Greetings all!
It’s 5 pm and it’s still light out! Outside of our 14th floor window, the sky is blue, and grey clouds tinged with pink and whirr past. Today the fog has disappeared and we can see all the way to the mass of trees that marks the beginning of Park Partisanski Slava.
February was unusually warm; felt like spring. Not only did people go without coats, but a few girls even decided it was time to put on their short shorts. Granted they were wearing nylons – but 8-15 C is still too cold (and windy!) for me to think of such a thing.
In Ukrainian, the word for February is Lyuti. It means fierce, and even can have the connotation of Evil. I’m not learning Ukrainian, but this is what my teacher told me and in Croatian there was a similar sounding word and they used it to describe anything from extra spicy food and alcohol that gives you a real kick to a person who was angry (my teacher is always frustrated when I make comparisons with Croatian – the way she talks you would think the languages weren’t even related!). This year, February wasn’t Lyuti. In fact, the entire winter has been so mild that I never progressed beyond a single layer of sock in my unlined boots. They say, that if the winter is mild then Easter will be cold, they say that Women’s day, (March 8th) there will be snow, they say that summer will be rainy. Everyday street conversation about the weather invariably turns into a farmers Almanac of signs and symbols and saying from ones memory and the memory of ones grandparents. These are the most interesting memories. The times when villages were snowed in and the only thing that could be seen were the chimneys, the times when there wasn’t much money and so a meal might be brown bread with warm fat or oil. There never used to be winters like this they say.
I remember in first or second grade my teacher telling us that “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb” Sometimes this was true, sometimes it wasn’t, but I’ve always loved the mystery of spring, the warmth and promise of summer, with still the mischievous bite of winter nipping at ears and nose. In Vukovar, spring was marked by the return of the storks, by the mud finally drying up or at least becoming manageable. Spring cleaning takes on new meaning in a place where mud is everywhere and clings to everything and even when you are careful, you find the backs of your pants spattered with the stuff after walking even a few steps.
Here spring is heralded by the selling of Snowdrops – but according to the commercials – we aren’t to buy them from the babushkas selling them at metro entrances – here the flower apparently grows in forests and is almost extinct.
Alister and I are doing great – He is teaching and doing some fill-in preaching and I am still plugging away at Russian. I’m doing two classes now, an advanced and an intermediate at the same time to try to pushing things forward a bit. Some days, (like today) the end of the advanced class make me want to cry, but fortunately it is followed by the intermediate class and though I definitely haven’t master the material – it is definitely does help to boost my ego.
I am posting more to my blog – http://www.alisterandsarah.blogspot.com/ at least trying to post once a week - but February had an excessive number of posts – trying to make for all the ones I missed I suppose. (Alister wants it duly noted that the views, postings, and misspellings on the blog are entirely my doing and do not represent him and that he can in no way be held responsible for anything appearing therein.)
That’s all the news for now.
Wishing you all the best and hope that Spring is warm and lovely!
-Sarah and Alister
It’s 5 pm and it’s still light out! Outside of our 14th floor window, the sky is blue, and grey clouds tinged with pink and whirr past. Today the fog has disappeared and we can see all the way to the mass of trees that marks the beginning of Park Partisanski Slava.
February was unusually warm; felt like spring. Not only did people go without coats, but a few girls even decided it was time to put on their short shorts. Granted they were wearing nylons – but 8-15 C is still too cold (and windy!) for me to think of such a thing.
In Ukrainian, the word for February is Lyuti. It means fierce, and even can have the connotation of Evil. I’m not learning Ukrainian, but this is what my teacher told me and in Croatian there was a similar sounding word and they used it to describe anything from extra spicy food and alcohol that gives you a real kick to a person who was angry (my teacher is always frustrated when I make comparisons with Croatian – the way she talks you would think the languages weren’t even related!). This year, February wasn’t Lyuti. In fact, the entire winter has been so mild that I never progressed beyond a single layer of sock in my unlined boots. They say, that if the winter is mild then Easter will be cold, they say that Women’s day, (March 8th) there will be snow, they say that summer will be rainy. Everyday street conversation about the weather invariably turns into a farmers Almanac of signs and symbols and saying from ones memory and the memory of ones grandparents. These are the most interesting memories. The times when villages were snowed in and the only thing that could be seen were the chimneys, the times when there wasn’t much money and so a meal might be brown bread with warm fat or oil. There never used to be winters like this they say.
I remember in first or second grade my teacher telling us that “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb” Sometimes this was true, sometimes it wasn’t, but I’ve always loved the mystery of spring, the warmth and promise of summer, with still the mischievous bite of winter nipping at ears and nose. In Vukovar, spring was marked by the return of the storks, by the mud finally drying up or at least becoming manageable. Spring cleaning takes on new meaning in a place where mud is everywhere and clings to everything and even when you are careful, you find the backs of your pants spattered with the stuff after walking even a few steps.
Here spring is heralded by the selling of Snowdrops – but according to the commercials – we aren’t to buy them from the babushkas selling them at metro entrances – here the flower apparently grows in forests and is almost extinct.
Alister and I are doing great – He is teaching and doing some fill-in preaching and I am still plugging away at Russian. I’m doing two classes now, an advanced and an intermediate at the same time to try to pushing things forward a bit. Some days, (like today) the end of the advanced class make me want to cry, but fortunately it is followed by the intermediate class and though I definitely haven’t master the material – it is definitely does help to boost my ego.
I am posting more to my blog – http://www.alisterandsarah.blogspot.com/ at least trying to post once a week - but February had an excessive number of posts – trying to make for all the ones I missed I suppose. (Alister wants it duly noted that the views, postings, and misspellings on the blog are entirely my doing and do not represent him and that he can in no way be held responsible for anything appearing therein.)
That’s all the news for now.
Wishing you all the best and hope that Spring is warm and lovely!
-Sarah and Alister
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