Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Living comfortably 7/31/2005

Hello once again from Kiev. We moved in yesterday afternoon to a comfortable 2 room flat in the city center. It has a living room, an actual bedroom (very unusual here), a well-equipped kitchen with refrigerator w/ freezer, microwave, washing machine, and best of all the apartment has air conditioning! We slept so good last night!

Our bedroom with a queen size bed!

Living room

Yesterday all we really did was shower, sleep awhile and then headed out for some dinner. We thought we would go somewhere closeby, but we ended up back at Independence Square, which we discovered is not very far from our flat - it is in a really great location! It turns out the huge open area where they had “tent city” during the Orange Revolution sits on top of a really modern shopping mall complete with the same kind of shops you’d find in the U.S. We had pizza and soda for dinner and then walked around for awhile trying to figure out how to buy an internet card, so we could access the internet from our flat, which is also equipped with a telephone. We couldn’t quite figure out how they worked, though, so we were hesitant to purchase one. Instead someone directed us to an internet cafe, where we caught up on a little e-mail. The internet cafes really are pretty easy to find and not at all expensive. It seems the going rate in the city center is 12 gr per hour (about $2.25). Being a saturday night, Independence Square was packed full of people and it was really cool to feel the energy there. This is such a cool city!

So we got back to the flat and slept, as I guess I had already mentioned. It was so great to finally be able to sleep soundly and in a cool room and not on a train! First really good night’s sleep we’ve had here. This morning we woke up hungry, but the little grocery store nearby didn’t open until 10. We headed out about 10:30 and came home with everything we needed! We couldn’t believe how inexpensive everything was. Here is what we got: a frozen bag of pelmeny (meat dumplings), small carton of milk, 1/2 a loaf of bread, a tub of butter (or margarine not sure), 200 g of hard salami, 200 g of cheese, 2 containers of yogurt, a bag of cookies I hand-selected (4 different kinds), 4 eggs, a carton of orange juice, 2 large bottles of water (1.5 L ea), 2 tomatoes, and 2 bananas. All of the above cost us a total of somewhere between $8 and $9. Really amazing! We made sure we brought a canvas bag along to carry everything back in and it was just the right size (except for the water and juice, which we had purchased the night before), and we brought everything home and promptly made ourselves a delicious breakfast! Everything we selected was very tasty and we were so hungry. It felt like we were enjoying the fruits of our labors or something like that! Shopping in another country is not an easy feat, so we were proud to have managed it so successfully! I almost paid 7,73 for the bread when the price was actually only 73 kopecks! The lady was kind enough to make sure she didn’t take advantage of the misunderstanding.

Our breakfast

Our flat was also equipped with coffee, tea, salt, pepper, and sugar so fortunately we didn’t have to buy any of those at this time.

After breakfast we just hung out for awhile in the apartment and Steve actually got some work done. I did the dishes and checked the laundry which we had done last night. We are so grateful to have these modern conveniences!

Steve “at home” on the computer

Finally, we got cabin fever and headed out to see some sights. We walked down to St. Andrew’s church and looked at all the beautiful wares people were selling there. It was like a never-ending art festival, and some of the paintings were really beautiful! We wish we could buy some to take them with us, but it simply isn’t practical. Our plan is to come back later after the adoption is done and at least pick up a few items to help us share the Ukrainian heritage with our new child.

St. Andrews Church

Art displays near Andrivsky

Tomorrow we will go back to the NAC to deliver our refusal of the little boy and ask for a second appointment. These can be granted anywhere from 2-10 days after the request, so please pray for favor that our appointment will be sooner rather than later. Our lovely apartment is comfortable but also expensive, and of course we are very anxious to get the adoption process moving again, especially now that we have rested.

God bless you all!