There is nothing better than summer.

My first official summer weekend kicked off with an overnight train ride to Kyiv. I didn't get much sleep, but that didn't stop me from enjoying my morning at the Peace Corps office. On the fourth floor of the office is the volunteer lounge. There are comfy couches, a computer lab, and a lot of books for volunteers to trade. It's a great place to relax and meet new people. After a few hours my friends Thomas and Emily got to town.

We headed over to the Pinchuk Art Centre to see the exhibit Sexual Transcendence. It was really interesting. There were a lot of different types of art there, sculpture, performance, video, collage, painting. One video was pretty disturbing actually, but the rest was excellently laid out and thought provoking. Here is a short article about the exhibit if you're interested...Sexual Transcendence.

Next we headed to Maidan (Independence) Square, one of the most famous sights in Ukraine. There we met my friend Alie's mother and grandmothers who were visiting from Chicago. It's always fun to see the parents of your friends, it's a whole new insight into them.


That evening we went to Morozivka, my training site, and spent some time with our host families. My host sisters and I had a little feast, drank a bit, and headed across town to the local bar only to find that it had just closed. Oh well, better luck next time.

Sunday was lake day! It was so hot here this weekend that we could no longer avoid the urge to go swimming. My host family lives on a small lake, so we started off the day there roasting fish and sausages over the fire. As far as I know Tanya and Gallina have lived in the same house all their lives and I found out that they had never swam in the lake! We decided to go for it and I quickly found out why it's not the hottest swimming destination. The muck at the bottom went literally up to my knees... gross. Still fun though. Later we went to another, nicer lake and swam some more. I love going back to visit my host family. They really are my Ukrainian family.