The Big Snow 2012!

This past week Kyiv had a record snowfall.  It barely stopped snowing for about 3 days and it is the most snow recorded here since 1930. 

What I love about winter time in Ukraine is that no amount of snow will ever stop Ukrainians!  They are as unfazed as a native Californian in an earthquake.

I've never seen so much snow in my life so I was getting strange looks for taking pictures of it!

I love this photo!

Waiting For Spring

It's not spring here yet. I have been perusing my favorite blogs around the blogosphere and many are sharing photos of the beginning of spring. Flowers, trees blooming, no snow, lots of sunlight. Here in Ukraine it is STILL snowing and COLD. I took this photo two days ago to highlight what it looks like here now. It was a lot prettier looking in color, but I did not realize that I had my camera set on black and white and I don't do total post editing processing and add fake color, etc. (read photography snob) You can't see the outdoor ice rink in front of the church builidng, but it's still there today and people are still skating outside on it!

-19C And Getting Lower!

The ice on the inside of my window.

The temperature dropped abruptly this week and as it lowered so quickly, my body did not have time to adjust to the change. It was something like -15 C but "feels like -25C." Your body does adapt to weather this cold but the first couple of days are a bit difficult. I didn't realize how cold it was outside so I left home without long underwear. I have not worn long underwear here during the last couple of winters as the cold had not bothered me but by the time I was walking through an outside market on the way to our Day Center, I realized that I was not dressed warm enough and realizing that my long underwear at home was wearing out, I decided to invest in something that I could put on as soon as possible.

I went up to the kiosk and asked a big woman wrapped up in a thick coat and huge fur hat, "Do you have these in my size?"

Clothing sizes at kiosks are a mystery to me. I have given up figuring out and translating my size and just ask the ladies to give me what they think is my size. They are great at this and I have never bought anything that didn't fit.

"Yes! These are the warmest. I will get you your size. Where are you from anyway?"

"Los Angeles, California! I NEED LONG UNDERWEAR, there's no -15C weather in Southern California!"

She laughed and I shoved the tights into my purse and hurried to our Center. When I arrived I was asked, "Are you frozen?" I could only wave the long underwear in the air as an answer. "Go put those on right away!"

It takes a lot to shut down Ukraine and even today in -19C weather, there are babushki outside our market selling away, wrapped up in thick coats.

But the rumors for this week is that it could get as low as -33C and that schools may shut down. The coldest I've been in is -28C so it could be an interesting week.

Honestly, I don't care how cold it gets as long as I can see the sun!