The other side of the world... day 6

As we speak, I am sitting on the train from Kiev to Timothy’s region. We are in a compartment of our own, we were worried that we might have to share with people that we couldn’t communicate with, but we got lucky. God is watching out for us.

There is a lady that we met at the station who is American from South Carolina. She was here visiting with us for a little while. That was nice. Speaking English to someone who understands and speaks it back is a treat here. hehe
John has never been on a train before, so this is a new adventure for him. I have but not since I was little.

I got some news last night about my friend Maria. The youngest of the two children that she and her husband came to adopt got really sick on the plane before they could even leave Ukraine. She is in the hospital now, and doing much better. She seems to have gotten dehydrated. She’s been given fluids though and last night when I spoke to Maria on the phone she had already started to look better, and she was sleeping. They are keeping her for at least 48 hours though, so they won’t be able to leave until Tuesday to finally head home. She is homesick, and really missing her other kids so they are all ready to be home. Add to that the worry about the little one, and the stress of changing flights, and finding somewhere in Kiev to stay, etc… not fun…

The facilitation team here is awesome. They work so hard for those of us who are here, but even when something unexpected happens, like with the Falvos, they were right there to help. They are just awesome… I honestly can’t say enough good things about them. I know that some have had rough experiences with things that have happened during the process, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anything really bad about the facilitation team here.

LOL I’m tryin to get some photos out the window of the train… not going so well. hehe I suppose I should quit babbling and try to rest a little bit or work some more on my school work. I might be too excited to concentrate on anything but babbling though.

Later…

We are here!!! We have internet!! Our hotel isn’t the Plaza, but it’s not horrible either. One thing I’m not fond of is there is no such thing as a “Non-Smoking” room/floor. So, we’ll see. We have no kitchen to cook meals here, but we do have a teeny little fridge so we can keep things here for sandwiches, etc. YAY!! Of course, another drawback is no ICE!! I NEED ICE!! There, I said it! LOL

This afternoon Marina and the driver dropped us off at the hotel, and she explained about tomorrow, etc. She got us settled in our room, and she went off to help the Bachmans settle in. After we settled in a bit, we decided we needed to go find something to eat since we really hadn’t eaten today (I had an apple on the train, I don’t think John ate anything). So we grabbed our grocery bags, and hit the road. Marina had shown us a little mini market that we could go to for things like bread, milk, water. But she also said that there was a regular grocery store near here too.

So, we headed out. We walked through a little outdoor market (think upscale American flea market), and not far from there… in the distance… could it be… yes… it was… a MALL!! hehe as we walked through the parking lot, we saw people coming out with groceries! Woohoo!! A mall WITH a grocery store!! LOL We went in and found the grocery store (we needed some water, diet coke(or here it is coke light), and a few other things. As we were wandering around aimlessly just checking things out, who did we run into? Yep! The Bachmans, and Marina! I think Marina was truly impressed that we ventured out to explore on our own so soon, and found the place without help. hehe After we got the few things we needed, we said good bye and headed to the McDonalds that we had seen when we were coming in. As we were heading out, what did we run into? The food court! Yippee!! Ok, so we still had McNuggets but hey, now we know there are options there too. hehe

As we walked home, it’s about 1/3 of a mile maybe, not that far at all, we saw that the grocery store that Marina had told us about was actually the other direction from the way we went, and it was only about ½ block away. LOL I’m really glad we found the mall though, it will give us something to do if we need to get out for a bit. And, once John leaves I can go there too. hehe

Wow… it just keeps getting more exciting!! John found a channel on TV that’s in English!! The Disney channel!! LOL Too bad we can’t figure out how to turn off the “dubbing” on the other channels. LOL

Ok… I need to post this since it’s getting so long!!
Before you go to bed tonight, say a prayer for us and our little guy… by the time you wake up, there should be news about our meeting him!! And, maybe even a photo or two!!