James Coleman
America Inside Out
Family trip to Ohio4/22/2018 Hi everybody!
This week our host mom decided to spend several days at her parents’ house in Ohio so that we could visit some museums and landmarks nearby. We arrived there on Thursday evening and planned to see the tunnel under Ohio river, where slaves were hiding during the Civil war, on Friday. However, we find out that the tunnels were closed till May, so we followed the plan B. On Friday morning we arrived at the Ohio Air Force museum, where you could learn about the history of aviation, Wright brothers who created the first airplane, see space satellites and rockets, and even walk inside the real Presidents Truman's, Kennedy’s and Johnson’s airplanes. Since I had been always interested in aviation and engineering, it was an extremely exciting day for me. However, the thing that made me laugh and be angry at the same time is that in one of the rooms, where they provided an installation about Igor Sikorsky, Ukrainian (he was born in Kiev) scientist who was the pioneer in helicopter aircraft, they hanged the Ukrainian flag upside down. I am not offended by regular people making mistakes when they talk about my country, but I think that the State museum had no excuse for that. If such thing happened to the American flag, people would get mad! So I went to the Info desk and politely asked the administration to fix this problem and I really hope, they listened to me. So, the next time when you visit this museum, text me whether the Ukrainian flag was eventually hanged right or no:) After that, we visited some other beautiful places like the parachute museum, the beautiful cemetery where the Wright family was buried, the Wrights’ bicycle shop where they worked before they started creating the airplanes, and the next day we attended the Native American History museum. All those places are extremely lovely and I highly recommend you to go there one day. Unfortunately, to go on this trip I had to skip the choir contest I’d been preparing for, but I think this amazing family trip totally worth that.
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Bridal Shower4/15/2018 This Saturday I went to the bridal shower for the first time in my life. We don’t have such tradition in Ukraine, so it was an unusual and lovely experience.
To be honest, at first, I thought that it was going to be pretty boring as people come to the bridal shower to chat with friends and I didn’t know anybody there. But it turned out to be a great evening with funny games, tasty food, and nice people. My host mom and I even won a prize for creating the most beautiful wedding dress from the toilet paper:) The bride was the cutest girl you could ever meet, she created some of the decorations for the party. My host mom made homemade coffee face scrub, mint foot scrub and lavender bath salt for her present, and I gave her a cute teacup and saucer. Somebody took a polaroid picture of me and the bride, and I think I was supposed to put it in her photo album but I impudently stole it for my scrapbook. The party was extremely lovely and I am really looking forward to meeting the groom at the wedding. They’ve already sent us the “save the date” card with their pictures and they seem to be such a cute couple! Ukrainian Easter4/15/2018 Hi guys! Today I want to tell you about celebrating Ukrainian Easter with my host family last week. In Orthodox Christianity, all holidays are celebrated in a week or two later than in Catholic or Protestant. That’s why unlike American Easter, Ukrainian was not on 1st of April but on 8th. In Ukraine, we have a lot of different Easter traditions, so I tried to share some of them. In the morning we decorated eggs with special sleeve-stickers I brought from home: you put an egg in a plastic colorful sleeve, then dip the egg into the hot water, the sticker shrinks and sticks on the egg. My host mom baked some zucchini raisin bread which looked like Ukrainian Easter cake. Then we set everything in the Easter baskets called the Pascha baskets, covered it with embroidered towels and went to the Orthodox Church in Loveland. In the church, the priest blessed our baskets with the holy water, and we stayed there for half an hour to listen to the special Easter service. Orthodox churches usually have few benches, but you are not supposed to sit during the service, so it was a little bit exhausting. However, it definitely worth that, as the singing of the priest and church choir, all the beautiful paintings on the walls and golden decorations, the smell of the church candles made with incense were amazing! To sum up, it was a wonderful family day and a great experience. If you ever have a possibility to visit Ukraine, you should definitely do it on Easter time as it’s a beautiful holiday with unusual traditions. Postcrossing4/1/2018 Hi there!
Here I am with a short blog post about an amazing hobby I found for myself few days ago. On Thursday I was just searching something on Internet and suddenly came across an article about postcrossing. It’s an international exchange of postcards between people from all over the world, who have even never meet in real life. It means that one day you may open your mailbox and find there a picture with some wishes on the backside from a stranger. Isn’t it fascinating? The only thing you have to do to participate in it is to sign up on the website, put there your address, and wait for a postcard:) To send a postcard you request an address, and the website gives you a random one of any other user. You also get an ID of a card to write down on it. When the addressee gets your card, he or she types the ID on the site, and the site marks it as delivered. This time I am sending a postcard to a 46-years-old man who lives is German countryside with his wife and a tiny dog. I wrote a short message for him in German, and have already sent it. I am so excited to find out when he will get it! I hope this post's made you at least a little bit interested in this activity and you will try to do it. It doesn't require a lot of time or money - one card, one stamp and you'll make somebody on the other side of the world a little bit more happy! Trip to Jungle Jim4/1/2018 Hi guys!
Today I want to tell you about our family trip to Jungle Jim on Tuesday. Actually, we planned to go there on Saturday. But then the weather of Indiana State said “I feel like you need some snow storm on the weekends, guys”, so we had to stay at home. Jungle Jim is an amazing place where you can food and drinks from all over the world like. Of course, shopping there is more expensive than at a regular grocery store, but it’s a good opportunity to get acquainted with foreign cultures. And they have that beautiful decorations for each section of the store styled for the country the food is from. If you have an opportunity to go there, you should definitely buy something at their bakery: their bread is extremely tasty! I bought some sweets from my country, but I was really surprised by prices: because of all the shipping taxes, some food was almost 7 times more expensive than I used to pay for it at home. One thing that made me laugh a lot was an enormous, giantic barrel with a symbol of the Soviet Union Army and sign in English "Chernobyl Nuclear Power" spelled with Russian letters (Chernobyl was a Ukrainian nuclear reactor that explode in 80s, and caused huge environmental problems). I think it's a really good black humor joke. However, there was one thing that made me really disappointed. Although, the store had a number of racks with German, Italian, Japanese or Mexican food, they didn’t have at least one shelf for Ukraine: they just settled all Ukrainian food in the Russian section. I am quite used to people whose job isn't connected with Geography and who often mix up these two countries, and I am totally fine with that. But if you are opening an international store that's focused on selling goods from abroad, such mistakes are unacceptable. So now I am planning to write a complaint to the store and ask to create an individual shelf or at least a sign. All things considerate, it was a cool experience, and I highly recommend you to visit this store if you haven't yet! Daria GoptsiiAn exchange student from Ukraine. Archives
April 2018
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