So I went to Mexico This Week...

....and I am pretty sure that I am the only girl on the planet who can say that after spending a week in Mexico, she came home whiter than she started off. 

Observe the picture above. My legs have a little bit of color, do they not? Yes! 

(That was taken on the first day)

(At the resort...also taken on the first day)

At the end of the week, everyone had become a beautiful golden bronze, whilst I lagged behind, literally whiter than I started off, thank you genetics.

Trust me guys, I have tried time and time again to tan my legs.

When I was in Italy, I wore shorts every day and barely, if at all, applied sunscreen. I ended up with white legs and a rash. Awesome.

So I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: The spray-on tan.

Now, go ahead and take your little moment of judgement, because I know that's what you're doing. Feel better? Great. 

Here are the pros of this method:

1. If you go to the right person, they do it well, and it doesn't look streaky or orange

2. It moisturizes your skin

3. It smells amazing (once again, you have to go to the right person, or else it might smell pretty weird)

4. No freckles or wrinkles from sun damage

5. No skin cancer. And we all know how much I am avoiding that one.

..and the cons:

1. It only lasts about 6 days, and then it starts to look pretty streaky and terrible. 

(Say goodbye to the shorts after day six)

2. You can't shower for 24 hours after you get it, and that makes you feel grody.

oh, would you look at that? Five to Two. I think we have ourselves a winner.

Girls with genes like mine do not really have that many options, you know?

Try to tan, burn instead, get skin cancer. 

Or, pay twenty bucks and enjoy a few days of pretending. 

Here am I, with the crew in Puerto Penasco on the third day, wearing shorts, a lovely first for me

I choose the latter, and all you people who think I'm exaggerating, get a look at the white on me after 5 days in Mexico:

Ow, ow! Beautiful, blinding white. And believe me, I was in the sun constantly.

 Apparently one of my callings in life is to simply make those around me feel tan, and
So far I have a 100% success rate. 
Misión Cumplida.

Oh, and by the way, Mexico was fabulous. I'll post more pictures soon. :)

White Knight

So, seeing as I am not living in Kyiv anymore, it is time to jump back to this much-neglected blog. (If you have nothing else to do and wish to read of my adventures, you can find them here.)

Pictures always make everything better. I am already missing this place

Right now I am in London, sitting by myself in the London Airport and eating a lovely breakfast of eggs and salmon and toast with marmalade, in my little corner, in my hat. I must say I feel quite sophisticated. This is not to say that I am, but do I have a feeling London has a way of making even the most uncoordinated creature feel sophisticated. I am really gonna miss this whole independence travel the world adventuring thing.  But that's an entirely different rant. I made a mistake last night, and it happened somewhere in-between Kings Cross and Royal Victoria.

     Here is what you find on the platform when you board the tube. For some reason I am fascinated by the way they phrase things

You see, I went to Kyiv with one carry-on, one large suitcase, and one medium one. I ended up having to throw away the medium one, send the large one home, and have been living out of a teeny tiny carry-on for the past 18 days (Britney, your backpack has SAVED ME, ha) How I have accomplished this downsize, I still do not know. As you can imagine, my little carry-on has gotten significantly heavier since we started out, as I have been picking up souvenirs here and there and everywhere, and after visiting 15 cities and 7 countries, my suitcase is REALLY HEAVY. I'd say almost a good fifty pounds. That may not sound like a lot, but when you throw in a backpack and take into account my marshmallow arms, it is quite a challenge running around to different train stations and airports all night long.
Last night as we were trying to find our hotel, we got a tad bit lost. It got a little tricky pulling around all that luggage. At one point, I was trying to haul my suitcase up a big flight of stairs when a young man going the other way decided to stop and ask if I needed any help. I imagine I looked pretty flustered, which is great because it probably hid the bright red hue that surely hit my cheeks the second he turned around and spoke to me in his lovely british accent (then again, probably not, thank you genetics). I was already half-way up the stairs, and if course my instincts tell me that you can totally do this on your own. So of course I told him thank you very much but I was alright. He asked again throwing in this huge smile. I really think I looked pathetic at this point. "Are you sure?" ---yes, thank you so much! and kept right on swinging and hauling my little 5-ton suitcase up those stony stairs.
A few seconds later I was totally kicking myself. What a nice guy, and why in the world did I turn him down? Not in an, oh, he was really cute, swoon, sort of way, but in a, wow, he was really being kind and I should have let him help me sort of way. Because really, this world is so caught up in the business-woman working women doing everything on her own woman sort of thing. A man opens the door for us, and we tell him, "thanks but I am perfectly able to do that on my own." Then another man doesn't open the door for us, and we start ranting off about how Chivalry is Dead and how men have no respect for women anymore.
Well, what do we expect them to do?
I decided that next time a man offers to help me with something, I will let him and be all the more grateful for it. Yes, I am perfectly capable of doing it on my own, but that is the tried and true system, and it is fabulous! To all you many men out there who aren't afraid to be a gentleman, thank you! I praise you! You are appreciated! Keep it up.
That's my rant for the day.

Now off to board a plane! AMERICA here I come :)

woah.

Four and a half days until I fly out.
All my friends are going back up to USU today....
And I am getting hit with a prodigious wave of mixed feelings.

Excitement. Anxiety. Nostalgia. Happiness. Terror. Determination. Fear. Optimism. Pessimism. Elation.  

All topped with excitement, of course! But wow.... hello roller coaster? What?

Woah . . four and a half days.

Curious

Something interesting has happened.
Five different people have tried to set me up with five different men, all in the past 7 days. A lady in my ward. My boss. 2 co-workers. A friend I haven't talked to since high school. Yes, that makes 5.

And I ask.

Why now?

I am, in fact, leaving the country in 8 days, and it is for quite a significant amount of time.

And now you choose to try and set me up? 

"Oh hey there, you're cute andheythatdatewasgreatandhey see ya!"

Well, good timing.

Ha.

I laugh.

And so it begins

I have class in 45 minutes, and I do not want to even move.

4-day forecast for Logan, UT (high/low)

Fri: 38/22 Sat: 43/22 Sun: 38/20 Mon: 43/25

You'd think surviving a Logan winter would pretty much toughen up your skin enough to be okay the rest of the time, right? HA. Think again. Of course I knew Logan was cold, but still I seemed to have forgotten that it was always this bitingly numbing outside. And this is just child's play.

Just to humor myself, I Googled the weather in Kiev. 
It's comforting, really, that the weather is still in the 60s in that part of the world. I feel a little bit better about going.

But that still doesn't solve the problem that I have before me at this moment.

Engineering building... Why are you so far away?

fyi

I must make a correction. Sorry St. Petersburg, but I will not be visiting you, or finding my Demitri for that matter (such a shame).
I got placed in Kiev, Ukraine!
I leave sometime between January 7th-12th.
I WILL BE THERE FOR SIX MONTHS!!
CAN WORDS EVEN EXPRESS HOW ECSTATIC I AM?!
(Ahem, Mallory, I am still torn, despite my great enthusiasm. ;) I am going to definitely have some withdrawals without my lovely roommie. And no texting you every single random happening that I could ever even ramble about in a day?? What is that going to do to me psychologically??? *shudder..)

Anyway. I am going to live in a foreign country. For six months. During the coldest of absolute deathly bitter freezing months. Yikes. And do I speak a lick of Russian? Have I even figured out how to say "hello" yet??
Of course not.
It's 12 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet long. And also, Russian is not phonetic. It is not pronounced the way it is spelled. Intimidating? I think yes. But never fear. I am determined to learn this fantastic, beautiful language.
There is going to be a LOT of charades going on for those six months :)

Oh, and by the way, if you are wondering how to pronounce "Kiev,"
It is pronounced "keev" in Ukrainian, and "key-ev" in Russian. So no matter how you say it, you'll always be right! (I know you were stressing about that)

Досвидания!