects of life here that seem crazy. So yes, I have some friends…well people that I hang out with and soon I hope they will be my friends.

I also discovered this weekend that Sasha has the entire collection of Sex and the City DVDs…dubbed in Russian. But if I listen closely and concentrate, I can hear the English and it is almost like watching it on low volume with some weird noise (Russian) that I can tune out.

Perhaps the most American thing I did this week: Ate a hamburger and fries at T.G.I. Friday’s. I caved. I would never eat there at home, but I knew I could get a decent burger there and I really needed one. It was gooooooood. The restaurant was filled with tons of Scottish guys in kilts in town for a Ukraine-Scotland (cities?) soccer game. The game was last night. Ukraine won! Sad for the literally hundreds of drunk Scots in town.

The Ukrainians that I work and live with (by which I mostly mean Jews, see my previous post…) have also seemed to accept that I am here and a part of their community. I think this because people are using pet names, diminutives, with me more and more. I get called things like Koteek (kitten), Pteetchka (little bird), yaisheek (bunny), and Mollechka. These are things people call each other when they get familiar, close. In several cases I am on the “tee” level with people (this is the singular and informal version of “you”) I still tend to use the plural, formal, polite version, “vee,” with anyone who is older than me.

So in short, I am feeling more and more settled and like I actually live here! It is a good feeling. And my Russian is getting better and better. I have been getting really good practice with the babushky at the Warm Homes…and with all of the people I have to talk to when I ask directions while attempting to locate these women’s apartments. In general addresses here are confusing. Out in the suburbs where these women live, it is even more confusing…There are just blocks of apartment buildings with the same number…clustered around a big yard….and you have to go to each building and see if the apartment you are looking for is in that building or not…but that is after I locate the right block…After I get off the metro, I have to ask someone where the right bus stop is, after I find that, I have to ask if this is the right side of the street, once on the bus or tram (so sketchy) I ask the ticket lady to please tell me when we reach the stop I’m looking for, when I get off I ask someone to please point me in the direction of the street I am looking for. Then I wander around the courtyard (park sized…) and ask people where the specific building or apartment is. Such good practice. Perhaps by the end of my year here I will be speaking Ukrainian as well…that’s what everyone keeps telling me.