Summer Recap: July/Early August

My parents arrived in Kyiv at the end of June. We spent a week seeing the sights, such as St. Michael's, St. Sophia's, Podil and eating delicious food. Then we went to my village for a week. In typical Ukrainian fashion, there was a welcome dinner and a tour of my school, our museum, the orphanage, and the statues. We mostly just hung out and walked around.

 Independence Square on Constitution Day, June 28th

 My village's cemetery

 A memorial to the victims of the famine in the cemetery

 In Dnipropetrovsk

 Couples put locks on the bridge in Dnipropetrovsk (we saw this in Odessa also)

 National writer and hero Taras Shevchenko... personally, I find him kinda creepy looking

 A church in Dnipropetrovsk

Then the last week of their trip, we went to Odessa. Odessa is famous in Ukraine, especially because it's by the Black Sea.

 Lioness and cubs statue in the City Garden in Odessa

 The Opera and Ballet Theater in Odessa

 Fountain near the Theater

 A museum in Odessa

 Pushkin!

 Potemkin, at the top of the Potemkin Stairs (which were under construction when we were there)

 The infamous Odessa port

 I couldn't resist: a kit in a flower pot!

  Catherine the Great

I put my parents on a train back to Kyiv for their flight home, and I traveled to the city of Sergeevka. I spent the next three weeks working at Camp Bereg, an English language international friendship camp with about 35 students, other PCVs, and a group of international volunteers. 

It was... interesting. I guess it was one of my first real experiences working at something run by Ukrainians. It was a bit unorganized and there was no communication but... what are ya gonna do, ya know? It was fine. We went swimming in the Black Sea almost everyday, which I loved, had English lessons, sports, crafts, and competitions. The food was atrocious. I got to spend time with other Americans (win!), saw dolphins and jellyfish, slept on the roof, moved out of a moldy sanatorium into the "Shore House" (a house supposedly built for the former Moldovan president during Soviet times, but is now being turned into a hotel... it had bidets) and then back into the sanatorium, and played with puppies and kittens.

 You never know what you'll find in the street

 Shannon and one of the kittens living on the porch of the Shore House

 Black Sea

 Camping on the beach

 Picking up jellyfish. They really are very squishy.

 Me attempting a jumping picture with Yuri Haharin, the first man in space

 Nothing says communism like an "Our Garden" sign

 Kiddos at camp. The girl on the left always looked like that.

 Piñata time

 Found art sculpture 

 Bessarabia Festival. Construction courtesy of orphan labor.

Some campers and counselors singing on stage