Cold Water

Yesterday I came home to a brief announcement on the front door of my building: Due to some [gas?] issue there will be no hot water from 11.05.2010 to 14.05.2010.

No big deal, right? It's fairly warm outside now. It's not that I enjoy taking cold showers, but four days is better than the typical two weeks every summer when the hot water is shut off throughout the city. Plus it's better than the week in April where there was only hot water. One cannot take scalding hot showers or do the laundry in the washing machine in that situation.

Today a friend of mine arrived in town with her 10-month old son. They had just spent a week in the village with her mother where there is no running water at all. That put it all into perspective. At least I have running water.

Unfortunately, my friend had been looking forward to a nice warm shower. Oh, well.

But at least we have running water.

Cinco de Mayo

Last week I decided that I wanted to treat some colleagues to some festive food, Californian food, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, even if it was a week early. So we had a dinner of beans, rice, tortillas, carne asada, and a couple of salsas. It was so good, I thought I should actually repeat the meal tonight with my friends from California. I think it was even better the second time!

I'm on my way back to California in a couple of weeks where the food will be more authentic and won't require so much work (45 minutes to make tortillas) to get the same taste. I'll begin to take it for granted and begin to miss the foods that I love here in Ukraine. But tonight I am satisfied and content to have friends nearby to enjoy it with.