three posts in one night

Can't sleep, as usual, so instead I'll blog.

This saturday was eventful. After spending the morning in the forest, me and Taylor met up with Julie and Olia - their host mom / our coordinator at the school. Olia took us to this part of the city that has a bunch of awkward statues. The main theme was cats..
We took the metro over the river and walked around for a bit while Olia tried to remember how to get there. Luckily she's Ukrainian though and can actually ask somebody for directions. & read a russian map.

I didn't mind being lost for a while though. Got to see some favorite sights, like Saint Andrew's. And the back side of Saint Sofia's, which I hadn't seen before.

But once we finally found the park, or street, or whatever you want to call it, we "made lots of pictures." [how all the ukrainians say it. you don't take pictures, you make pictures].

This place was so fun. There's a playground, and tons of interactive statues. Its basically a place that you go just to take pictures with all the things. There were dice, fake hobo benches, giant babies peeing, rabbits, and so much more. So strange..
Before I came I looked up a ton of pictures of Kyiv, obviously. I found this one that showed a super colorful street. And I was completely in love with it, and picture Ukraine to be just like that picture. Thanks a lot google images. I've been on the search for that street since I've been here. While we were walking through this park I look down and there it is! Right through the trees, not the perfect view, and not the same view from the picture, but it was definitely the exact same street. So happy to have finally seen it.

Wouldn't you want to live here?

Here is a forewarning. After proof-reading this post I found out this next part is so super boring and has no relevance to anything. Read if you'd like. Otherwise, just look at the pictures, that's all I ever do too. 

After roaming the streets we split up and me Jule headed to dreamtown, ukraine's mega mall. This place is awesome, and it has everything. Its where I went rollerblading a couple weeks ago. We rode the metro there and were starving so we hit up the first place we saw... mcdonalds. Don't judge. I hate myself too. I did order in Russian though, pretty completely and I'm really proud of myself. You should be super impressed. The mcdonalds' here are always incredibly packed, I don't understand it. There are always a million people inside, and in line, but its super quick, hello fast food. But the downfall, never a seat available. So even though it was freezing outside, we had to sit outside. I went to get us a table while julie finished ordering, trying to figure out the words for "sweet and sour sauce" - good luck.
She finally came out with her two burgers and sat for maybe two minutes until she realized her sauce was the same label as mine. Curry. Mmm yeah that's right. They have a curry sauce here and it is delicious. Maybe I'll just stock up on those for souvenirs. Or my own personal supply. JayKay. So she went back inside to get her sweet and sour. I secretly snuck one of her burgers into my pocket to see if she'd notice and get even more mad and go hassel the Ukrainian mcdonalds workers some more. Didn't work, I'm horrible at lying.

We didn't really go to dreamtown.. we just told everyone that was where we were going. We actually flew to Italy and hung out by the Trevi fountain. Sorry guys. 

The reason for going to dreamtown was to go to the WATERPARK there. So stoked. As we walked around the mall, trying to first find a store for Julie to buy some boots, we were walking around only home and furniture stores for about an hour. I had been there before, and was so confused as to what happened to all the stores. There were NO clothes stores. So after literally walking back and forth through the huge mall we walked outside to see if there was a different entrance. And thats when we saw it; "dreamtown 1" down the street. 

Us - "Oh that's why this one had a 2 next to it."

Duh. Made our over to the other one. Where we needed to be. Luckily, because thats where the park was too. 

And that dream island water park was indeed, a dream. SO MUCH FUN. I love love love water parks. And had a blast. There were a ton of slides and tubes and creepy old men. It was GREAT!

And inside of a mall.. It was seriously HUGE though. One of the biggest in Europe actually. Oh my gosh I loved it. And lets face it, all those Ukrainians loved having a couple of Americans to party with at the water park. Even if we almost walked through the mall in just our bathing suits not realizing there was another entrance through the locker room.. oops.

 is that an alligator? Oh you mean hellboy..? shout out to Jessica Johnson.

 pasty white. thank you Ukraine.. not.

We rode all the slides in that place. And adored it. Screamed everytime. Used up our entire two hours. Two hours well spent. Thank you dream island, thank you dream town, and thank you Ukraine.

this was such a weird post. I'm so sorry.