10k = Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Near the start line of the race, notice the flowers on the tree.


One of the PCV runners of the 1/2 marathon coming back into town.


PBJ sandwich has never tasted so good, definately worth running 6.2 miles.


Hungarian College. They got crossed by the border, currently are 5km from their native country.


Kelsey trying to decide on wine (by the way she was the winner of the 10k wootwoot)!



This week was a memorable one. On Tuesday, I moved into a new place. I’m currently living with a babusci who just turned 65 this Saturday. She is a widow and rents her two extra rooms to medical college students. Currently, I have two young men (16 & 17year olds) who are students as housemate as well as a 23 year old man who is doing a law internship in my town who will soon move to Lutsk. They will live here until the end of the school year. The summer months it will only be us two women. Next year could bring a couple more students male or female. I’ll describe the living situation and probably add photos next blog.

School went fast this week because I only taught Monday through Thursday. After school on Thursday, I grabbed my things quickly to head to the bus station to meet up with a PCV Katie who lives in a nearby village. We hopped a marsuka and picked up two more volunteers we traveled with to the wine country. It was 3 hours by bus to Lyiv which went by fast chatting with the other two girls. One of the girls and I discovered that our sisters have similar names despite Tobey being very uncommon for a girl and what was even more strange was the fact my sister’s middle name is Elise and her’s was Eliza. We got a pretty good kick out of it.

We got into Lyiv with a couple of hours to spare. There we joined 5 other volunteers for a quick borscht dinner before hopping on our 9 hour train to the wine country. We were in the general overnight sleeping area which means 6 beds: 2 bunk bed style with places for four people near the window and then across the aisle was one more set of bunk beds that were parallel with the aisle that ran through the entire car. It wasn’t too bad of a set up, I was able to snooze in and out the whole night. We arrived at 5am (kyiv time, 4am local) so we had an early morning walk wondering around in the rain looking for the volunteer’s apartment. We all crashed on the couches and floor before going to breakfast at 7am.

After breakfast, we saw the office which the event was being operated from. By noon, most of us where at our respected home for the weekend with some of us in a hotel, camp site, and two guest houses. I was at the hotel in a big room with four other girls. My cuddle buddy for the weekend was Kelsey (link mate from training). That night we had a pretty good pasta meal to carb up for our big race the next day.
Pre-morning breakfast was followed with going to the town center for the opening ceremony of the wine festival. It included a marching band, horse drawn carriages as well as a society/club of wine makers. (See face book for photos). Our Peace Corps country director was around this weekend for the festivities and had a chance to briefly speak at the opening. He has made it his personal goal to meet as many volunteers as possible and associate something unique with us so it will be easy to recall our name or story the next time he sees us. Guess what the first thing was written down next to my name… T-A-L-L, haha.

The 10k had roughly 30 runners as well as many other volunteers who manned certain points in the race as well as the water and snacks for crossing the finish line. My friend Kelsey took won the 10k beating a couple of Ukrainian young men as well as other American girls. Another PCV guy won the half marathon with a time a little over an hour and half mark. The weather for Saturday couldn’t have been more perfect. It was sunny but not too warm. I made the trek in my Da Bears t-shirt (got to represent) and adidas pants.

With having the Al Carius saying “run for fun and personal best” as my personal running motto, I don’t feel the need to disclose my running time but I can say I’m pretty happy with myself for not finishing last or even second to last in the 10k. I feel pretty accomplished for the “big girl” as I was often called on the basketball court but I will say next time I will avoid training on the track and try to find some hills around Kivertsi. I agree with one of the girls who said “I thought I was going to see St. Peter at the pearly gates because I just kept going up and up and it never seemed to end.”

The rest of the weekend was a lot of hanging out with volunteers that I hadn’t met before or had briefly met at swearing in. We enjoyed the shashlyk, grilled juicy pieces of meat on a skewer that was marinated in delicious spices, and many types of wine. My travel buddy for this adventure was Katie. We bummed around Sunday taking pictures, talking with other volunteers and mostly deeply enjoying the beautiful sunshine after a long cold winter in the Volynski oblast. Our outbound train to Lyiv was at 7:50pm. This time the general over night sleeper wasn’t available so we had to spend a little more money on beds in a cabin. There were two Ukrainian men who we shared it with. It was a sauna like temperatures when we first got on and even around the time we wanted to go to sleep. But by the middle of the night with the help of my iPod as a distraction, I was asleep. Then I grabbed a 3 hour bus to Lutsk before finishing the last leg of the journey with a 30 min marsuka ride back to my lovely little town.

Overall it was a great weekend and really fun to socialize with other volunteers as well as get a nice workout in (my legs still don’t feel normal, I blame the ridiculous hills). So yeah that is about it. I hope to get the majority of my photos up on face book this week. I didn’t capture the Carpathian Mountains which were visible after making it up the first hill outside of the town nor the beautiful vineyards on the rolling hills but I’m sure through other PCVs albums via face book that I’ll be tagged in that you will get a chance to see them.

This past Saturday marked 6 months in country and 4 of those at my site. The days are slow but the weeks go by fairly quick. Here is too many more 17ths to pass and hopefully as enjoyable as this last one. Hope all is well at home. I miss you all. Keep lookin’ up.

Kate