settling in

Well, my first week of classes in L'viv is over. It's different from what I expected...not bad, just taking some getting used to. I'm used to Peace Corps, which crammed as much Ukrainian in our heads as possible, and then sent us off to live on our own--with their support, of course, but we learned how to be self-sufficient fairly quickly. Here, I'm an international student, our language classes go at a much slower pace, I find that I use Ukrainian primarily in class and English much of the rest of the time, and we're given a lot of support...in English. It's weird for me, because for the first month I was here, I was speaking Ukrainian all the time I was awake (except for my interviews), and here, since us students are together a lot, I use English much more. But I'm hoping to get a conversation partner so I can speak Ukrainian more.

Today we went on a bus tour of L'viv with a history professor from the university as our tour guide. It was really interesting...since L'viv was part of Poland and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire at various points and didn't come under Soviet control until 1939, it feels so different than out East in Kharkiv or Balaklia. In some ways, it feels like a different country, just with the same language. I'm reminded of my impression from the time Tif and I visited here--the people who built this city took the effort to make things pretty, with great attention to details like wrought-iron balconies and sculptures on the facades of buildings. I also love seeing all the old churches.

On the subject of church, I was hoping to go to the Baptist church here tomorrow, as that would be something that would feel familiar to me. But Vanessa, Ally, and I have tickets to the Ukrainan folk-opera Natalka Poltavka, which starts at noon, so there's no way the Baptist service (which starts at 10 am) would be done by then. So I think I'm going to the Catholic cathedral downtown, which should be a neat experience. I'm interested in seeing how much of the liturgy I can follow, as the last time I went to a liturgical service in Ukraine (which was several years ago), I couldn't understand a thing.