Easter Weekend

Happy Easter to everyone!
This last weekend was a wild experience. Saturday, I met up with Megan, Zach, Jason and Mike and we walked around the city. We found this huge foot bridge that crossed the river and walked over it to this forest where we just hung out for a bit. At that point I was starving as I thought we were meeting for lunch not to explore Ukraine by foot. We went to another pizzeria and I enjoyed an amazing pie. I cruised home and the rest of the group continued on to do something else. I ate dinner and went to bed early as I knew we had to be up at the crack of dawn.
Easter (or Pasca in Ukraine) is a huge 3-day celebration. We woke up at 5am and got ready for church. As we strepped outside into the freezing air, you could hear choir music echoing throughout the city and hundreds of people (I mean everyone) was outside carrying their Easter baskets to the church. At the church everyone grouped up outside as the pastor blessed everyone and their baskets. From what I understand, in the baskets is the food they were unable to eat during lent. It is also part of Pasca supper. To my surprise there wasn't a church service, that was all there was. We met up with Marina's sister and her family and Marina's mom. We then drove to Andry's family's house for an early meal. At the meal was an endless supply of vodka and wine. I didn't want to even think about drinking at 6am, but didn't want to be the odd man out either so here I am doing shots of vodka with about 15 Ukrainans at breakfast. They asked me what day of the month I was born and I said 12. That opened up a can of worms as my new mission, as is a tradition, was to eat 12 pieces of different Pasca bread which is a sweet bread they eat on this holiday. I only made it to 5 by the end of the night. We came home after dinner and we all took a nap. We woke up and headed out around 6pm to Andrey and Marina's friend's house. She is an English teacher so it was a relief to have a translator finally. We ate another huge dinner and drank another bottle of vodka. We then ventured into the other room where I was forced to karaoke.
(side note: I had heard rumors that Ukrainians love the song "Yesterday" by the Beatles, and I read someone's blog where they made him karaoke it a million times. While I thought it was funny and probably overinflated, sure enough they made me sing "Yesterday". I also found out one of the guys in my cluster was forced to learn that song on the guitar.) Nonetheless, I rocked it out and by the end of the night I was an instant superstar. I have some amazing pictuers of the entire day's events, but once again, can't figure out how to shrink the size down to post them here.
Around 10pm, we took a cab to the local disco where Andrey had reserved a table and a bottle of ....vodka. We stayed there until 2:30 am and danced the night away. For those of you who want a taste of Ukraine, download a song by HollyDolly called "the Dolly Song". That song is huge out here and I was forced into doing the Russian dance in the middle of a circle of Russians at the disco to that song.
I came home, and called my parents to wish them Happy Easter and passed out.
Monday, I woke up late and was a half hour late to my technical language training. I caught a lot of crap for that, but my alarm clock battery popped out...totally not my fault. We were done somewhat early and I went home afterwards, ate dinner, studied for 3 hours and passed out.
Today we had language and technical training prepping us for community visits this week. Tomorrow we visit an employment center, Thursday we visit a school and sit in on a classroom and answer questions, Friday we go to social services. Busy week.
On a horrible note, my friend Travis quit yesterday. He was one of the people I was hanging out with in Philly. I will miss the guy and I am sick of seeing my friends leave so soon even though the thought has crossed my mind on occasion. I am beyond culture-shocked and homesick.

Some clarification: There are 75 of us total in my group. There are other Americans here from previous groups. We are the 32nd group to arrive in Ukraine. 25 of us business/community developers are here in Chernigiv and the rest of the youth developers are in small villages thoughout the country. After our training, we get sent out to our permanent sites where there may be zero Americans around.

That is all I have for right now. The weather has been cold, snowy, rainy and horrible this week so far.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Connie (if she is reading this). I am deeply saddened for your loss.

Another not to JJ: Thanks for sending me my first care package! You rock and I know you can relate to my homesickness.