77 days.  On Wednesday, when I officially become a Peace Corps volunteer, that’s how many days I will have been in Ukraine for.  During this time we’ve had a lot of language classes; which finished on Monday with a language proficiency interview.  This was conducted by Peace Corps staff to give us an idea of [...]

May brought nice weather and two holidays.  The first was May Day.  From what I gathered people gather with friends and family, eat, drink and, after drinking way too much vodka fall down a muddy bank head first into a river.  While I did witness this (and aside from his hat floating away, the guy [...]

Last weekend, I and a few other people from my group, went to Chernihiv.  It’s a city about an hour north from here, and as it is closer to Russia, mainly Russian speaking.  While that was an adventure and fun to get out of our training town for a day, nothing overly exciting happened.  This [...]

Easter in Ukraine is a big deal, and also a week later than it is everywhere else in the world.  Ok, not everywhere, I think anywhere that is Russian Orthodox celebrates Easter a week later.  They also get time off for Easter; my host mom had a four day weekend!  Unfortunately they do not give us [...]

    What’s this, all I have to do is put my clothes in this machine, and I can go study, read or watch the four hour nightly installment of Ukraine’s Got Talent, and an about an hour later they are all clean. And while everyone greatly enjoys the extended programming Ukraine’s Got Talent offers, [...]

 Peace Corps Ukraine Country Director Week three of training: Done.  That only leaves what…seven more weeks of training.  We are making some progress in our language learning, now I can actually tell my host mom if I want to do something or not, what I did during the day (in really basic terms) and what [...]

It’s a sad day here in Ukraine, my supply of reese’s has run out, and the end is in sight for the Swedish fish, where to get my omega-3’s from, oh yes, the fresh fish we have here!  Also, we went on a field trip!!!  Ok, it wasn’t that exciting, but we did get to [...]

Week one of training, done!  Four hours of language training a day, and homework, and trying to interact with a host family is intense!  Our language instructor has been great, changing the activities to make sure we stay involved for four hours, but that is a lot of language training.  At the end of the [...]

Check out my previous post, that now has photos! So you’re joining the Peace Corps huh, I guess you’re ok with living in a grass hut, in 100 degree weather, walking 2 miles just to get drinking water, taking malaria medicine every day, and never having any electricity?  That really would be an adventure, and [...]

After more flights in 3 days than I care to remember, we arrived in Ukraine, greeted by a cold arctic wind, something I’m guessing we should get used to.  Our time in DC was spent doing those ever so exciting ‘getting to know you’ exercises, then going over the logistics of getting to Ukraine (we [...]

I read once, “it’s much easier to be on the verge of something than to actually be it”, I don’t think there could be a more true statement for my current situation.  It’s a lot easier to say I’m leaving for Peace Corps next week, instead of actually living on a different continent than Cecilia, [...]

Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to travel to a lot of interesting places, and do a lot of cool things.  From Myanmar and Thailand to Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco, and a number of places in between.  I kayaked down the River Kwai, saw the amazing temples of Bagan, was told I was [...]

Little Saigon. Tenderloin.  Haight-Ashbury. Union Square.  The Pier.  Russian Hill.  China Town.  Little Italy.  Pacifica.  Mt. Diablo.  Considering we were only in San Francisco for three days we were able to see quite a bit of the city.  Though I enjoy visiting the California towns and cities I have never really liked one of them [...]

You may be wondering, why am I packing up and moving halfway around the world, to a cold, less than modern country?  I currently have an OK job, live in what most people would consider a very nice town, have a great girlfriend and get to ski and travel quite frequently.  My girlfriend is great, [...]

Ok, so I don’t particularly care for Kerouac, and we were travelling, I think, in the opposite direction than he did in his book, but it did seem like the most apt title for this post.  After having my last christmas in the U.S. for a few years a week early, we started off on [...]

My last opportunity for a ‘real’ thanksgiving dinner was spent on the road, which all things considered may be the truest way to spend thanksgiving.  We visited the Grand Canyon and Sedona, after a long car ride stuck behind people who insist on driving 15 miles above the speed limit in passing zones, and 15 [...]

Apples may well be from Kazakhstan, though now I’m not likely to ever find out much more about the country.   After reading about five books on the country, some of which were rather dry (I mean really who writes about Kazakhstan aside from academics), creating, changing, and re-changing my packing list, and doing everything else [...]

Last week I found out I passed the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT), again.  That’s now three times I’ve passed the test, which presumably would show I know the material enough to be invited to an oral interview.  From what I’ve learned the Foreign Service Officer selection process changed in the last few years, going [...]

Since I’ve lived in Utah for just over 11 years, and haven’t seen many of the places it’s famous for, knowing I’m leaving soon has given me a great reason to get out and visit many of the sites.  Last fall Cecilia and I went to visit Bryce Canyon, this spring, Capitol Reef, and then this [...]