A night at the ballet

The office is buzzing with people COSing, people in for mid-service medical, and people in for reasons I know not.

Yesterday, I went to the Kyiv Opera Theatre in the early afternoon to get tickets to a show this week. My options were to go see a ballet by Tchaikovsky (the title being a Ukrainian word I didn't know) last night or the premier of the opera Yaroslav the Wise, which is about Ukrainian history, tonight. The ballet won out, easily.

Came back to the office and looked up Tchaikovsky's ballets on Wikipedia and discovered that I had a $4 ticket to go see The Nutcracker! (I had the opportunity to buy a $20 ticket, and once I knew what it was, I regretted not doing so, but it was fun anyway.) Three other PCV girls who were in the office also decided to get tickets, so while we didn't all get to sit together, we entered and exited together. :)

The ballet was wonderful. It was the first ballet I've seen. I've always been a very verbal person, and it was fascinating to see how a story could be told only through instrumental music and dance without any words at all. And I hadn't realized how much of the music I already knew!

Palm Sunday is called Willow Sunday in Ukraine, and no one knows why

I'm in Kharkiv...spent the night at Kathryn's and am going to have lunch with Greg. Last night, Kathryn, Janice, and I were at the main square in Kharkiv after Kathryn finished her Windows on America presentation (about ballads!), and we saw Hare Krishnas walking around and chanting, plus a theatrical performance by a travelling troupe that involved people reading newspapers, people walking on stilts, and lots of fire. We didn't understand it...and since they weren't talking, it had nothing to do with the language. We decided they were just trying to be artistic.

It's been a good week...I worked at school or went to meetings in the mornings (I got to spend a lot of time doing Internet research at school!), and in the afternoon, I spring-cleaned (got about half my apartment done as far as going through cupboards and closets, and then got busy...at least what I worked on is clean and all visible areas are good) or hung out with people. Spent a lot of time at the Y's...I've got a story about them, but it hasn't finished happening yet, so it'll wait for a future post.

Oh, and I have the chance to get high-speed Internet in my apartment!!! Assuming, of course, I can get ahold of my landlady (the phone number I have for her is the wrong one, so I'm trying to track her down at her school) and she says it's okay...which, as it won't involve anything more than a tiny hole in the windowframe and I'll be paying it myself, I really hope will be okay. Just think how often I could post! (j/k) But seriously...Skype...AIM...my phone bill might even shrink!