It seems strange to check my e-mail this morning and find an inbox full of Easter greetings – for Easter as well as Christmas, Ukrainians observe the old Orthodox calendar and this year won’t be celebrating Easter until May 1. So there were few celebrations this weekend, even among the expatriate community. An Australian friend said one advantage of celebrating Easter later is that your friends back home can buy Easter stuff on sale and send it to you in time for your celebrations. I’m sure the weather will be nicer for celebrations and Easter egg hunts later anyway. I did end up making “Paska,” Russian Easter bread, which has been a tradition in our family for years before we came to Ukraine. I’ll have to compare my recipe with others … paska is a must for any Ukrainian Easter celebration.
This weekend was actually Dave and my weekend “away.” Living here on campus is quite handy for getting to class quickly and running back home when we forget something, but like any campus, it feels like a bubble - insulated from the workings of the outside world. We were tired of the bubble feeling and wanted to take a trip of some sort, but because of other responsibilities and schedule conflicts, we couldn’t leave town for long enough to make it worth our time. So we were happy when some sympathetic American friends (who have lived at DCU in the past and can relate) invited us over on Saturday and overnight. We ate calzones, watched movies, met “Carrots” (their bunny), went to church with them Sunday and came back home, refreshed from our mini-trip. On the way home we stopped by the local arena to check the event schedule and were surprised to find a basketball game in progress (soccer is usually the norm). We walked in, sat down and enjoyed the game (no tickets, no programs, hardly anyone there). Turkey played a team from Moscow – the players looked like teenagers … maybe junior national games? Basketball is not too popular here, hence the empty stadium, but we enjoyed ourselves and might go back later today to watch more of the tournament.
Laura
