Comforts and Conveniences

This past week marked 40 days and 40 nights in Kiev; a significant number of days for a trial period, I think.  I'm not sure who was testing whom, though.  Were the city of Kiev and the country of Ukraine testing us, or were we the judges trying to decide if this eastern European metropolis would pass our test as a good place to live and work?  There have definitely been some challenges to overcome, but I'm going to say either way, it's a win!  We are successfully learning to survive in a new culture and this country and its people are growing on us.

This would probably be good time to post an update on some of the inconveniences we dealt with early on.  We did end up getting a memory foam mattress topper for the slab of concrete we were trying to sleep on.  In fact, I really only spent about 4 or 5 nights on the sofa, before Mirka took me shopping for the mattress topper a few other large items that would have been next to impossible to try and bring home on the Metro.  We have yet to hire a cab or a "personal driver" to take us anywhere, but I'm sure that day is coming.

We also ended up getting hot water around the 15th of August.  It was so exciting!  The morning we discovered the boilers had been turned on, I took a long, long shower.  It fact I was in there so long washing my hair, shaving my legs, scrubbing my heels... (you get the idea), I flooded the bathroom floor!  Seems I wasn't paying attention to the shower door which had swung a bit over the edge of the tub.  Thank goodness the entire bathroom, floor and walls, are tiled.  The hot water and awesome water pressure made up for the time it took to clean up afterwards!

Now we are waiting to see what day the heating system will be turned on.  Yes, the city controls that as well.  We heard it will be the middle of October.  Thank goodness the temperature outside hasn't been so cold that we need to heat the apartment yet. 

The box we shipped from Myrtle Beach before we left the states took about 4 weeks to get here.  It was like Christmas when we opened it!  It contained some books, a set of flannel sheets(which still smelled like the dryer sheets I was using), some pictures and decorations, our slippers, and OUR PILLOWS.  Now that's comfort!

We are no longer lugging heavy bottles of water home from the grocery store.  The water cooler was already in the apartment, but we now have water delivery every two weeks right to our apartment door. 

 

 

 The television set also came with the apartment.  We originally thought we wouldn't need a TV because we wouldn't be able to understand the language.  As it turns out, that is not the case.  To clarify, we still don't understand the language very well, but we are using the TV.

When the cable company came in to hook us up, they hooked us up with some English speaking channels.  Some of them include Discovery, Fine Living, CNN, and Animal Planet.  But we don't only have cable.  We are also able to watch movies and old TV dramas and sitcoms through Netflix. And believe it or not, Jay is going to be able to watch football, live!  He purchased the NFL Game Pass which allows him to stream the games as they're being played.  Of course with the 7 hour time difference, some of those games will be in the middle of the night here.  He has figured out, though, that he can probably catch the end of some of the games before school the next morning.  You can take the man out of Pittsburgh, but you can't take Steeler Football out of the man!

By the way cable is cheap and our electric bill last month was only $8.60.  We can definitely live with that!

We are becoming more familiar with our neighborhood and some of the places nearby to shop and eat.  This convenience store (pictured below) is across the street from us, but like most convenience stores, a little bit more expensive than the regular grocery store.  The other unfortunate thing is  that everything is behind the counters.  I felt like I was back in Port Trevorton at the old Herrold's store the first time I went in, except this time I had to point at the items I wanted because I didn't know how to say the word in Russian.  I'm getting better with the language now, and I'm sure I will go there more often this winter when I don't want to walk very far in the cold temperatures and snow.

This is a little pizza restaurant, attached to the one end of the convenience store.  It's our Anthony's in Ukraine, but without trivia.  We still end up going there about once a week.  It's really cute inside and the waiters are very patient with us trying to order in Russian.  Some of them know a little bit of English and they have a menu that is loosely translated into English.  So far we haven't ordered anything we couldn't eat.


The three grocery stores we frequent:

Cilpo

Fora

 

MegaMarket

 

It took us a while to find a lunch box for school.  They just don't have them here!  In fact, this isn't really a lunch box.  It's a cooler, but it's just what we needed to carry our leftovers in for lunch at school.  The letters on the front, when sounded out phonetically, say "camping".  We found it in the camping section at Megamarket.

 





I will end this post with a picture from the rooftop patio of our school director's apartment at sunset.  See how comfortable and relaxed we are?  Life in Ukraine is good!