Never thought I'd be relieved to hear Russian...

Torben and I just got back from a very relaxing weekend in the most beautiful Ukrainian city we've ever visited - Lviv. I finished SBS part two and we immediately hopped on a train for this small city about 6 or 7 hours west of Kiev. Both of us were very tired, especially me, since I had hurried to finish Kings a day early in order to leave on time. It was perfect because Ukraine has these new rules that even if you have a visa, you have to be registered if you stay longer than 90 days, or you have to leave the country every 90 days. Since registering is a hassle and we needed a change of scenery, we opted for leaving the country.
Lviv is relatively close to the Polish border, so we just took a bus from Lviv to the border. I was a little nervous because I've
gotten in trouble at that border before for being over my 90 days and this time I was on my 89th day. Thankfully, there were no problems. We just got through the border, bought some Polish goodies, and walked back through to Ukraine.
So we made our way back to Lviv and started our mini vacation. It was just great. It was supposed to rain all weekend, but it didn't. And through some of our friends here in Kiev, we arranged to stay at a church fairly near the center of the city. This church was amazing (pictured to the right with our duck Gorm) We were envisioning a teeny little chapel with a back room, but we ended up in this gorgeous church with our own bathroom and a very comfy bed...just perfect :) The city was very nice and had a great square where we could sit and watch people...random fact - people in Lviv love to wear red and black together. In 10 minutes we counted 50+ people wearing red and black clothes...no idea why.
Only one thing threw us off about being in Lviv versus Kiev. Everybody speaks Ukrainian in Lviv as opposed to Russian. Torben and I understand a lot of Russian but very very very little of Ukrainian. We were completely lost the whole time. Felt like we were in an entirely different country. So when we got into the train to head back to Kiev last night and the lady in our cabin started speaking to us in Russian, both of us breathed a sigh of relief...never thought that would happen :)
I am still so often amazed at this crazy life God has gotten me into. I live in Ukraine with my Danish husband and hang out with my American, Ukrainian, Russian, Danish, Canadian, Australian friends. I am well versed in visa laws, cross-cultural understanding, I know things about countries I'd never heard of 5 years ago.......and I'm just a shy country girl from Minerva, Ohio - hick, corn-growing country where there are more cows than people. I'll never understand why God chose someone like me to live this crazy life, but I am grateful for it (most of the time, except this morning at 6am when I got home tired and train-grimy and my shower wouldn't work...). Seriously though, I thank God for the life He has led me to.