It happened! I turned 30.
I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I’m closer to 40 than 20 (what), but my 20s are officially over.
You know what? They were pretty great.
I got two college degrees, lived in Chicago for half a decade, and moved abroad to Eastern Europe.
I landed my dream job, became a yoga instructor and joined the Peace Corps.
I traveled solo, learned new languages, started teaching English, had way too many drunk bar nights out with my friends, progressed my career, blew my entire career up and ended up with an iPhone photo library FULL of memories I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
I met some incredible people who I’ll stay close with for the rest of my entire life, and met some not-so-incredible people who forced me to grow as a person.
Anyway, I was lucky enough to celebrate three decades (!!!) here in Kyiv with some of my favorite Ukrainians and Americans.
My awesome language-learning cluster (Zhytomyr 7 REPRESENT) surprised me on the eve of my birthday with cake, flowers and songs.
Then, on my actual birthday, I spent my day at our Transition to Service conference, where I met my wonderful counterpart Oksana.
Yep, that’s right, I got a Peace Corps counterpart for my 30th birthday!
After we wrapped up conference sessions, I was surprised at dinner, when the ENTIRE dining hall sang happy birthday to me and surprised me with a cake.
Then, I hopped in an Uber to head to the downtown Kyiv bars with some other volunteers.
We ended up at Porter Pub, where we all had craft beer (and vodka shots) and watched Ukraine’s national team in a football (soccer) match.
Oh, and the Uber ride was… interesting? We had to order two Ubers, but we were stuck waiting almost an hour for the first. Turns out, one of our Ubers got into a car crash on the way to our hotel, so we ended up piling all seven of us (plus driver) into a five-seat vehicle.
It’s a good thing that traffic laws are kind of… uh… lax… in Ukraine.
Don’t tell Peace Corps Safety and Security, please.
Anyway, cheers! Here’s to 30, and my 30s! Here’s hoping that the next year — and the next decade — are as stellar as the last!
This post was originally published Dec. 14, 2020. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
