Language Barriers

I really wish I knew Russian. Every single day of my life. I am learning, but not as quickly as I would like. I still only know the very basics.

I thought I was doing pretty well with the language, until I went to get a haircut last week. Yeah, when you sit in that chair you sort of realize that your limited knowledge of Russian really isn't going to get you anywhere when it comes to having an actual conversation with someone. I sat in the chair, completely silent, formulating in my head exactly how enlightening that potential conversation would be, with my limited vocabulary of course. Da Svidanya! I can count to fifteen. adin, dva, tree, chetiree.....How about I recite the days of the week? Should I ask you to pass the juice?  Excuse me? Thank you? Chai? Seerniki? You're welcome! To health. Open the window. Close the window. Please? Sorry! Nice to meet you. Dirty Swindler....Goodnight. Hello!

Yeah, my vocabulary stinks. But hey, you gotta start somewhere. 

Anyway. Next realization: this language barrier thing sort of means that I can't really tell her how I want my hair cut to pan out. Didn't take me long to realize, there's no stopping her. She's just gonna keep chopping. 

And chop she did. She just kept going and going and going. I decided that I didn't mind. Just laughed inside at the whole situation and my ridiculous inability to speak Russian.

An hour later...

Well.

Yes.

I now have short hair.

I like it though. :)

In other news:

• I recieved a gift recently. A full on real-Ukrainian-fur scrunchie. BIG WIN.
• My host family continues to be more and more hilarious the more we get to know each other. The other night, as we were sitting at the table, we just started making ridiculous faces at each other. I'm so glad laughter is a universal language.
• Went to a dance concert Friday. It was called something along the lines of Baron Minkhousen, a production of modern dance. A love story. So many interesting costumes, and gorgeous Ukrainian music. My first Ukrainian performance! Brava.
• Liver? Not nearly as gross as I thought. Just pretend it's steak, get it down. Move on with life....
• I've been trying to find Finding Nemo in Russian for my host sister to see. (Want to know how to say "just keep swimming" in Russian? ha ha) I still haven't found it, but I did end up finding Surf's Up, (of all the random movies to find in Ukraine). Watched it with Zr yesterday, she loved it. I have missed movie nights. 
• Free oreo samples at the megamart. The joy.
• I have now experienced the real side of a Ukrainian winter. Holy COW it's cold. When we got here it was unusually warm, so we all just sort of breezed through the days thinking we were pretty tough stuff for living in Ukraine in the "winter." Yeah, we had no idea what was coming to us. These last few days it has cooled down to absolute frigid freezing bitter biting COLD, and it is going to get colder still.
• Actually found some peanut butter. A Teeny tiny little jar? Fifteen bucks. 
• Valentines day rocked. We went to the lock bridge, also known as the Love Bridge (not sure how to say that in Russian). Everyone locks their name and the name of their significant other onto the bridge. I think they cut off all the locks about twice a year to make room for new locks, because there's just a whole lotta lovin' out there. I put one on there, too. But despite the dire temptation to put something like "Kaitlin + Nephi" or "KJ + My Gideon" (hope you caught the sarcasm there...) I wrote something on my lock that had nothing at all whatsoever to do with romance or the manly men in my life. Sort of tied in with Valentine's day, but it was more of a commitment of sorts; a commitment to change a certain aspect of my life for good. Here are some pictures:

Ours.

The girls at Mariinsky Park

Zr loves wearing my hats!

That's all for now-- Happy Valentine's day! :)