Weekend

A few hours ago I returned from a weekend trip up to Днипропетровск (Dnipropetrovsk), in central Ukraine. One of the biggest cities in Ukraine. It was a beautiful weekend in the city, with snow almost the entire time.
I started off the weekend with a 4 kilometer walk to the village with a train station. *begin rant*
My "unique circumstances" as a volunteer in a tiny village give me the privilege of walking 4 kilometers everytime I want to catch a bus that isn't at 6am or 1pm. This means that if I want to leave on a Friday in the evening after school, I need to do the walk. In the winter it's not so fun, but such is life. Many volunteers live in the epicenters of transportation meccas, but some of us live where long treks on foot are the norm. *end rant*
So I took a train to Dzankoi Friday, then took an overnight train to Dnipropetrovsk. I arrived fairly early Saturday and explored the city with a friend. We're both from small villages and are always amazed at the gap in living conditions between people in the city and people in villages like ours. Some highlights of the morning included walking across the dnipr river on foot at 7am, eating a McDonalds egg mcmuffin sandwich, exploring the gigantic bazaar, and starting my "Where in Ukraine is Nathan" video (search where in the world is matt on youtube for more info, I'm doing a mock/serious version just in Ukraine).

That afternoon we spent at the circus, which was super cool. The circus featured a lion trainer with 7 real lions. It was my first time at a circus, and it definitely was not a disappointment. Probably the most hilarious thing about the circus was the fact that a half liter of beer costed 1/3 of what a bag of popcorn costed. A beer costed 5UAH, approximately 68c, a popcorn cost 15UAH, 3x as much.

That night I went to my first expensive club in Ukraine. It had a 100UAH cover. I can't lie, I saw some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my entire life in this club. The ratio was probably around 6 girls to 1 guy, with probably 4/6 of those girls being 9s or 10s. However, I guess it's just me, but no matter how beautiful the women are, they can't make me like being in a loud club where all people do is drink and dance, two things I don't even like doing excessively. However, these are important experiences for me to have I suppose, it's worth it just to see the atmosphere and how people act in it. I guess it's my fly-on-the-wall mentality coming out, sometimes I just like to observe and not even be involved. I didn't stay at the club long, left after only a couple hours with one of my friends that kinda had the same opinion I had.
All in all it was an interesting weekend, highlighted by some fascinating new experiences.

Nate