First two weeks of June: see this post.
Last two weeks of June:
My friend Lisa and her roommate in Alaska came to visit! I met them at the airport in Odesa, and we explored the city and went to the beach a few times. It was nice to have someone from back home come experience Ukraine and get a better idea of what it's like to live here. From Odesa, we went to Crimea and the city of Bachisaray, which is a smaller town that has a lot of fun cultural spots, including a Khan's palace, a Tartar artists' collective, and lost of yummy Tartar food to eat. We also climbed Mangup-Kale, which is an ancient cave town not too far from Bachisaray. From there, we traveled to Yalta for a day to swim with jelly fish, ride a cable car, explore some more, and eat more food. Then we went to Kyiv and saw pretty much everything there is to see there, and ate at a fake French bakery more than once.
First two weeks of July:
I was at home. Hanging out, running, and other miscellaneous, non-exciting things.
Last two weeks of July:
I traveled to my friend Shannon's site in Khersons'ka Oblast, and so did our friend Jordan. We completed Peace Corps pre-service training together back in the beginning of our service, and we decided to do a circuit of visiting everyone's site. We mostly just talked, hung out, cooked food together, watched lots of movies and television, and explored. Then we moseyed on over to my site and did the same. Then we went to Jordan's site in Kirovograds'ka Oblast. Repeat the above mentioned activities, plus an evening of barbecue and a bar outing.
First two weeks of August:
Shannon decided to come back to my site to hang out, instead of being alone and intensely bored by herself at her site. Again, we mostly did the same things as before, and it was nice to have the company.
Last two weeks of August:
Me hanging out by myself in my house, thinking about what I need to do to get my life in order for when I leave Ukraine in less than four months. This mostly entails me thinking about all the stuff I've accumulated and how I need to get rid of some of it (I actually haven't accumulated that much, but still) and looking up potential job information. August 15 was the first day teachers were supposed to head back into school and start preparing. I didn't do this. There's really nothing for me to do if I go in, besides be seen, and I think I only need one week of that, so I'm going in starting tomorrow. I probably won't end up doing anything but reading or studying Ukrainian, and then going home.
