Wow Moments

Every once and awhile, when I’m not homesick, busy preparing for the workshops or seeing something touristy, I get a little shocked about the situation I’m here. Here are some of my “wow” moments over the last few weeks.

I’m here on an internship with AIESEC. Something I’ve been waiting a long time to do.

When everyone else is getting a student discount on things, I realize I’m not a student any more, I’m graduated from university. I have a degree.
Sometimes things seem almost normal and regular. Then I remember I’m living in another country.

After the Ukraine I will be home for a month and then moving to Korea next. I’ve only lived here for six weeks but I’ll be in Asia for about a year.

While I’m usually home sick or at least missing Lisa a lot, but somehow time is flying. I’m thinking it’s either 1/2 done or 1/3 done, or only one week left already.

Somehow I can read the Cyrillic alphabet and communicate a little bit in Russian. It’s really fun when I start to translate a word in a sign and realize it’s just an English word in a different alphabet, like Fetnus Klub haha.

It’s amazing how when a grocery store has limited supplies you can easily turn ketchup and some vegetables into pasta sauce.

The food here really is so cheap, and almost everything else too. I’ve had to stop converting everything into Canadian dollars and thinking about things as actually too expensive.

The Ukrainian women are famous for being beautiful, and for eating a lot of potatoes, rice and other carbs, everyone is skinny. There are a lot of very beautiful women with not so fortunate looking husbands, but they probably have lots of money.

There is a significant amount of men wearing mesh t-shirts everywhere.
There is a huge lack of internet access.

For the third time I have done about two loads of laundry by hand. I’ve washed it and rinsed it in a bucket, and then hung it out on our clotheslines on the balcony.

I lived with only cold water for four weeks. We all took cold showers and boiled water whenever we needed some hot water.

When I first arrived here I thought six interns in a two bedroom flat was too many. After having 6 Indians stay here for one night, and now there are 13 of us for an unspecified time, I think any more arriving would not be a surprise.