Павлоград

Pavlograd.  The name of my new home looks a lot cooler in Russian than in English.
So, if you haven't heard already, my site is Pavlograd, Dnipropetrovska Oblast, Ukraine.  It's a smaller city of around 113,000 people.  I find it quite endearing.  The main street through town is called Karl Marx Street, and in the main square there is still an imposing statue of Vladimir Lenin.  My school, School No. 1, is less than a block away from my apartment, which is on the top floor of a 5-story building that lacks an elevator.  I like to think of it as the penthouse suite.  It has a living room, where I sleep on the pullout couch, a good-sized entrance hall, an office, a kitchen, and an enclosed balcony with a floor that I'm not convinced is entirely stable.  I just got high speed internet set up today.  It only costs the equivalent of $7.50 a month in American dollars, but you're required to put up for sharing at least 5 GB of files on the local network.  I put up some music.  Ukrainians have an interesting view of copyright infringement...
Apart from the Soviet street names, Pavlograd is a very modern town.  It has a Celetano pizza restaurant (Ukraine's most popular pizza chain), a small American-style shopping mall (well, a mall without department stores, if that makes sense), high-end electronics stores, and several parks that I imagine are beautiful in better weather.  It's not terribly cold, either, but unfortunately that just means there's slush and very slippery ice everywhere.
I can't believe Christmas is in 3 days!  On Friday evening, I'm going to Donetsk (one of the major eastern cities in Ukraine) with Catherine, another PCV in Pavlograd who just arrived like me.  There should be a large gathering of other Americans there.  I wish you all a very merry Christmas, or whichever holiday you prefer.