VACATION!!!

Crimea is supposed to be a subtropical vacation paradise that is located in southern Ukraine on a peninsula that juts into the Black Sea. However, the week we ended up going had temperatures colder than Kiev has been, staying around 60 degree’s Fahrenheit and it was cloudy almost the whole time. This was a little unfortunate for us, but I still had a spectacular vacation, and on one day it was sunny ALL of us managed to get incredibly burned. During this week that we were in Yalta (a city in Crimea that is along the coast), I was able to hold an eagle on my arm, get stolen from by a monkey, learn a ton of new card games, share an apartment with a family of ants, and sleep on a bed that may or may not have been for a dog. We also were able to: take a boat to the swallow’s nest, which is a tiny castle on top of a cliff turned restaurant apparently, and another palace (I don’t know how to spell its name) where Anastasia’s family lived for a short while right before they went somewhere else to be executed, and where the Yalta conference took place with Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt after WWII.  We went to another palace with beautiful botanical gardens surrounding it. And our last day we went and saw some Greek ruins right by the sea. It was fantastic!! It is super gorgeous and green in Crimea, and I loved being able to relax and be there with all my awesome teacher peeps. I have a deep love for the Black sea and I am going to miss it! Monday was Victory day here in Ukraine, so we went to a parade that was for all the veterans, and then went exploring on an island in the Dnipro (not sure how to spell it in English) river.

Mmk bye for now!