David In Israel . דוד בישראל . داوود في اسرائيل 

I used my mom's frequent flyer miles to buy my flight to America for this july, because she was worried the airlines will get ride those programs... but there were only enough miles to buy a one-way ticket from Tel Aviv to New York, on one day, and on one itinerary... it just happened to be the exact one I needed, and the best perk of all was that I got to visit a new country: Ukraine... 
Kiev was definitely an adventure.. thankfully, I taught myself the Cyrillic (Russian) Alphabet before arriving, which ended up being very very useful, but even so, I ended up walking around Kiev for 3 hours (with my bags) looking for my hostel.  It was a nightmare... My back was killing me, but all that changed when I arrived at the hostel.  A very sweet girl named Ira was so kind and offered to show me the city by night and we had a blast.  She brought me to the river, and we went on a night-cruise, and then we walked to some of the most famous sites.  Overall, I was very happy to meet a new friend and to get a fabulous tour of Kiev.  It is beautiful, but next time... I'll take taxis!