A Boxed Cake

The box that store bought cakes come in! It says "Cappuccino". It is VERY tasty cake made by the famous Roshen bakery here in Kiev.

Happy Birthday to ME!

The theme this week at English Cafe was health and sickness and it came at just the right time...many of our Cafe friends were sick this week with a virus that seems to be making people sick all over Ukraine.

(Actually, I don't want to write about sickness right now. After all, nobody really wants to talk much about being 'sicker than a dog', or how they are 'sick and tired' or how we are 'feeling under the weather' or how something is just plain 'sick'.)

I want to talk about birthdays.

It wasn't my birthday this week, it was actually the young man's birthday who is holding the cake in the picture. He bought and brought the cake himself. By the unwritten rules of Ukrainian culture, if it is your birthday, you bring the cake. If you want a party, you do the inviting, make the food, decorate the house...Yep, you throw yourself a big birthday bash. Quite the opposite of what American culture tells us to do: if it is your friend's birthday, you make the cake for your friend.

So, knowing that Roma was coming (we didn't know he was bringing a cake) and feeling compelled by my own culture to make a cake, I made one of our special cakes- a box mix straight from America, a treat. My cake was quite plain compared to this beautiful 'tort' that Roma brought. But, with twice the normal amount of cake for a single birthday, every sweet tooth was satisfied as each of us had at least 2 pieces of cake.

It was a sweet Happy Birthday for us all!

Soy Sauce and Wasabi ~ Make your own sushi party

DIY sushi!

the guys 'cooking' for the first time!

Make your own sushi party....

So, we had a make your own sushi party at English cafe on Wednesday. I actually have had the idea for a LONG time...finally my dream came true.

It was a day to be remembered for a long time...this whole week has been unusual, filled with unplanned things, unexpected guests and spur-of-the-moment happenings, but all in all, very pleasant how it has all worked out.

So, on Wednesday, when the car battery had to be replaced (twice- as the first one that we bought was the wrong one), and the English movie time needed to be transferred to our home due to double scheduling of events at the University and a few other things, I had to remind myself several times that God is in control of it all and it will all work out...but when the water went out 30 minutes before everyone came to our place, and stayed off till 10pm...it took all I could muster up to laugh about it, remembering that it was under control and all would work out....how do you clean the sticky sushi rice off of your fingers?????

But, you know what? Everyone else seemed to be doing just fine with the whole situation and I have heard from several of our friends, how much fun they had and how they would love to do something like this again...

I kept thinking that something really great was going to happen because it was such a CRAZY day...this is yet to be realized...but...I have hope that things are happening...

Remember us, please...it is really cool to see what is happening and are hoping to see even more!