One more thing...

For those of you who were wondering, Gorbal' the guy who sponsored the Scorpions concert, he lost the election. The incumbent mayor won. The other potentials were Yulia Timoshenko's cohort (whose name I can't remember), and Klichko, a champion boxer who had Guiliani consulting his campaign. For more on the election, you can read Wikipedia!!! (which nobody has updated yet... I would, but I leave in 3 minutes!!!)

In the mean time, here's a photo of Yuliya Timoshenko. I have a huge crush on her :P

And I got a poster of her that I am bringing home. Ура!!!

The Marriage of Figaro

Last night after work, I went to the Kyiv Opera House to see the ballet version of the Marriage of Figaro. The building was quite impressive, and looks as is if has been recently renovated. Tickets range from 10-200 hrv. (2-40 USD) which is a heck of a lot better than the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where tickets started around 40 or 50 USD. The ballet was hilarious. I don't know if Marcellina is usually played by a man, but it was absolutely hilarious. He/she looked a lot like Verka Serdyuchka (Верка Сердючка), a popular Ukrainian drag queen singer. Anyways, it was quite a riot. The principal dancers were all very good... I would have to say the guy who played Cherubino was the best. However, the corps de ballet were a little disappointing... they were often out of formation or unision. But overall, I enjoyed the ballet and the theatre.

At intermission, I returned to my row and was surprised to find Anna Khmelenko, a Ukrainian who had lived in the Foreign Language housing at BYU when I lived there. She also had an internship at a law firm in Kyiv and was visiting the theatre with an American girl from Pitt law who had an internship with that same firm. It was quite the random meeting. It turns out the American girl lives right by my apartment here, and their office is not far from mine, so we may go out to lunch next week. It was nice to be able to compare notes with the girl from Pittsburg, Carrie (or some alternative spelling thereof), about the type of work we were doing and the fun/frustrating job it is to read English written by Ukrainians.

Tonight, I'm taking the bus to Ivano-Frankovsk, where I plan to hike Mt. Hoverla, and then I'll head up to Lvov to check out that town. And then I'll get back to Kiev somehow (trains are all full... I am going to try to get a bus ticket... hopefully I'll be able to find something) Monday morning in time to shower and go to work. So hopefully sometime Monday, I can post photos from the weekend. In the mean time, I added these photos and others to Facebook.

Real Estate Development

Umm... can I just say that there is a LOT of money to be made in commercial real estate development? Especially here in Ukraine. I may have to keep looking into this...

More Photos

I've posted an album on Facebook. There should be even more coming after my trip this weekend.

Hip Hop in Kyiv

So a couple weeks ago, I saw a story in the Kyiv Post that David Moore (a hip-hop dancer/choreographer who has was a finalist in the Wade Robson project and apparently choreographed for So You Think You Can Dance) was going to be teaching master classes in Kyiv (www.hiphopguru.com.ua). So I decided I had to go. It has been a while since I've danced, and an even longer time since I've done hip-hop. But it was fun nonetheless to see Ukrainian hip-hop dancers. So far, I've only uploaded his performance of the dance for us. I'll try to get a video of me and some of the other people up soon. I also gotta add photos from this weekend...



oh... and afterwards, I walked by a construction site of this huge building that one of our clients is building and that I did some work for. But unfortunately I can't post the photo or say anything else... darn confidentiality agreements. Yay for being a lawyer :P

Speaking of that, I've had a few dreams lately that I was back in Moab working on the river. It made me wonder if maybe I'm doing the wrong thing with my summer/life. Hmm....

Scorpions in Kyiv

So last night, they had a free concert down in the center of town. It was sponsored by Горбаль, one of the candidates for mayor. Anyways, the Scorpions played! They are huge in Russia/Ukraine... everyone knows them and was singing along to the music. I went with Lena and her friend, whose husband was working on the campaign, so we went over to their booth and they gave us a bunch of balloons on sticks with the candidates name on them, as well as blue ponchos (because it was raining off and on... and blue is the party's color). Anyways, then they let us into the VIP zone which was a roped off area right in front of the stage, where we had to hand out the balloons to people. It didn't take very long and then we were done and standing about 30 feet from the stage. It was great. The concert was awesome. The only thing that stunk was the fact that I forgot my camera!!! Lena's friend took some photos so I am going to try and track her down and get her to email me them. In the mean time, here is a video from it that someone posted on YouTube. They were really far away from the stage... we were right up next to it. But you can see how packed the square was. Good times. Today we're going to Pyrogovo, a museum of folk architecture and art. I'll bring my camera this time :)

Hazelnut Snickers

So they have Snickers с лесным орехом (with forest nuts) here... aka hazelnut snickers. It's like nutella and snickers got together to make an amazing bar of chocolaty goodness! So a funny story about said snickers bar... this morning I went to buy one in the tunnel outside the metro, but all I had was a 100 hrivna note, and they are 4.50. I also had a 2 hrivna note, so she said to just give her that and that I could bring the rest later. Only in Ukraine :)

BYU Folk Dancers

So Tuesday night, the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble performed at the Polytechnical Institute's theatre here in Kyiv! The performance was the last stop on their tour that went throughout Central Europe. I invited some of the people that I work with, but none of them could come (they all work way past 6pm when I leave... but most of them also get there later than I do). Anyways, I met up with Lena Gorbenko, who served with me in Nizhny Novgorod back at the beginning of my mission. It was fun to see her again and meet her sister and brother in law. We are all going to go (along with Kostya and Elena Chernova (another mission friend)) out to Pyrohovo this Saturday. Should be fun!

So the concert was great. They did mostly American and Canadian dances, and there was a lot of clogging. The guy from the embassy who introduced them (the US embassy was sponsoring the event) mentioned that he hoped they could convince the dancers to do the Hopak (a traditional Ukrainian dance) even though it wasn't part of the program. So after the amazing show, everyone was clapping and saying "now they're going to do the Hopak," but they never did. A lot of the people were kind of bummed that they didn't do it, but they all seemed to like the stuff that they saw. I asked one of the dancers afterwards and apparently the director took it out of their repetoire last year. But he said they got so much flak for doing so that they are probably going to put it back in. In any case, the dancing was awesome.

While there, I ran into Professor Cole Durham, who teaches at the law school and taught one of my classes from last semester. I guess if he's busy running around Europe, he won't have time to read my paper and see how crappy it is. Ha ha. I also got to see Lena Nechiporova, who is the church's director of public relations for the Europe East Area. She was busy greeting and chatting with everyone as usual, but I got to say hi to her for a second. Good times! The folk dancers are doing a fireside tonight but I don't think I'll be going. I am meeting with someone in an hour to look at an apartment that I can stay in for the next two weeks.

Free Coca-Cola

I just found out that they keep the fridge in the lunch room stocked with Coke and Diet Coke, and that we can take a bottle whenever we want! Happy Day!

Apartments, and today's activities

So I decided to go to the international branch today to see what it was like. I met a couple ILP students (English language teachers) yesterday while I was sightseeing. They said they were meeting someone in the metro, so I figured I would find them there. Well, they never showed up, so I called my old mission companion Kostya and he told me how to get there. After walking around dom 13 a couple times, I finally saw someone through the window of what looked like a bishop's office. He pointed me to where the unmarked door was and I made it to the meeting.

While there, I met sister Politova, who I met in the MTC ages ago. We both thought the other looked familiar, and after a while, we finally figured it out. The branch was small, mostly ILP girls and a couple institute families, and a surprising number of Ukrainians who apparently like to go to church in English. Turns out the branch president (President Coe??) used to be Sterling Haring's boss (one of my other mission companions). Anyways...

I also ran into Lauren LeDuc, who is from my hometown and whose dad taught at my high school. She is here with ILP. Small world. Anyways, there was a fireside with some BYU professor who was visiting, so she and I went to the other church building near the center to go to that. It ended up being too long and kinda boring, but oh well.

In other news, I figured I should start looking for a place to live since my current situation is not permanent (I live with a friend of Kostya's whose wife and kids are out of town visiting relatives). Anyways, they were going to be gone for 3 weeks, but I found out this morning that they will probably be coming back next Sunday, so I need to move! So I've spent the last couple hours emailing about 10 different apartment services trying to find something that won't be super expensive. It would be kind of hard to rent a regular apartment for just 2 weeks, so I have been looking at the daily apartments. They start around $40/day, so it's going to end up being pretty expensive. But that is kind of what I expected. Anyways, at least this time around, I have more time to look, a better idea of where to look, and I am awake during Ukrainian business hours, which makes communication easier. So it should work out fine.

In other news, the BYU folk dance team is coming on Tuesday, so I will be going to that. And according to What's On Kiev, David Moore, Shane Sparks, and Wade Robson are coming here to teach hip-hop classes. I'm going to call tomorrow to see if I can get into one of them (preferably with wade, since he's the most amazing dancer ever...) Anyways, those are some of my plans for the week. I'm getting hungry. Time to cook up some pelmeni!

Photos

So I posted my first set of photos on Facebook. Here is the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2181665&l=87050&id=17824031

Genesis

So I have been spending a lot of time traveling by myself lately since arriving in Kyiv, and there are a ton of things I see and do that I want to tell people about. Usually, it's specific people. And sometimes I actually remember to tell them. But I decided today that I should just make a blog so that I get it out there. And so that you can see some of my photos and enjoy my trip along with me. So enjoy. I'll try to post regularly and keep it interesting.