I’m sure most of you have heard about the twin bombings in the Moscow metro on Monday morning.  Thankfully, me and everyone I know are alright, although it’s certainly left us all a little shaken up.  There were candle light vigils throughout Belgorod last night, but surprisingly it was not as hot a topic of conversation as I had expected.  Maybe it’s better that way.  If you’re looking for further reading, this article will tell you more.

But enough about terrorism.  I really wanted to write about my recent day trip to the Ukraine, which to be honest was about as exciting as a day trip to Canada for an American who lives close to the border.  Aillie and I woke up at the crack of dawn, unhindered by Russia’s early daylight savings switchover, and hiked over to the railway station.  Our bus was packed with people eager to take advantage of a favorable exchange rate and the budding spring weather.  True to form, I fell asleep as soon as the bus started moving, and didn’t wake up until we hit the border crossing.  Buses and taxi-vans have their own special line, and on a normal day, this line moves quickly through the initial passport check, the Russian exit patrol, and finally the Ukrainian entrance patrol, but for some reason the line stalled and it took us two hours to cross the twenty meters of no-man’s-land.  We kept ourselves warm and amused by syncing our MP3 players and dancing around.  When we finally reached the window, the guard took one look at my passport, one look at me, and flatly said, “It doesn’t look like you.”  My stomach dropped to my toes – I had visions of underground prison rooms that are usually reserved only for spies and traitors of the state – but then he said, “Smile.”  America is the only country that encourages its citizens to smile for identification photos!  As soon as I flashed my pearly whites, he stamped my passport and waved me through.

To be honest, the Ukraine looks almost exactly like Russia.  Big surprise, I know.  Kharkov, our destination, is an older city, and unlike Belgorod many of its older buildings are still standing today, giving the city a European feel.  The modern boutiques and megamalls don’t hurt either.  We exchanged our rubles for gribnyas  (which I think look like Monopoly bills), bought some green plastic Metro tokens, and laughed at the funny language that warned us about closing doors and line changes.  Aillie had a laundry list of things to get for spring, so we spent the day literally running from store to store, tearing through dressing rooms, and enjoying the little world-for-two that our English afforded us.  At points the whole experience felt like a little slice of my former life in America – there was an Apple store, a Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger and Levi’s, a food court, and a mini ice-skating rink.  Plus I had a partner in crime in territory that was mildly unfamiliar to us both.  It was nice to not feel like the only clueless one.

On the trip home we silently stuffed our stomachs with sweet breads and juice while watching the snow piles grow higher and higher as we crept back toward Russia.  The border crossing was about the same, except this time our driver – who is also the sweetest man in all of Eastern Europe – collected our passports, did the paperwork for us, and then roll called the entire bus to return them.  When he hit mine, he looked at it for a while before deciphering ‘Nicole,’ which he yelled out in an uncertain tone.  As he passed it back to me, he asked me to pass along a hello to his sister in Chicago.  So, for the bus driver’s sister in Chicago: Hi!  Your brother is doing great!

We finally made it home in one piece, exhausted and confused about the time – on top of it being daylight savings, Kharkov is also an hour behind Belgorod, so our sense of time was completely out of whack.  This sense of time disorientation got even worse the next morning: on Mondays I have class at 8:30 and 10:15.  I woke up at 10:10 and completely panicked – I set two alarms for 7:30 and 7:36!  How could I sleep through two of them!  I jumped to my phone – surely someone would have called if I had slept through a class and half – but there were no calls, and my phone read 7:10.  I looked at my watch again: 10:11.  PM.  Somehow it had switched to my parents’ time zone in the middle of the night.  I wasn’t late, I was early!  I was so proud of myself that I snoozed for the next 40 minutes and ended up being late to class anyway.  I’m a winner.

To end this ramble, I want to share my favorite moment from my Ukrainian excursion.  Aillie and I were running to catch our bus, but as we emerged from the Metro to the square that is bordered by the main bank, the government building, and the train station, the afternoon sun illuminated the whole scene with such gentle gloriousness that we had to stop and look at it.  While we were gazing around, a man approached us and said, “Girls, you have fire.”  Aillie and I glanced at each other with uncertainty, and then back at the guy, who was now making the international hand gesture for “I need a lighter.”  Even though we couldn’t help him out, it’s my favorite moment because of Aillie’s unrestrained delight that he attempted to use English with us.  We were noticeably foreign together; we made people want to switch things up.  We’re movers and shakers.  We are fire.