Christmas day and Boxing Day

Hi everyone & I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and Boxing day with your family and freinds. It's not quite Christmas here yet. Christmas happens on the 7th of January! A bit strange but they seem to celebrate from 31st December, NYE, the 7th January and then again on the old Christams calendar on the 13th and 14th of January. So I cant tell you anything about Chrissy in Ukraine. But I will tell you about my Boxing day.

Maryna and Andrey wanted to spend some time with me so I told them that I had a hairdressers appointment and then I had to do some grocery shopping but I could meet with them after that. No problem said Maryna, we will take you shopping and then spend some time together.

The hair dresser is about five minutes away, but at the moment, the temperature is quite warm +3 and all the snow and ice is melting and it is very slippery on the street so I gave myself 15 minutes to get there. I slid most of the way, but arrived without breaking any bones!!!  I survived the hairdressers again (without Inna this time) and came out looking normal (took me ten minutes to explain that I only wanted the base colour and no foils) , although they did put something in my hair on top of the colour & I was a bit worried what it would come out like but I think it was some sort of conditioning treatment? Luciana, any idea? I must admit though the language barrier is not helping my hairstyle mum, it is becoming all the same length, I'm not sure how to communicate layers to this guy. He asked me if I wanted short or long & I said no, not short, he said all the one length, and rather than trying to explain layers, I just said yes. So Luciana, I will need a decent cut around March next year to get things back into shape. Colour is good though.

I do find it amusing how the women in this place manage to get around in extremely high heels at this time of year. The first thing I did when I arrived was to get a good pair of waterproof boots to wear in the street during the winter. No heals, flat sturdy boot. These women all go out dressed to the hilt and in the highest heels possible. I am sure I would break my neck if I ventures out in my boots that have an inch heal!

Anyway, I meet Maryna and Andrey at my apartment & we skate to the car & drive off to the supermartket.... Target! This is the big supermarket that we went to via the metro during the first month. Lots of variety and everything you could need. As I am coming home on the 5th, I really only needed washing powder, fabric softener, toothpaste etc. not much in the way of food. I did however want to get some tins of crushed tomatos to make spagettiie sauce, which is fast becoming my main evening meal. No.... says Andrey, we crush our own home grown tomatoes and bottle them, you should not buy them at the supermarket... full of unatural preservatives! OK I say and think nothing more of it.

We pay for our groceries & hop back in the car & drive to Maryna's apartment where I am greeted by the smell of wonderful home cooking. I thought I was going to Maryna's place to see her cats, but they provided a beautiful meal for me. More important to me than food was the babies..... and here they are Lisa (white) and Malyshka (tortishell)

Fat cat Lisa














Fat cat Malyshka












Fat cats tucked
up underneath a
blanket together
Life is good in this
house!






Andrey is a keen photographer and loves geography, so we spent a lot of time looking at his pictures and on Google earth. Andrey showed me photos of some ice station that he worked on & they had polar bears visit them. Would be great to see, but at minus 50 and at times with only one hour of daylight, I dont think its my cup of tea. I showed them where I lived and I must admit my home (384) when I saw it looked good. The photo must have been taken during summer as the trees were in full bloom and it was sunny. They were suprised that I lived on such a large block of land and I explained that this is my mum and dads first house and the surrounding area when the bought the land was orchards (fruit trees). These days the blocks are a lot smaller and houses closer together, so I am very lucky to have so much land. I also showed them PML at Moorabbin and Chadstone shopping centre and the bay, to give them an idea of the layout of Melbourne. I really hope that one day my Ukraine, Polish, Russian, German and Swiss friends will get the oportunity to come out to Australia and visit. I would love to show them my country.

Maryna's mum spoke no English, but I think in the end she understood my very bad Russian and understood I was trying to say thank you (spasiba) for the hospitality. I received an invitation to come back, so I must have made a bit of an impression. Andrey suggested that in spring, they take me to a place in the countryside where he took some of the photos and perhaps have a BBQ. I am more than happy to take him up on this offer. Now as we were leaving, Maryna and Andrey were doing something in the kitchen. When I was putting on my jacket, they came out with 3 big bottles of crushed tomatos and a big jar of Andrey's home made honey....... One of Andreys hobbies is keeping bees, and these bees make beautiful honey!!!!! So no preservatives for me in Ukraine, just pure home grown goodness!!!

My street covered in snow
befor it started to melt.








Had a bit of a sleep in this morning then got up showered and cleaned the apartment. It doesnt take long to clean, unlike Sasha's & Michal's who's apartments are quite large and spacious. Tanyia, the owner of all our apartments arranged a cleaning lady for the boys as obviously, they are not doing a particularly good job of cleaning! Last week, a family moved out of an apartment above me. I think this is the apartment that Christina will be going into. Christina, its not the one directly above me so you dont have to worry about making noise........ you know what I mean!!!! looking forward to having a house warming party for you when I get back.

They are predicting snow again this week, but with quite mild temperatures nothing colder than -3, so with a bit of luck, we will have snow on NYE & I will be able to fly out on the 4th without any problems. Christina is flying in on the plane that I fly to Vienna on, so we can wave to each other as we pass through the airport. I have attached this link so you can see the weather in Kharkiv.

http://www.meteoprog.ua/en/weather/Kharkiv/

I will keep the blog running while I an at home so my mates in Ukraine can see what I get up to on my home visit, so dont be suprised if when I catch up with you all, that I take pics so I can post them on my blog.

Time to go and have some lunch..... Honey on bread I think! :-)

xm