There is a direct correlation between sunlight and attitudes.

The days were getting shorter and darker and tempers were following suit. I could not go anywhere without being grouched out by grumpy Ukrainians who just couldn't deal with my ignorance of culture. I'd ventured out to the bazaar, local grocery stores, schools, church, and on the occasional walk in the increasingly cold outdoors and consistently ran into grouchiness. I was developing thicker skin out of necessity.

I'd been in Ukraine for about 2 months when it was time to mail in my first expense report to the Company who supported my life expenses. I spent about 2 hours trying to ensure that all of my figures were in the right spreadsheet columns and meticulously taping and numbering receipts. I'd given myself a headache by trying (practically futilely, I might add) to read the receipts and determine what each was for. I ended up guessing and praying that my guesses wouldn't result in lack of reimbursement. After buying a washing machine, I REALLY wanted that reimbursement.

It took me a couple of days to work up the courage to take myself to the post office. I'd called Ira and had her write out exactly what I was supposed to say to buy stamps and mail my package. Apparently, it wasn't the kind of thing where I could just buy stamps and stick it in a mail slot. I practiced saying my phrases over and over, feeling like an idiot every time. I felt like an actor in a cheesy spy film, practicing my best "Russian mobster" accent. It was awesome and awful.

On the big day, I bundled up, packed up my paperwork, and headed to the post office downtown. I always really liked this building because of its classic Soviet architectural style. Once I got there, things started off with a bang: quite literally, as I rammed full-force into a door that was painted shut. Why, exactly, do they make for-display-only doors? Everyone in a 10-foot radius stopped to stare. There's not a real way to recover from that.

Once I got inside, I discovered that I loved the architecture inside even more than I loved the outside...and that's where the love ended. I walked up to the first teller that I came to and waited in line. When I got to the counter, I took a deep breath and gave my spiel. At the end of my well-prepared speech, the woman looked at me with a bored, who cares? look and rattled off a string of Russian words that sounded like gibberish. I asked her to repeat, and she said exactly the same thing, only louder. I had to ask again, and this time, I got an angry repetition as well as hand gestures pointing me to a different teller.

Frustrated, I moved to the indicated teller and waited in another line. When I got to the counter, I repeated the same scenario that I had with Teller #1. I was losing momentum as I moved to yet another teller. Before I even began rattling off my speech, Teller #3 fixed me with a cold and piercing stare that cause me to fumble and drop the figurative ball. After I finished butchering my worn-out line, she continued staring but eventually said something and held her hand out expectantly. It caught me so off-guard that I hesitated ever so slightly. Wrong move. The cold stare became a burning-with-hateful-irritation glare, accompanied by a yell of instruction. Thankfully, my brain kicked into gear, and I handed her my package. My confidence had been shattered, unfortunately, and I dropped every coin I tried to pull out of my wallet (Ukrainians usually insist on correct change, so dealing with the coins was absolutely necessary) and even had to chase one across the floor.

After watching her go through a series of mail-related actions that made no sense to me, she looked up at me, spat out some angry-sounding words, and gesticulated toward the door. I high-tailed it out of there and got on the first bus that came by (thankfully, it was going my direction). Once I got home, I pulled out my stash of peanut butter, a spoon, and a disc of Gilmore Girls. The trip to the post office had just wiped me out for the day and left me with no other choice, obviously.