Ukraine

Last month I had the privilege of spending two and a half weeks in Ukraine with 32 cadets from the Air Force Academy and Air Force ROTC. We were there for a language immersion. The cadets stayed with local families and spent 4-6 hours engaged in Russian study. I and another member of the faculty stayed in our an apartment right in downtown Kiev. It was an amazing stay.

One Sunday I was able to make it Church. A few of the older sisters in the ward (yes, Kiev has a stake and a number of wards), mistook me for a missionary and asked why I had forgotten my nametag. Then she saw my weeks worth of facial hair and began to lecture me. I was very flattered that someone thought I looked young enough to still be a missionary.

My two favorite activities in Ukraine were people watching and eating. Ukrainians are an interesting lot of people. The women are tall and beautiful and many don't believe in wearing much clothing. Mullets are the hairstyle of choice for many young men in Russia. (Billy Ray needs to do a concert in Kiev.)

Food in Kiev was amazing. Almost every meal I ate was amazing. We had Ukrainian, Georgian, Italian, English and German food. Most of it was priced about the same as it might be in a place like Salt Lake or Colorado Springs. Below is a picture of a Georgian dish called tsyplata tabaka, a very tasy way to prepare chicken. (Yes, it's a whole chicken. And I ate it all.)

We spent a four day weekend on the Black Sea in Yalta. The Crimean Peninsula was very intriguing. Largely flat and rolling agricultural land dominates the peninsula, broken up by the tall mountains along the southern coast. On our way to Yalta we saw the top of Gorbachev's dacha, the one in which he was put under house arrest during the attempted coup in 1991. While in Yalta we visited the Livadia Palace where the Yalta Conference (the meeting between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII) was held. Roosevelt stayed in the palace during the duration of the conference. Also, it was one of the Romanov palaces before the Soviets acquired it through revolutionary means.

Above is a picture of me at the Swallow's Nest looking over the bay leading into Yalta. Overall it was an amazing experience. I hope to go back again next year.