I’m not gonna lie, I started panicking WAY before I left for Ukraine about how tf I was gonna see the new Star Wars movie.
But, luckily, several of my new fellow PCV friends are also massive nerds, so they did all the dirty work of finding a movie theater in Kyiv that offered an English-language version of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” and booked tickets and an Airbnb and everything.
So, a quirk about traveling here. If you want to travel around during your service you’re more than welcome to, but you have to do it on your own dime. Peace Corps will, however, reimburse you for travel if it’s work, safety, security or health-related.
Peace Corps happened to be offering seasonal flu shots at the Kyiv-based offices (flu shots = health-related = reimbursed travel expenses) so a bunch of us conveniently scheduled our flu shot appointments for the same day so we could all write off our Star-Wars-focused trip to Kyiv and submit it for reimbursement.
Loopholes!
Because we only had the Airbnb for one night, I slept on the train coming into Kyiv. As soon as I got to the city, I went straight to the Peace Corps office for my flu shot.
After our shots, we dropped our stuff off at our Airbnb and went to Himalaya for a late lunch of Indian food.
OK, so you’ve heard about my experiences trying international cuisine here in Ukraine. About how I was disappointed by my Mexican food in Kyiv, then disappointed by my Indian food in Lviv?
Well, I swore off international food (other than Georgian) here in Ukraine, but luckily, several other volunteers had already tried Himalaya, and they vouched hard for it.
So, I trusted my friends enough to give it a try. Unfortunately they recently redid their menu and removed chickpeas from it (what?!) so it wasn’t a full menu and I couldn’t satisfy my ever-present channa masala craving, but there were still some dishes that looked good. I ended up with a few different paneer options and guys, they were shockingly good! They were actually almost spicy!
After lunch, we headed straight to the movie theater.
I have some… opinions… about the movie. But I’ll refrain from sharing them. I will say, though, that it was cool to see the last of the latest trilogy before some asshole online could spoil it for me.
Even if we did have to see it in IMAX 3D because that’s all that was available.
Afterward, we went out drinking! We ended up at a cocktail bar called Hedonist.
Most of us were SO exhausted at that point because we’d all slept on trains the night before, so we called it a night fairly early and went back to the Airbnb.
Then the next day, it was time to leave. We all had varying distances to get back to our sites, so we filtered away one-by-one.
I spent most of the next morning with Jen. We went to get vegan food at a mall somewhere, then went to a board game store to try to find some English language games for our students.
After our board game shop visit, Jen and I went to the city center of Kyiv to enjoy the Christmas festivities.
Like I said earlier — Ukraine doesn’t really actively celebrate Christmas. Most Ukrainians are Orthodox, so Christmas is celebrated in January. However, during USSR times, secular holiday celebrations were banned. So, Ukraine kind of got around that by being like “lol it’s not a Christmas tree it’s a New Year’s tree.” And… it kind of stuck.
However, Kyiv gets a fair number of tourists, so the celebrations here are definitely more Christmas-focuses, and start earlier (early December) than they do most other places.
So, the Christmas festivities!
Jen and I immediately went to the nearest mulled wine stand and then walked around looking at the light displays and the vendors.
This is my first holiday season in (Eastern) Europe, and it’s been so magical so far! I’m truly grateful for this experience.
Then, that was it! Jen was off to catch her train. I still had a few hours to kill, so I grabbed dinner (more vegetables, of course!) at a restaurant near the Peace Corps office called Bowl, then I caught my own train back to site.
I’ve got a pretty busy next few days approaching with New Year’s celebrations, and I’m excited! I’m on break from school, but it’s been so busy that it hasn’t been much of a break. I’m not mad, though. I’m loving every second of the holidays here!
This post was originally published Jan. 23, 2021. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
