BARS!

Since my dog bite incident, I've become more aware of the street dogs in my town. That, naturally, makes for a more exciting morning run. Today, though, something really fun happened while I was jogging that I wanted to share. See, since I've been here, I haven't seen anyone else run on the street. Ever. Ukrainians, at least at my site, don't jog. Not that they need to--most people I've seen here, about 95% or so, are in really good shape. It's remarkable, really, considering that I come from a country where about half the population is overweight to an unhealthy degree. Anyway, the result is that when people see me running here, I often get starred at. People seem genuinely entertained by me running. This morning, though, a group of 4 little kids, probably between 6-8 years old, followed me for a couple of blocks like I was Rocky, training for a rematch with Apollo Creed. It was really great!

Something else I wanted to mention--random graffiti. See, every day I notice something new sprayed on the sides of buildings and on brick walls, and much of it is in English. My girlfriend Jessica, for example, has several "BARS!" tags near her apartment building at her site, and remembers seeing several "Freddy Krueger" sprayings at our training site a few months ago. My favorite at my site is "Chocolate CHICKEN," on the way to my school. Rock on!