I was chatting with a friend online this afternoon and she asked me "is where you're living nice?"
I thought that was a neat, very open-ended question. So here goes...
Yes.
If you've seen some of my January posts then you've already seen the house I live in. Here it is again though.
The bottom floor is the garage/basement. I live on the first floor (where you see the steps). The family that owns the home occupy the top two floors.
I live in a fairly new neighborhood. The street is one big mud-hole. I think the city basically doesn't provide any maintenance until the area is well established (which it is because the whole street is lined with 3-4 story homes like this one).
I guess I live about 2 miles or so from the center of the city. You can look it up on Googlemaps (24 Nikitina, Uzhgorod, Ukraine).
I usually walk about a 1/4 a mile and catch public transportation (Marshrutka) into the center...it costs 25 cents.
There are good, western style grocery stores about a mile from me. Again, a combination of walking and riding the Marshrutka). I just have to be careful not to buy too much stuff at one time because you can't carry half a dozen bags at once and it's a pain to carry stuff on the Marshrutka.
For Church, I catch the bus into the Center and then walk another 1/2 mile or so.
I don't have internet at my house, although I do have 3G on my Ipad. I can usually check sports scores and facebook with it but it's too slow and unwieldy to do any kind of long internet sessions like research. I go into town and find a cafe with internet wifi for that. Wifi in cafe's is everywhere, but there aren't many places that have plug-ins for a computer.
Food is fairly cheap. I can usually get a pizza and coke for about $4.00. I eat a lot of pizza!
Of course where I'm living is very historical and it's on the western edge of the Carpathian mountains. Prior to WW1 this area was actually part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's not really been a part of Ukraine very long. So there's quite a mixture of cultures and it's evident in everything from food, to language, to architecture.
Greek Catholicism is as dominant here as Orthodoxy. It seems to me so far that the whole area is more open to religion than was Kyiv or eastern Ukraine where Orthodoxy is overwhelmingly dominant. The Church in Ukraine is going through a growth spurt. This is a good time to be here.
It's been too cold to venture out much, but I am close to the mountains. I'm looking forward to some hiking, camping and even rafting this summer. I'm already thinking about how to get a Kayak here!
There's more to say but that's enough for now. Just a short disjointed view of where I'm at.
I thought that was a neat, very open-ended question. So here goes...
Yes.
If you've seen some of my January posts then you've already seen the house I live in. Here it is again though.
I live in a fairly new neighborhood. The street is one big mud-hole. I think the city basically doesn't provide any maintenance until the area is well established (which it is because the whole street is lined with 3-4 story homes like this one).
I guess I live about 2 miles or so from the center of the city. You can look it up on Googlemaps (24 Nikitina, Uzhgorod, Ukraine).
I usually walk about a 1/4 a mile and catch public transportation (Marshrutka) into the center...it costs 25 cents.
There are good, western style grocery stores about a mile from me. Again, a combination of walking and riding the Marshrutka). I just have to be careful not to buy too much stuff at one time because you can't carry half a dozen bags at once and it's a pain to carry stuff on the Marshrutka.
For Church, I catch the bus into the Center and then walk another 1/2 mile or so.
I don't have internet at my house, although I do have 3G on my Ipad. I can usually check sports scores and facebook with it but it's too slow and unwieldy to do any kind of long internet sessions like research. I go into town and find a cafe with internet wifi for that. Wifi in cafe's is everywhere, but there aren't many places that have plug-ins for a computer.
Food is fairly cheap. I can usually get a pizza and coke for about $4.00. I eat a lot of pizza!
Of course where I'm living is very historical and it's on the western edge of the Carpathian mountains. Prior to WW1 this area was actually part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's not really been a part of Ukraine very long. So there's quite a mixture of cultures and it's evident in everything from food, to language, to architecture.
Greek Catholicism is as dominant here as Orthodoxy. It seems to me so far that the whole area is more open to religion than was Kyiv or eastern Ukraine where Orthodoxy is overwhelmingly dominant. The Church in Ukraine is going through a growth spurt. This is a good time to be here.
It's been too cold to venture out much, but I am close to the mountains. I'm looking forward to some hiking, camping and even rafting this summer. I'm already thinking about how to get a Kayak here!
There's more to say but that's enough for now. Just a short disjointed view of where I'm at.
1 comment:
Awesome. Thank you, little brother. Momma and I are going to make you a video and send it, so get ready!
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