Senior year in high school, my mom restarted working as a flight attendant......which meant free flights for us. Thus, my Scottsdale to Santa Clara trips to college were via America West Airlines. Combine that with a frugal and ballsy mom and you end up with a vacuum cleaner rolling down the jetway to go to school.
Where is this all going?
Fast forward 20+ years (yikes, that many!?), and take a look at our growing stock of suitcases.....
What could possibly be so essential?? Check out our cellar......
I say it's the mint M&Ms (you MUST try them), fake sugar (only funny pellets here) & hair dye (once you know your $9 color, you stick to it). Logan says its the brownie mix.
The boys put the Legos high up (available here - but ~2.5x the price)
As well as books (not many in English here) - and Nerf gun war supplies...
Zoe is probably our most addicted to Kraft Mac n Cheese....but we also hauled half a suitcase full of party favors for her future class holiday party...
And the entire duffel of 4th of July decor was definitely mission critical given its impossible to buy here & the USA table barely passed as festive at last years school International night....
(thanks Mom!)
Yes we transport silly amounts of stuff via plane overseas....
.....and yes, we have been "those people" shifting stuff from bag to bag at the departures counter to get below weight maximums.....
BUT we can also make sprinkle cupcakes, box brownies and peanut butter apples year round - all thanks to my mom's good influence!
Happy travels and here's to the cheap thrill of checking in a suitcase full of odd items & snowman sippy cups.
Hilarious! I think only fellow expats (with children) would ever understand the things we choose to haul back with us. Those snowman cups are fantastic. I cannot wait for International Night.....
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Clara
For English books, I remember going to a small bookstore (one room as far as I remember) which I think was on the right bank near where I lived (i might not be though... I don't remember if my dad and I had to take the subway to get there). It might have been a library type thing, because I don't have any of the books I got there and I would have kept at least one because I remember really liking them. They have English children's books, plus books for adults. I don't know if it's still there though because I was there in 2007. I also recently read something that mentioned The Globe, an English bookstore in the Metrograd shopping mall. I'm sure you've found something like it living there so long if you haven't found that store itself, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. Also, have you been to A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden? It's across the street from Kyiv National University. IT has (had?) a playground as well as a forest that is fun to explore (at least they were when I was in fourth grade). It's quite a bit smaller than the other Botanical Gardens, but I liked it. It has a good hill for sledding in the winter (speaking of which, do they still sell those sleds that are basically a piece of floppy plastic with handles?) Also, if you haven't, go to Мр Снек and Пузахта Хата (spelling?). They have delicious food (as far as I remember... fourth graders often think McDonalds is gourmet). Finally, Пирогі́в (Pyrohiv) is a great outdoor museum. They also have good food. Okay, maybe not finally. Schevchenko Park is near the botanical gardens I mentioned. There's a stand that sells blinis there that are really good! I used to walk there after school every so often before walking homeby way of the "green magazin" with nice ladies that work there who sell candy bars. Sorry this is so long.... mostly I'm reminiscing about Ukraine and visiting random places on google maps. :)
ReplyDeleteI figured out the name of the library I mentioned. It is the British Council Library. :)
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