How Time Flies.

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page" - St. Augustine

Well it has already been about 2 weeks that I have been here in Ukraine, crazy!! The last few days have been relaxing and eye opening! We had the great opportunity of having our coordinator, Anna, show us around Kiev to some of her favourite places. Luckily for us, one of her favourite places included the famous Ukranian chocolate shop, Roshen. She bought us each a piece of her favourite chocolate, and was it ever good!! I have never been a huge chocolate fan, but I am totally converted now. It was the best chocolate I have ever eaten. I will definitely be bringing some home. Also, on our tour was we were walking past a food market, there was what looked like fudge in a booth, but as we got closer we saw that it was actually something called Halva. Halva is popular across the Middle East, Asia, Northern Africa, the Balkans, Malta, and Eastern Europe. It is a a dense, sweet treat, made from sunflower seed oil here in Ukraine. It is very rich, and surprisingly very good.. in small amounts! Anna also had to show us her favourite places to shop.... uh oh. I'll try to keep myself under control! 

Roshen chocolate store yummmy! 

Eating Halva

Kyla, Me, Nonika, Anna

Kyla and I - love her! 

On Thursday night Nonika and I went for dinner to this little restaurant we found while walking around... it really caught our eye because they had an english menu! It's part of our criteria when choosing places to eat or else we would be at a total loss. But it was amazing! It was traditional Ukrainian food and we settled on borscht and fried meat filled potato dumplings. The food here rocks! However, the bartender would NOT stop staring at us. He didn't even care how obvious he was being. Sometimes, people make you feel awkward, but you get over it and move on, but not with this guy, he was just not taking his eyes off of us. I wanted to just take a picture and give it to him! I'm not sure why we were so interesting, I would have said it was the opposite, but apparently something was intriguing to him haha! 

Nonika and I at the beautiful University!

Daily bus ride!

Friday we finally got to sleep in!! Yay!! It made the day perfectly relaxing. Sometimes all you need is a day to catch up and just think about how great your life is and all the ways you have been so blessed. For me, that's what Friday was like, and I couldn't be luckier with this wonderful life and opportunity that I have. 

On Saturday we got to go to the WWII museum, known has the Great Patriotic War here. It was such a neat experience. I'm not usually a huge museum fan, but this was exceptional. If you ever get the chance to go here I would definitely take the chance! Our tour guide was great and made it interesting. Being at the museum made me so grateful for all those who fought for our country so that we can be free today and live our lives the way we want to without opposition. After our tour we went to a Ukrainian place to eat lunch. We have resorted to just pointing at what we think we want and hoping for the best! Usually it turns out pretty well even! 

Gloves from the Holocaust made from human skin, so sad.

A photo in memory of each soldier who fought for the USSR in WWII

The girls at the museum!

Remains of a fighter plane from WWII

Sunday was a really great day for me. Being able to go to the International Ward here is so nice. The people here are all so welcoming and kind and I really feel at home. The ward got about 20 new ILP students this last week, so we got to meet a few of them. It is nice to have some girls our age in the ward now and hopefully we will be able to hang out with them while we are all here. There are even 2 girls from home, so that was a nice surprise! I love going to church here because it is right next to the temple, and the temple here is so so pretty. I love being able to see it every week, it brings me such happiness. 

Such a beautiful temple.

This next week is really going to fly by and then on Friday we are already off on our first week long tour of Europe, heading to Budapest, Dresden, Prague and Vienna!! 

Love my girls!