Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I posted some pictures of Christmas/New Year's activities over the last couple of weeks.
The season began with a joint Swedish/Belarusian Christmas party hosted by two friends I met in Kazakhstan who now live here (Bjorn is Swedish, his wife Vera is from Belarus). They prepared some traditional dishes and drinks, and we sang some traditional songs from both countries and watched the kids dance and sing. We also sang some "American" carols, such as Silent Night and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. They hired an accordion player to play along.
Shortly before Christmas, my friend Misha from Kazakhstan came to visit me, and we toured around town and met with some of his friends who live in Kyiv. On Christmas Eve, we cooked a large dinner, and on Christmas Day we went to an Anglican church service in a beautiful old church in the old part of town. Christmas lunch was a cheeseburger with a stale bun (unfortunately) at TGI Friday's, not the best introduction for Misha to American food, though he seemed to like it (we did not have much choice; it's the only American restaurant here besides McDonald's).
On New Year’s Eve, we cooked again and watch the traditional Russian New Year’s Eve special on television (the same kind of cheesy musical productions you might see on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve are something like that). Shortly before midnight we walked down to Independence Square to watch the big public celebration (Ukraine’s equivalent to Times Square in New York City). We arrived a few seconds before midnight to see a huge crowd with lots of champagne and drinking and a pretty impressive fireworks show right after midnight.
January 1 was also the expiration of Ukraine’s contract for natural gas from Russia, and the parties failed to agree on a new contract for 2009. Thus, Russia has cut off the gas. I’m not sure what is going to happen or when this will affect the average person; so far, my apartment is warm. I’m experiencing my own localized chill, though, in the form of a broken hot water heater. I came back from the airport on January 1 to find water leaking on my floor; my boiler is dead, and they cannot replace it until Monday at the earliest. I suddenly stepped up my longtime desire to join a health club here; hot showers are a big motivation.
The season began with a joint Swedish/Belarusian Christmas party hosted by two friends I met in Kazakhstan who now live here (Bjorn is Swedish, his wife Vera is from Belarus). They prepared some traditional dishes and drinks, and we sang some traditional songs from both countries and watched the kids dance and sing. We also sang some "American" carols, such as Silent Night and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. They hired an accordion player to play along.
Shortly before Christmas, my friend Misha from Kazakhstan came to visit me, and we toured around town and met with some of his friends who live in Kyiv. On Christmas Eve, we cooked a large dinner, and on Christmas Day we went to an Anglican church service in a beautiful old church in the old part of town. Christmas lunch was a cheeseburger with a stale bun (unfortunately) at TGI Friday's, not the best introduction for Misha to American food, though he seemed to like it (we did not have much choice; it's the only American restaurant here besides McDonald's).
On New Year’s Eve, we cooked again and watch the traditional Russian New Year’s Eve special on television (the same kind of cheesy musical productions you might see on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve are something like that). Shortly before midnight we walked down to Independence Square to watch the big public celebration (Ukraine’s equivalent to Times Square in New York City). We arrived a few seconds before midnight to see a huge crowd with lots of champagne and drinking and a pretty impressive fireworks show right after midnight.
January 1 was also the expiration of Ukraine’s contract for natural gas from Russia, and the parties failed to agree on a new contract for 2009. Thus, Russia has cut off the gas. I’m not sure what is going to happen or when this will affect the average person; so far, my apartment is warm. I’m experiencing my own localized chill, though, in the form of a broken hot water heater. I came back from the airport on January 1 to find water leaking on my floor; my boiler is dead, and they cannot replace it until Monday at the earliest. I suddenly stepped up my longtime desire to join a health club here; hot showers are a big motivation.
posted by Cosmic Stan at 6:47 PM
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