Month 10 brought not only a new country but a new continent
— Europe. I honestly thought these last
2 months would be the easiest of the race and would provide for a smooth
transition back to America. Boy was I
wrong.
This month has brought the biggest language barrier we’ve
had yet. No one speaks English. Not many people want to learn English. And nothing is written in English. You should see the charades we do when we
have to go to the store. Oh and the
interesting detective work trying to figure out what things are at the grocery
store. Usually at least at the grocery
store there have been some things in English up to this point, but not anymore.
I thought our days of being stared at and laughed at were
over since we were going into a white culture again. Surely we wouldn’t stand out as bad as we
have up to this point. HA! Wishful thinking. I’m not sure what gives it away, but they
know we’re Americans from miles away. We
get stared at, laughed at, and talked about.
I’m sure a big part of it is the nasty month 10 World Race wardrobe
we’re all sporting. Everyone here is so
beautiful all the time. Hair done,
makeup done, and nice clothes is what we’re competing with. Also I’m sure our ignorance for anything
Ukrainian sends a huge red flag we are not from here. Plus people here don’t like to smile. So they think we’re retarded because we smile
all the time. We’re supposed to be
straight faced and pushy to fit in apparently.
The two months I thought would easily fly by may in fact be
the hardest on the Race so far. We’ll
just have to wait and see.
