Saturday, November 1, 2008

Happy Halloween! (and my birthday, too!)






Happy Halloween!
Believe it or not, I was actually invited to a Halloween party in Ukraine. All of the PC trainees in my group went to this party hosted by the House of Culture (extracurricular establishment for students). I had to throw a costume together with the clothes I brought...so I ended up as a ninja! The decorations were great - with hanging body parts from the ceiling, carved pumpkins, and many scary stories and skits (which I could not understand, but that made it even scarier!).

From the pictures, you can tell that we put together a scary story with people. My role was as a black night and I had to continually say "ooh hooo" whenever it was my turn. I had to sit on Freddie Krueger's lap during the entire story! I should mention that the person in the white is Molly, another PC trainee, and she is a statue. The other ninja is Grace, another PC trainee who is actually from Oregon! Also in the picture, dressed as a journalist is Lena, my Technical and Cross Cultural Trainer with PC.

I have also posted some pictures from my birthday dinner with my host mom (Tania), sister (Ania), and my sister's boyfriend (Alexander, but he goes by Sasha) . We had a large dinner complete with white fish (my favorite), meat (I'm not sure what kind), potatoes, sandwich meat and cheeses, bananas, apples, and my yummy tort (cake)! I was definitely full!

Great way to end the week - cake, balloons, and my ninja costume!

Happy Halloween!
Natalie

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was happy to see your pictures of your birthday celebration in Ukraine! The meal didn't look like "wacky stackies" but I bet it was just as good! Thanks for the great pictures, you look like you are having fun! Keep smiling!
Love you!
Mom

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday and Happy Halloween. Your Ninja costume looked really authentic :-) Your Halloween looked way more fun than mine! I was out of the office on October 31st for a recruitment event, but I hear that everyone had a good time. Folks in our office dressed up for the holiday and they even had a pumpkin carving contest! Take care of yourself and keep posting blogs. I'm going to learn so much about Ukraine! Love, Bola

Anonymous said...

Hey Nat! I love the Halloween costume...Hope you had a good birthday, too. Sweet 16, right? You've taken some fantastic photos of Ukraine, and I can't wait to see and read more... I'm curious, btw...did Peace Corps help all of you with absentee voting?
---Brian

Natalie said...

Thanks for the positive feedback towards my costume! I heard some other folks were cracking jokes about my costume! But, hey, I'd like to see what costume people can put together with only professional clothes, yoga pants, and running shorts! I certainly didn't want to be a jogger!

Peace Corps did inform us HOW to request an absentee ballot...and, unfortunately, I did not get mine in soon enough to vote this round. But it all worked out!

Take care all!
Natalie