Another week is officially under my belt, and it surprises me how fast it has gone by. I am ¼ way through my visit, and while I feel loads better with my understanding of the language… I also am very aware that the hard part is yet to come. We begin our work on a full-time basis at the internet tomorrow and I am looking forward to diving into what I came here to do. I will keep posting updates as I will have some stories to share after the week is through.

Jen and I successfully picked up Miri from Lviv on Tuesday, and I got to spend some more time with her yesterday just walking around Ternopil. As an aside, a Saturday in Ternopil is filled with brides, grooms, and wedding parties. We also came across a playground with very sketchy playground equipment. If you grew up in Cambridge, you will probably remember the old rocket ship they tore down from Churchill Park. Every kid was scared for their life when climbing this rocket ship because it was old, and seemed like it was falling over. Finally the city of Cambridge replaced it with one that was safer (and thus less fun). Well… if you thought this was scary…you should check out the slide on the rocket ship I climbed yesterday. I would bet it was at an 80 degree angle from the ground, and it felt like a free fall going down. I actually screamed.

After touring Ternopil further, I came home yesterday and was planning on visiting an internet café near my house. Instead, however, Luba and Sacha decided to go visit their dacha (plot of land that they farm), and I happily tagged along. The plot of land was fairly large, and because of the clouds I didn’t bring my camera but I will take pictures soon. Sacha joked that one day he wanted Tanya and Slaveek to each build a house on this land, one in each corner. For now though, the land is used to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, green onions, strawberries, flowers, carrots, and other things that I either could not understand or cannot remember right now. We spent about 3.5 hours there yesterday and I helped to plant some corn, and weed the strawberry garden. We even found two ripe strawberries and split the first taste of them when we got home, yum!

Today I helped Luba make vareniky (perogies) with a cabbage filling. She has been cooking this cabbage since yesterday, and what started out as a very strong disgusting smell is turning more and more delicious with time… or maybe I am just getting more used to it. While making perogies Luba was saying I was such a nice girl, and then mentioned how nice her son was too. I am fairly certain she then suggested we get married...because she was saying how Slaveek and I could come back to Canada together but Alex would be very surprised at this and not like him. I couldn't help but laugh.

I also found out that I get to go to a wedding this summer! Sacha's brother who libves 50km out of the city has a son who is getting married in July. I am really excited about this, it shoudl be really interesting!

On another note, my time at the university is done! Jen and I finished our course on Friday, complete with an oral and written exam, and will pop by the university tomorrow to get our final grade. Our Canadian friends have three more weeks left at the university, and have expressed an interest in visiting us at the internat…so that could be an exciting adventure as well!

I think that will be all for my update at the moment. My internet time will be less now that I am no longer at the university…but I still really enjoy reading your comments and love to hear from everyone! Thanks again for reading.