Sunday/Monday

     This post is part two of my mom's adventure here. Like in the last post, her comments are in italics. 

     Sunday was the standard Sunday schedule for me. Except that my mom got to tag along and see how things work here. After a good breakfast of omelets and toast, we walked down to the metro and rode to the stop near church. Ukraine has been very good for Brian. He can now cook! That was one of the best omelets I've ever had!
    The morning was good for mom because she got to see a lot of people that she had at the summer camps. Plus she finally got to meet the Pervis family. Their schedules never aligned in the past while mom was here but it finally did this weekend. It was just wonderful to see 'old' faces again. I was able to chat with several friends from previous camps and, as Brian said, finally meet the Pervis's!! Max continued his sermon series Sunday on Christian joy.
     I knew that I would probably be called to the front after the service. The tradition at Big City is to have people who've had birthdays in the past week come to the front to receive a box of chocolates and be prayed for. Like any proud mom, she couldn't help catching it on video. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one up there. Nina made a wonderful cake for snack time after church as it had also been her daughter Marta's birthday last week. I can confirm that the cake was awesome.
     I was also gifted with the highest-quality Frisbee I've ever owned. It's a very nice, American-made Discraft competition model. It's the same kind used by all the professional Ukrainian Ultimate Frisbee teams. It even has the Ukrainian symbol, a trident, printed on it. I'm looking forward to being able to use it once the weather gets warm again.

     I wanted some time in the afternoon to relax. So that's what we did. Mom and I got to talk, go over some finances, rest. I even got to give a bit of an overview of what we do in English club. I showed her a sample of the article and vocabulary and explained how the evenings usually work.
     In the evening, we walked over to the office for English. For me, it was a standard night. We had a big group, probably around 35. But the extra bodies really helped it go smoothly. David put an email out to the pool of teachers asking if they could help one Sunday a month. A third person really helps things go better. Nathan Crane was able to join us. And since my mom was there, we were able to have four groups for the article discussion. That's never happened that I can remember since I've been here. I enjoyed being at English club and seeing how that works. It was a large group but a lot of fun. David enlisted my help right after meeting me at church in the morning. The article discussion was organized very well but my group, unfortunately, did not get to the questions. I guess I need more practice. I have found the Ukrainian students that we've worked with to be very warm and friendly. One young lady, whom I just met on Friday night, came right up to me on Sunday night and gave me a big hug.
     We walked back to my apartment after English but the group was still having fun. The Liberty team has started to try and offer activities after every English club. This week, they continued in a master class series on acting. But mom needed to pack and I needed to be back in time for a Skype chat with some friends. We had a good chat. There seems to be a common theme in them. Namely, "When are you coming back?" I had to end the chat early (due to being tired from the weekend and needing sleep for Monday morning). I was in bed a little after 10PM and had a decent amount of sleep before the alarm woke me.
     The taxi came somewhere between "I should be sleeping" and "Why am I awake now?" on Monday morning. I thought we had to be ready and out the door at 3:45 to make it to the airport in time. Her flight left at 7AM necessitating the early morning. We made it to the airport easily. Jon had ordered the taxi for us and, yes, Brian had to answer the phone when the taxi driver called. We had an easy drive to the airport.  There were still more people on the roads than I thought there should be at 4:00 in the morning.  The roads were pretty bad to start with but improved as we got closer to the airport.
     We made it to the airport very early. However, the flight wasn't until 7 and we were there at about 4:45. So we sat and talked until about 5:40. Mom wanted to get to her gate on time for boarding and she still had to go through passenger security and passport control. Neither of those were a problem. She made it onto her flight and was back in the States by Monday afternoon. My dad got to leave work early to pick her up from Newark. Brian then had the fun task of waiting for the bus that runs back to Vokzalna station where he rode the rush hour metro back to his stop.
     The trip back wasn't a problem. I was able to make it back before the sun was completely up. Although the sky is cloudy today. I could feel my energy draining away quickly so I went back to bed for a few hours. I finally rolled out around 11AM. Now I'm finishing this post and things will be mostly back to normal.
     As a preview, tonight is another English Club. That'll be normal as far as I know. But tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.
     March 8th, in the nations of the former Soviet Union, is International Women's Day. Even though it has it's roots in the Socialist Party of the USSR, it's still extremely popular. From what I've been told, I need to have chocolate and flowers ready to give to all the women I know. Its not a romantic thing. In the modern incarnation, its just a chance to show appreciation for the women I know; which as it turns out, is a lot. I'm going shopping this afternoon for a few things, chocolate included.
     Alright, I think I'll end things here now. Time to stop being lazy and go out and do stuff. Things to do, people to see.