My Tour of Chernihiv

So after I posted yesterday, I walked around downown looking for that cluster that was in town, but had no luck. Instead I ran into Greg, James and Brian and 3 Ukrainians. They invited me to go with them although none of knew where we were going. Greg and James had just finished their site interviews and were dressed in their suits. I also had nice clothes on and uncomfortable shoes. Long story short, we ended up walking around Chernihiv from 2pm until 8pm. These guys felt they needed us to see the entire city by foot. Brian and Greg took off about halfway through and maybe I should have followed their lead, but I did get to see a lot of stuff I normally would not have seen here. We checked out famous landmarks and statues and then walked down to the river. He showed us the beach and sauna and then we walked into the woods. I was thinking these guys were gonna murder us or something, but we stumbled upon Chernihiv's version of Six Flags (in the middle of the forest). Here was this huge central park with an amusement park, stadium and concert venue. I never knew any of this even existed here. The two Ukrainian guys (Sasha and Sergey) bought tickets and forced James and me to ride these rides that looked like they were built before world war II. They bought me a beer and we slammed it and then he made me ride the orbit which spins around a million miles/hour; just what my stomach needed (it's still holding strong at 97% by the way). We then rode a few more rides and continued to walk for another 10 miles. I finally got home, ate some pizza my host mom made and passed out around midnight wishing I had more crappy movies to watch. By the way, the weather was amazing finally. Today is pretty nice as well although it's windy as hell.
This morning I had my site interview. It lasted about 20 minutes and I'm not sure what to make of it. They went over my resume and asked me if my priority was a big city, to live by other volunteers or to be south near the Black Sea. I didn't know how to answer that question since those are all priorities for me. I sid I will just roll with the punches and told them I'd like to work for an organization that ties into my work experience; working with kids, AIDS, disabled and all that was secondary and ideal for side projects. I now wait for a week to hear where I get placed. Brian went on a date last night and saw Spiderman 3 without me so that is off for today, but Marina wants to take me to these caves in town and do more sightseeing after seeing my pictures. Unfortunately, my legs and feet are killing me from yesterday. I'm curious to see how the day will unfold. Here are some pictures from yesterday...

It's a wonder I was even able to take this picture. I hate heights, I hate ferris wheels because they freak me out and I was scared this old 1942 ride was about to break. The things I do for my blog.

This is the river that runs through my city. In the distance on the left is a cool little beach complete with a sauna.

Mini Me.

The three on the right were our Ukrainian tour guides for the day.