My First Trip to the Ukraine

I won´t lie and talk about the Ukraine like about my dream country. The main reason to drive there is a very advantageous price of petrol. It´s true for many people from my neighbourhood. The neighbourhood in this case means an area until 100 kilometers from the Slovak-Ukrainian borderline. 10.15 UAH/1 litre. Thanks God for this petrol!

If we speak about the cheap purchases, we must mention alcohol. And chocolate sweets, too. And no journey is complete without the obligatory purchase of cigarettes in a duty free shop. Now I have to look like dealer :) In fact only thing which I´ve bought is chewing gum. See at the picture and the interesting flavours, namely tropical fruit, mango and lime or something like that. There is Orbit for Ukrainian´s market. Don´t buy it! It tastes good only first two minutes.

Chewing gum

All time I have to think about Ukrainians. They need a visa to visit all countries in the European Union. Actually, Russia is the only country in the world where they can travel without any close checking. I think so. And few kilometers from their homes they can see a different world. I´ll come back to explore the local culture.

I blame myself till today that I didn´t take a camera. I´ve seen something interesting. There weren´t gas pipes under the ground but around 3 metres in the air. It looks very ugly among houses in the village. The digging of the canals must be very costly there :)

Finally, this country has given me much only during one day. I´ve learnt something useful into the rough life. Now I´m a little ironic. I stood in a convoy of cars two hours till at last the Ukrainian custom control´s or passport control´s employee came to the car. I was ready and didn´t want any problems like the next boring waiting. So, I showed quickly our passports and a registration book of the car.

She opened passports, looked into the car and told: "For coffee?"

For coffee? What? There are just some sweets on the back-seat. Why coffee? I don´t drink coffee.

"No coffee, only sweets." I told loudly.

"For coffee in the passport.." She told again.

And then my front-seat passenger poked into me and whispered that she wants 0.50 euros. See here! She didn´t want to do a chit-chat with me. Like my naive person.

The Story About the T-shirt

I love so much the moments when I get any idea. It is beautiful. I usually start walking quickly from one room to another room. I can´t sit calmly. And you can hear my shouting “Yees, yees!”. Sometimes I have to pee after this kicking of the idea. I don´t know what´s the reason. Maybe human´s brain which produces a perfect thought is connecting with some kind of the secretion. I should ask the doctor House :)

It was the similar situation with the idea of the starting writing this blog. I was browsing and answering my emails in the ordinary Monday´s afternoon. Then an idea came from nothing. Blog in English! It was clear like wearing pyjamas before sleeping. I´ve bought a blogger T-shirt! See, this is it.

T-shirt

A Google store´s web site was in my bookmarks about two years. I was doing my usual daily browsing when I came across this awesome blogger T-shirt. It was love at first sight. This time I didn´t have a blog via Google only via some Slovak newspaper. So I killed this idea to buy it, I flip-floped between a blogger and another T-shirt. It didn´t seem to be okay to wear a Google blogger T-shirt with none Google blog. The only clue which stood was the adding of the store´s page to my browser´s bookmarks.

After two years, I´ve changed my mind and have bought it. Next, I´ve started blogging. The time period between the purchase and the starting of blogging is 28 days and there is no connection between these two things. One of my first articles and it´s mentioned Google here. I´m always happy to support a good store and even happier when that store offers good services.

I think this one is my favourite T-shirt which helps me with the blogging in addition. I´m wearing it now, too. But my strengths decrease. There is a little crisis at the beginning. The challenge is to now keep the number of the articles growing.

Hello World!

The name of this blog “My Fight with English” can sound a little angry for strangers. English is the reason why I´m writing these letters. In the concrete – learning English, improving my language skills. I love this “fight”, it gives me a joy. The thought to know English at the perfect level is brilliant. And you, my dear reader, can see this way to my goal. It isn´t an unique dream, English is the mother tongue for millions of people. We others must learn. You can laugh if you want. The next unnecessary article. Or you can study with me. I´d be glad.

Now I´m listening my old CDs because of lyrics in English. When I catch few words, I smile. TV-series, films, books, a menu on my mobile phone, an operating system on my PC, notes of ideas and thoughts. That all in English. Two trimesters of the studying in the language school.

TOEFL is the minor reason. I want to have it, it´s a challenge. So I started reading the official book for this test. The section “Reading” and “Listening” were done. “Speaking” isn´t large. There are about 50 themes to write essays in the section “Writing”. The recommendation is to practice writing them. 30 minutes, 300 words. Now it´s 208 :) I don´t feel any big progress. My vocabulary and structure of sentences is poor. Maybe it requires more time, studying. I don´t know. The Best is living in English speaking country for any time period. Now it´s impossible, school is starting. The next holiday is in June. Then I´ll travel a lot. 

Difficult words, phrases, sentences don´t make me problem to understand. When I have to use it in the speech or writing, I´m out. Sometimes I watch on the perfect sentence and say myself: “You understand whole sentence and every word. Why couldn´t you write something like that?”  

What can you (approximately 5 readers :) ) expect on this page? There will be my practiced essays, experiences with preparatory books for TOEFL, other books for the improving a vocabulary, grammar. I like English idioms so maybe anything from this area. Recommended books for leisure time, too.

I must write, I must write, I must write. Reading and listening aren´t enough. There will be a lot of my articles in English. This place is perfect for the posting articles, I like computers.

Enjoy it!