Beautiful Autumn

I can't believe it's already October. In fact, it doesn't even feel like October at all - I've just spent 6 hours by the sea today and got slightly sunburn, I just hope tomorrow my face won't be so red anymore :) As much as I dislike sunbathing, I forget to hide from the sun when I'm busy writing a letter and watching the calm sea. It's still warm enough even for normal people to swim (for me it's never too cold, as long as there's someone to make a hole in the ice when the sea gets frozen) :D , which is quite unusual for this season, but I'm glad about it, because I'm still a bit afraid of the effect that the "real", gray autumn might have on my mood. But I'm trying not to worry about it yet and to simply enjoy these wonderful, sunny days :) 

In fact it's been a really good week for me. Finally I feel I'm getting more confident about my Greek studies, especially after I took the 3rd place in translation competition, which means I did better than some 4th year students. Of course, I should admit that the tasks were rather simple and that I have good intuition in languages, so I might guess some words even in a language I can't speak at all. It also means, that the level of Greek skills of 4th year students aren't really great, if they can't translate the names of vegetables or clothes from Greek into Russian :P But it's good to feel that I'm not really behind anymore. I realize that if I want to learn to speak Greek fluently, I'll have to do much more than uni requires me to - and I think writing letters in this language is a good beginning. But each success, even a small one, makes me feel more motivated and inspired. I also feel how much I already love this uni, even if it's not the best or most prestigious one in Ukraine. Yet it's a place where a student can feel welcome and appreciated, which is extremely important itself. Believe it or not, I even started doing my homework, which I'd never do during my previous studies, even if I had much more free time :D To me it's indeed the attitude that makes the hugest difference.

Remember this guy? ;) Today, while I was writing a letter, he decided to use my laptop and to buy some train tickets! But I can't be angry with him, you know. It would also be a pity to return those tickets, so I think next weekend I'll have to go to Kyiv and Zaporizhia. It's not my fault :P I actually feel quite excited about going to Zaporizhia, because it's a city that played an important role in Ukrainian history and yet I've never been there (other than spending 6 hours sleeping at the railway station). It's the first time I'm going to leave Mariupol since August and I feel absolutely no pressure to do it, but I think it's worth meeting my friends, who live in the capital from time to time, as well as to visit new places. I might come back with a weird hairstyle, by the way... ;)

This week I've also spent some time exploring Mariupol (and getting lost). You know, going to the beach by bus is for normal people, and I've decided to check, how long would it take me to walk from the seaside to my flat. It took me 35 minutes, including getting lost for 3 times :P Those stairs looked really attractive to me, I love such abandoned places, but unfortunately they led to nowhere, so I had to go back and take a path, which made me feel as if I went to the mountains ;) I wonder why I never had such mood for exploring and adventures in Lviv? Well, maybe there are just too many guides to Lviv... And Mariupol seems to be a city, which still has some secrets.

And of course, I've also received and sent some mail this week :)

From Tasha in UK

Tasha has sent me a beautiful postcard from her trip to Brighton :)

From Dasha in Ukraine

And today I've received 2 letters from Dasha. I think I'll just give her my answer on Friday when we meet :D

For Søren in Iceland

On Friday I've sent a letter to Søren in Iceland. Unfortunately, I had to use usual stamps as to avoid covering this nice old tram on the envelope. Still waiting for Ukrainian post to issue nice stamps with higher values...

For Bine in Germany

Today I've finally sent an answer to Bine's lovely intro... It's a shame to answer it after such a long time (I don't even want to count how many months), but I hope she'll like my letter anyway. And in this case I didn't have to limit myself when it comes to the stamps ;)

For Gloria in Uganda

And one more letter, an unusual one. I'm not even covering the receiver's address, because it would be great if more people decided to send letters there. But let me explain. Eddy is a teacher from Uganda, who's been running a very special and meaningful project for children living in rural areas, you can read more about it here: Revive a Rural African Child and join a closed group for those, who want to send letters.. The idea of this project is for people from all around the world to correspond with children, who've grown up in very tough conditions and need some motivation to make them believe that they should continue studying and that they can actually achieve something. It doesn't cost anything (of course, if you want, you can send some small gift to your little penpal, but there's no obligation!), but it can hopefully make a real difference in someone's life. I've sent a letter to a 13 years old girl named Gloria this week and I really hope it will put a smile on her face, even if it'll probably take a long time to arrive.

I still have to finish a letter and do some homework in Greek, so that's it for tonight :) Have a lovely Monday!

Sea, sea... and some more sea! :)

It's a lovely Sunday afternoon again... And yes, you've guessed it right, I'm at the seaside again ;) Since the weather is still really nice (actually, it's even nicer than during the summer, because it's not that hot anymore and you don't see crowds on beaches everyday), I try to go to the seaside everyday. Sometimes I even take my small (but growing) army of Minions with me ;)

This particular selfie was taken on Friday, today they're being lazy at home :) Honestly, I don't even know how I survived 24 years living far away from the seaside! It has such a positive impact on my mood and it's good for everything: working, studying, letter writing... Of course, I realize that after a couple of years of living hear I might feel less enthusiastic, but for now I see absolutely no reasons to limit myself :) And actually, I'm going to use this chance to tell you a bit more about the sea - and about my city at the same time. It feels so great to finally be able to say "my city"! As far as I can't remember, I'd never use this expression in Lviv, because it simply never felt this way... It only felt like a good hub to travel from. Being able to say that I love the city I live in is such a positive change for me, so I hope you don't mind my enthusiasm ;)

Railway station, Trains and steel mill in the background ;)

On Monday I went to the beach, which is just next to the railway station. When I first came to Mariupol, which was in 2009, I didn't realize that sea was so close, so I spent 2 hours looking for the sea together with my friend :P But in fact all you have to do is to walk over a pedestrian bridge, watch the lovely landscape with trains and a steel mill (I'm not sure which one of them is that though) and after a couple of minutes you're on a beach.

Sea and clouds on Monday

But usually I go to the central beach, which has no trains and no steel mill on it, simply because it's the closest to the city center, post office, university and other places that I visit everyday. And there's that nice cafe, in which you can drink tea sitting just next to the sea (and if the waves are big, you can also get a bit wet) :) I suppose you won't be surprised if I tell you I still swim in the sea, because I'm probably going to do it until December, when the sea is likely to get frozen. But so far I'm not the only one - the summer doesn't seem to be over yet here.

A rare chance to see me almost naked :P

And finally my favorite beach, which I rarely come to, because it's quite far away, but today I'm here for the first time this month :) Why is it my favorite one? Well, maybe because it was exactly here that I've seen Ukrainian seaside (that day in 2009... after 2 hours of searching for it around the city), maybe because it's totally unique? You don't see beaches with steel mills just next to them very often, right?

Unique seaside :D

In case you think it's some kind of a beautiful cliff on this picture... Well, I have to disappoint you: it's just a huge mountain of steel mill's garbage, which has been growing for several decades. The steel mill itself is a bit farther and can be seen from the beach. In fact, it's not a very good thing, because it pollutes the sea and spoils the landscape (from the normal people's point of view), but at least it's unusual. And actually, it's a very nice district, at some point I considered searching for a flat to rent here, so I could live in a block of flats and still see the sea from my window. The only problem is that this district is the closest to the front line, so I didn't want to risk. Now it's been totally calm for 3 weeks, so I'm not afraid to spend my Sunday here, and let's hope it'll stay this way.

The Sea of Azov is generally very shallow, but on this beach it's even more visible. I think you have to walk at least 300 m away from the shore if you want to swim. Today the level of water is even lower than usually, so there are a lot of small, sandy islands and seagulls walking around. Of course, there are more beaches in Mariupol, but sometimes I also have to study, so I haven't been to all of them this week ;) But you can be sure there will be more seaside pictures coming soon... No matter if you want it or not :P

Last but not least, this week's mail :) 

From Søren in Iceland

I've only received one letter this week, from my dear friend Søren in Iceland. He has also sent me a chocolate with salty liquorice, which I really love, but which is unfortunately unavailable in Ukraine :) It's so great to have friends, who remember about your weird tastes! ;)

For Erin in the USA

But there's been more outgoing mail, since I've been trying not to let my work dominate my life totally. I've sent a letter to Erin on Monday.

For Bahanur in South Korea

And on Thursday I've sent a letter to Bahanur, for the first time since she's moved to South Korea :) Just don't tell me I'm using too many stamps :P

For Evi in Greece

Today I've sent an intro letter to Evi in Greece. We've meet on FB by accident, when she had problems joining a penpalling group in which I'm an admin. The truth is that I've been very behind with this group, just as with everything else, but once we started chatting, we decided to start writing to each other :) Which is a great coincidence, because I really need someone to practice my Greek with, but I didn't want to start writing with any random Greek person. I've written 2 pages in Greek (okay, those were very small pages in very big handwriting...) before switching to English, which I think is quite a good result, if you consider that I started learning Greek just 1,5 month ago. Although I'm sure I've made at least 100 mistakes ;)

I hope you're all having a lovely Sunday too and I wish you a great beginning of the new week!

Benelux 2015: I've seen something in Belgium too!

Each time I visit my dad in Belgium, we end up spending more time traveling to other countries than within Belgium itself. Perhaps it's caused by my love for crossing the borders (even if they're already non-existent in EU) and visiting different countries. :) Moreover, I've already visited the vast majority of Belgium's tourist destinations. Another thing is that I may be confusing them all in my head due to my dad's habit of visiting several places within one day, which I've already mentioned a few days ago. :) As a result, I don't really get excited about going anywhere in Belgium anymore, but I have a good news: next time I'll be traveling to this country with a friend, who has never been to Western Europe! I know she'll be excited - actually she already is! - and that will let me get a fresh glimpse of Belgium as well! :) Because, in fact, Belgium is a beautiful country full of precious historic and cultural heritage. I shouldn't value it less just because I've been there for so many times.

And it's still possible to find places in Belgium, which would be new for me. For example, one Sunday afternoon my dad decided we should go to Lier. It's only about 50 km away from Brussels, but he also hadn't been there before.

St. Gummarus church in Lier

I'd say that Lier is a typical old Flemish town - rather small, but full of historic sights. The first object to draw our attention as soon as we arrived in the town was the huge St. Gummarus church. Looking at it, I started wondering, whether there've ever been enough people in Lier to fill it totally? Especially that there are quite a few other churches in the town. But I suppose that in the Middle Ages nobody would calculate, whether such an enormous church was necessary. The bigger church you've built - the bigger your love for God and your chances for salvation, that's how it probably worked. Thanks to it, nowadays we can see such impressive churches in most of Western European countries. Eastern Europeans weren't just rich enough and therefore had to build slightly smaller ones. ;)

The town hall and Belfry in Lier

Belgium is a great country for those, who are into visiting the objects from UNESCO World Heritage List. You can find them in nearly each old Belgian town. For instance, Lier has two of them: the Belfry and the Beguinage. The belfries served as watchtowers and alarm bell towers. There are 33 of them in Belgium (and some more in France) inscribed on the UNESCO list, so it takes time to see them all. :) Most of them are connected to a bigger building, such as a town hall (like in Lier) or church, but there are also some standalone ones.

The Béguinage in Lier

As for the Béguinages, they're small neighbourhoods of small houses, which served as communities for religious women, who were either single or widows and wanted to serve God without becoming nuns. Living in such a community guaranteed them quite a high level of personal indepenence, which was hard to achieve for women in those times. The Lier Béguinage was founded in 1th century, but most of houses come from 17th and 18th century. And there are 13 Flemish Béguinages on the UNESCO list, so yes, there's much to see in Belgium!

The Cathedral in Antwerp

Our another Belgian trip was to Antwerp - the country's second biggest city. I had been there before, but that was a long time ago, so I couldn't remember much. Speaking of big churches, the Antwerp Cathedral of Our Lady is so huge that it's even hard to take a photo of it! Only one of its towers has ever been completed (and is a UNESCO site as a Belfry - the other one in Antwerp is the town hall), but it's over 100 m high! I don't think I'd ever like to climb it - 52 m in Zwolle were more than enough! :)

Me and Het Steen

There's also a castle in Antwerp (and I love castles!) called Het Steen, which means "The Stone" in Dutch. It's quite a logical name for a castle, don't you think so? :) The castle was built to control the banks of Scheldt river, later served as a prison and nowadays it's some kind of a cultural centre. To be honest, I'd still like to come back to Antwerpen to visit the Jewish quarter, which I've never seen. Well, I think I'll have such a chance in a few months. ;)

My dad lives just next to Brussels, but we barely ever go sightseeing there. I'd lie if I said that I've seen everything in Belgium's capital - for instance I've never been to the famous Atomium. But my love for capital cities is so great that it's best to mantain it as a long-distance relationship! ;) This time we only went to the centre of Brussels for a couple of hours and have visited the German bookshop. There were two soldiers standing just next to it, but I guess in fact they were protecting some government building. The Belgian government had to take such measures because of the high risk of terrorist attacks, which you've probably heard of... I've even received some messages from my friends asking whether I was fine while I was in Belgium, but I should be honest with you: after spending a year listening to the news about the war in my country, my brain started filtering them and ignoring most of them. It doesn't mean that I don't care about what's going on in West Europe - I think the situation is really threatening and I'm not even sure whether it's possible to find any solution at this point. I just didn't want it to spoil my mood - for the same reason I rarely read Ukrainian news. 

German books :)

But back to the German bookshop, it's a really lovely place! Its owner comes from Germany, but has been living in Belgium and running the shop together with his wife since 1981. First I got scared when he started talking to me and asking what I was interested in, because "I can't speak German!!!", but after a while I realized that I could understand him perfectly well and I was even able to answer his question. :) We've had some interesting discussion about politics and the situation in Ukraine and he's helped me to choose books that might be interesting for me. One is about the global process of migrations from rural areas to the cities and the other one is about the economical and political transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. I've started reading the first one and I can understand it fairly well, although I think I should read with a dictionary if I want to improve my vocabulary in German. I'm also very thankful to my dad, who believes in me more than I do myself and who managed to encourage me to read in German. :) 

Last but not least, I've sent some letters from Belgium:

For Katalin in Slovakia

One to Katalin in Slovakia, written in 3 languages. Well, mostly in English, but I've used some poor Hungarian and even poorer Slovak. ;) She has already received it!

For Natasha in England

An intro letter for Natasha in England, who wanted to become my penpal after reading my interview on Penpal of The Week blog. I hope she's also received it by now. :) Yeah, I had to use boring white envelopes, because the ones I've taken from Ukraine weren't big enough for the postcards that I wanted to send. There was also an intro letter for Kim in Belgium (sent from Belgium!), who also found me through that interview, but I didn't manage to take a photo of it before the post office clerk took it away. ;) 

Tomorrow I'll finally be able to write about all the crazy things that have happened to me this week! For example, did you know that I've been to Poland today? :D But that's the least interesting one of all my news. :)

Benelux 2015: Small but Beautiful? Luxembourg!

I'm afraid that with the amount of events that have been happening in my life this winter, I'll always be behind with my blog, but I still believe I'll catch up one day - perhaps when the new semester begins! ;) Today I'd like to tell you about my favourite Western European countries (out of those that I've been to, of course!): Luxembourg.

Esch-sur-Sûre

You may ask: why exactly Luxembourg? It's not a very famous country. But I've loved it since the first time I went there in 2005. That very first trip was only to the capital city (also named Luxembourg), but I could already feel that there was something special about this country, making it different than its neighbours. Perhaps it's due to it's small size and population (less than 550 thousands of people), which means it's not as urbanized as Belgium or the Netherlands. Contrary to quite a widespread misconception, Luxembourg isn't that small and it doesn't consist of just one city. There are many more small towns, villages and about 100 castles! I've already been to Luxembourg for several times, but there's always something new to see and I love it! I also like it that driving through Luxembourg is much more pleasant than through other West European countries: there are few motorways, so for most of the time your ride small roads with few cars and are able to watch wonderful landscapes. Luxembourg is a montanous country, even if the mountains are rather small and should probably be called hills. ;)

This time me and my dad went on a trip to three Luxembourgish towns with castles that we haven't been to before. Yet I should tell you that Luxembourgish towns are just like Luxembourgish mountains - some of them have less than 300 inhabitants! ;)

Me at Esch-sur-Sûre castle

Our first stop was in Esch-sur-Sûre, a town with 314 inhabitants! And no, it's not a village. :) It's a real town with a real post office, which works... 1 hour a day! :D It's located at a beautiful meander of Sûre river and surrounded by hills. The 10th century castle stands on one of them. Nowadays it's a ruin (but I really love castle ruins!) and is open to visitors for free.

As you may have noticed, the name of the town is in French. But, in fact, the linguistic situation in Luxembourg is quite complicated. So complicated that even I can't fully understand it. ;) They have 1 national language: Luxembourgish (considered as a dialect of German by some linguists), and two official languages: French and German. Most of people (at least those, who were born in Luxembourg - there are also a lot of immigrants) speak Luxembourgish among each other, but it's mostly a spoken language. As for writing, they use French (higher class) or German (middle or lower class). At least that's what Wikipedia says. :D I could hear people speaking all 3 languages and I think that living in such a multilingual society is a big advantage!

Bourscheid castle

Our next stop was in Bourscheid castle, which is a bit away from the town with the same name. The castle is also a ruin, but a really huge and well-preserved one. It was first mentioned in 1095, although it's believed to be older. Of course, the whole castle wasn't built at once - some parts of it come from the 18th century. In this castle we had to pay the entrance fee and got an audio guide in English... Which was so boring that we ended up just walking around the castle the way we wanted and pretending that we've listened to everything! ;) So perhaps we've skipped some historic details, but we have our own impressions and I think it matters more. Do you also get bored with audio guides? I usually read a bit about the place before going there and more after coming back. I always prefer to read than to listen. The biggest sightseeing torture I can think of was visiting one castle in Belgium a couple of years ago, in which we had both audio guide and a human guide and we were in a group, so we couldn't run away... ;) But that's a completely different story!

Me in Bourscheid.

The last and biggest town that we've visited was Clervaux. It has more than 1000 inhabitants and a post office with normal working hours. There's also a castle, which is used both as the town hall and a museum, which unfortunately was closed. But we also went for a walk to the Clervaux abbey, which is located on a hill, so we had to fight our laziness a bit and could feel proud of ourselves. :)

Clervaux castle and church

Last but not least, I went to a bookshop in Clervaux and got myself a philosophic magazine in German (I think they have about the same amount of books and magazines both in German and French, but almost nothing in Luxembourgish), because I wanted to start reading in this language, but didn't feel brave enough to buy a book. Yet when I started reading and realized that I could understand philosophic articles without a dictionary, I suddenly felt much better! :) I ended up buying some German books, but that was already in Belgium, so I'll tell you about it next time! :) And I really hope to come back to Luxembourg this year. There's still so much to see and experience in this tiny, yet amazing country!

My Israeli adventure, Part 4: Saying Goodbye (But hopefully not forever!)

Unfortunately, each journey comes to an end one day. I've been on some trips in my life, which felt too long or exhausting, but usually it's been the other way - I felt like I'd like to see an experience more. This time wasn't an exception. The 5 days passed by very quickly and I didn't even notice how the day of my flight back to Budapest came. Some part of me felt slightly disappointed about not having seen everything that I wanted (especially the Dead Sea), but on the other hand, isn't that good to have a serious reason to come back? Now that the flights aren't really expensive anymore, traveling to Israel doesn't feel like a "once in a lifetime" experience. In fact, that would be quite sad to leave a country with the feeling that I've seen everything and there's nothing new to explore. I've had this feeling after my last trip to Moldova in October, because I've indeed been to almost all the places which could be of any interest to a tourist there. Still, if I want to find a reason to come back, I will do it. :) And so I believe, I'm actually convinced, that I'll come to Israel again. And who knows, maybe it would even happen this year? But I'm terrible at planning more than a month in advance, so I'll think of it when the autumn is closer. :)

The last day of my stay in Israel was really sunny (finally!) and so we decided to go to Netanya, which is a town closest to my friend's village and which has some nice beaches.

Netanya also has some palm trees!

It's quite a modern town and, according to my friend, has a bad reputation, but I found it nice nevertheless. And eventually I was able to swim in the Mediterranean Sea without the risk of drowning in huge waves! I think from the perspective of Israeli people swimming in January must look weird or extreme, but it's all relative. I might find it slightly amusing how Israelis think it's cold when the temperature falls under +10 degrees, but I bet they'd have even more fun watching me not being able to go outside during the Israeli summer, because to me +30 degrees are already too much! ;) Anyway, the temperature of water in Netanya in January is just a couple of degrees lower than it usually is in the Baltic Sea in Poland during the summer season. So no, I'm not going to claim that I've done ice-swimming this year, but I might still do it when I come back to Ukraine! ;)

Swimming in January is so extreme! :P

After having a walk in the center on Netanya, drinking a yummy coffee in the local mall and buying some souvenirs, it was time to go back to the village and get ready for my flight. In fact, that day I also found time to steal a lemon from my friend's garden (and she was watching me while I was committing this terrible crime!) and to take a photo of myself with an orange tree! :D

Look! Real oranges! :D

I've also tried to learn some Hebrew during my stay in Israel. I actually started revising everything that I had forgotten since taking some Hebrew classes in 2005 a few weeks before my journey, but of course it wasn't enough to learn a difficult language like this one. Or maybe I shouldn't say it's difficult? According to my friend, it's very logical and I can believe her, because Hebrew is a language that was revived after many centuries of being used only for prayers. Therefore it shouldn't have as many exceptions from the grammar rules as some languages have, if they've gone through all the stages of natural development. I still think that the hardest thing about Hebrew is the writing system. Just learning the Hebrew alphabet is not a problem at all, you can do it in one day (and then spend another day learning the cursive version)! :) The thing is that in Hebrew they don't write the vowels (there are diacritic signs called niqqud used to indicate them, but you won't find them in normal books and newspapers), so if I see a new word and try to guess its pronunciation, in most cases my guess will be wrong. You can also have two different letters, which stand for the same sound, for example both ת and ט stand for [t] sound. Then one letter can stand for two different sounds, for example ב can be both [b] and [v]. It makes the whole thing quite complicated, but I still want to learn. Of course, I feel guilty of starting to learn too many languages at once, because I realize it's not exactly what you'd call a productive learning process, but as long as I'm doing it for pleasure it can't be a totally wasted time. I didn't dare to buy a "serious" Hebrew book for foreigners, because I don't know how far I'll actually go in learning this language and I want to finish the one I have from Poland first. Still, my friend's brother has made a really funny small book with all the words that I've learnt in Israel, that was so cute! :)

I always start with learning the most important words! ;)

Speaking of books in Hebrew, I had a bit of a culture shock! :D I obviously knew that Hebrew is written from right to left. But somehow I didn't realize that you start reading a book from what seems to be the end to me! ;) First I thought that my friend and her brother were making fun of me, but later it turned out that all the books in Hebrew actually start from the other side. Yes, I'm a bit stupid! :D

Unfortunately, I haven't written a lot of letters this month, but I've managed to send one from Israel. It was to Theodore in the USA, who's my partner in the random letter swap. It was the first time I took part in such event and, to be honest, I found it quite hard to write a random intro without asking too many questions. But I hope he'll like this letter nevertheless.

Letter for Theodore in the USA

I've also sent quite a few postcards from Israel, which was a wonderful chance to practise writing the names of countries in Hebrew! :) I hope my penpals will receive them soon!

Some of the postcards I've sent from Israel.

I've also received a lovely letter from my dear Stav, but I wasn't allowed to read it until I boarded my plane back to Budapest. The temptation was high, especially while I was waiting at the airport, but I promised, so I waited! ;) Her letter really helped me to go through another flight without experiencing a strong fear. As you may have noticed, even on the envelope she's mentioned me having stolen her lemon... ;) So think twice before inviting me to come to any "exotic" country - your lemons, oranges and palm trees won't be safe anymore! ;)

A lovely letter from Stav.

We landed in Budapest about 1 am, because the flight was delayed, but it didn't matter much, as I had to sleep at the airport anyway. It was as uncomfortable as you may imagine, I managed to sleep until the morning and there were many more people doing the same thing. :) The bad thing is that I've caught some virus and felt really sick, but I'm not even surprised, because it often happens to me while I'm traveling. ;)

Early morning at Budapest airport.

The next day I went to visit my Hungarian friend Brigitta, who lives some 70 km away from Budapest and we played some game, which was very similar to Scrabble. In Hungarian. Yeah, it's very funny to play it in a language that you barely can speak! :D But we had a lovely time and I was happy to meet her again. On 14th January I flew to Belgium and that's where I still am, but that'll be the topic of the next boring blog entries. ;) 

I still find it hard to believe that I've actually been to Israel, although the photos of me and the palm trees show that it must be true! :) It was a really special experience for me, I think it's the furthest out of my comfort zone that I've ever been! But I hope this year, as well as the next years to come, will be full of such lovely adventures! :)

The shortest day of the year wasn't short of letters :)

Today is the shortest day of the year (I know it was yesterday for most of you, but in our time zone the December solstice was on 22nd December at 1:03 am) and it's also the first day of winter according to Polish people (Ukrainians keep things simplier and believe it's 1st of December, which starts winter season). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like winter at all - it's been rainy and gloomy all day long. Which doesn't spoil my mood at all, because I have quite a few reasons to feel happy - most of them were found in my mailbox today ;)

But let's start with the exam in subject called "Political institutions of Central and Eastern European states", which I've passed yesterday, even though I hadn't really prepared for it (I was too busy learning Hebrew) ;) My final result was 85%, but it's mainly because of our system that I honestly dislike as a procrastinator. You can gain up to 50% during the semester and up to 50% during the exam. And so I got 50% for the exam, but I only had 35% before, so no chances for "A" mark. I realise this system is actually quite fair and that it should encourage us to be active during the whole semester, but I still dislike it... Not that I really care about my marks anyway - there's plenty of more important and pleasant things in life - for example languages! :)

I guess my Hebrew cursive looks ridiculous and I really don't believe I'd ever learn to speak this difficult language fluently, but I feel really motivated to learn some basic expressions before my trip to Israel :) For this reason I'm not sticking to my "schedule" of language learning and focusing just o Hebrew for now. In case you've been wondering, why am I writing the transcription and translation in Polish - it's because my course book is in Polish. A year ago I'd surely translate everything into Ukrainian, but now I don't feel this need to make things more complicated just to prove how 200% Ukrainian I am ;)

But let me tell you about the thing which really made my day today - which was opening my mailbox and seeing how full of mail it was! 

I've received a lovely and thought-provoking letter from Tessa in the Netherlands. She has used cute washi tape with owls for both the envelope and the letter itself. :)

She has also enclosed two postcards - one with a funny reindeer and one which shows a girl very similar to me - traveling by train and reading a book! The only difference is that I don't ever wear hats. ;)

Erin in the USA has answered my intro with a really long and intriguing letter, which I want to answer as soon as possible. It seems that I've finally been lucky to find an American penpal, whom I can truly relate to.

She has also sent me a couple of unusual postcards, I really like them!

Then there was a beautiful Christmas card from Nürnberg, sent by Sandra.

One more map card from Israel, sent by my dear Stav, who knows how to make me even more excited before my journey! ;)

My Finnish friend Essi has sent me a nice postcard from her trip to Oulu, North Finland.

There was also a wonderful Christmas card from Piotr in Poland, who hosted me and my friend during our trip to Białystok in June.

And finally a Christmas card and small decoration from Lea in Hungary. We used to write letters to each other, which I truly enjoyed, but unfortunately we lost contact 1.5 year ago. I was really happy to find a piece of mail from her in my mailbox again!

I've also sent two letters lately:

This intro to Nela in Romania was sent on Saturday. She seems to be a really fascinating person, with whom I share quite a few interests, so I'm glad she agreed to write with me despite the huge age gap between us. By the way, isn't it funny that when I was looking for Romanian penpals back in August-September, I couldn't find anyone interesting, but once I gave up on this idea, I've been contacted by two interesting women of different ages and from different regions of Romania willing to correspond with me? It proves that it's not worth looking for penpals in a certain country - if they are to come to your life, they will come anyway. :)

Today I've sent a letter to my Italian friend Francesca. I just hope it won't take 2 months to arrive, which unfortunately happens with mail between our countries... As you may have noticed, the combinations of stamps on my envelope have been becoming more and more eclectic. Here we have a bit of cactuses, a bit of Christmas, a bit of Ukrainian cities, and a bit of Ukrainian traditional musical instruments, which is quite odd, but what can I do, if they don't issue special stamps with value suitable for international mail? I think that with our currency devaluating so quickly soon I'll start combining special stamps with standard ones and you'll have to forgive me - otherwise I'll have to send all my letters in huge envelopes! :)

I know that most of you will celebrate Christmas in a few days, so I hope you're having a lovely winter time and that the holidays will be really special! :)