Long Day / Good Ending

Today was a pretty long day. 

Sergey left this morning to go pick up the papers that the investigator had finally signed, and then go by the court to see if they would go ahead and assign a date. We didn't go with him because it was just supposed to not take very long, and honestly I think some things are easier if it is just him. We were then planning on, when he got back around lunch getting ready and going out to the camp so we could stay for a few days.

Was was supposed to be a quick trip to Litugino turned into the court requesting another set of birth certificates, him having to drive out to the Orphanage again, having to get the birth certificates notarized, having to sit at a records office for almost three hours, back to the court house, etc. Then he had to come back to Lugansk and go to the Vital Records office, and then to the train station to get paperwork on the train to Kyiv.

He just got back about 30-40 minutes ago, almost at a little before 6 pm. I feel bad that we did not go with him now, even though I am sure it would have been a bigger pain to be dragging around 2 people that can't speak Russian with him.

So now, we will not be going out to camp. The plan is for the morning.

Also, the internet went out yesterday, and has not worked at all. Sergey and Shane left right after Sergey got back to go see if we just needed to add more tranferrable bytes to the modem - or if there was something wrong with it.

Turned out it just needed to add some $ to the modem. So we are working again.

The day has gone by very slowly. No internet until now, not feeling great, feeling a little trapped in the apt. (We are not in the center of town, so there isn't a ton of stuff that is close by as far as restaurants, stores, etc.. Although, there are more pros about where we are than cons - like, it is only $30 a night which is great when you are paying for a month or so, it is pretty quiet, etc.), and also feeling like my body was going to rebel if I had to eat anymore noodles or dumplings or granola bars. I got it into my head mid-morning, that "since Sergey would be back around lunch" we would go somewhere to eat for lunch - maybe even to McDonalds. So, in expectation of that, I didn't eat anything. As the day went by, I of course got completely irritated about everything b/c I hadn't eaten. And I didn't want to eat, because all we had were Ukrainian Cup o' Noodles and leftover dumplings (we hadn't wanted to buy too much, esp fresh stuff because we thought we would be out at camp before now). Poor Shane, I know I was being a poop head. When I first got here... I thought - I could eat these dumplings every day for every meal. Turns out, not the case.

The Shower head also fell off the mount and landed on my head today. It hurt. That thing is heavy.

Also, Nadia and Nicolai - the people we are renting the apartment from, came by to clean, etc. I felt bad... I offered to help but she would NOT let me, so we had to jsut sit there while she washed the floors and cleaned the bathroom. Nicolai did go through a photo album of theirs with us, which was super cute. Before they left, he saw I had moved to sit near the air conditioning unit... and he proceeded to make me move and give me a lecture (all in Russian) about how I couldn't sit there b/c the air would make me sick. (I got the gist through his hand motions, few english words, exaggerated fake sniffles and sneezes, and the fact that I knew there is the line of thought that being in air currents can make you sick.)

Finally, I made Shane call Sergey around 3:00 to see when he might be back... and that is when we found out what a debacle the day had become. I decided that I was going to go back to the store, to get stuff to make a sandwich... so we walked down there. I decided to brave the produce section, because I had to get some sort of fruit or veggie in me. Turns out it isn't so scary. After watching a guy, we realized you just bag your produce, hand it to a girl in the corner - and she goes ahead and weighs it and prints out a price label. That way, when you get to the check out it is already priced, and just has to be scanned.

We picked out some fresh bread, and some sort of salami looking sausage... and I also got some sunflower oil to bring home (that is one of the main oils used here for cooking). In line to check out, the lady in front of me turned around and said a bunch of stuff in Russian. Before I could get out "I'm sorry, I don't understand" in Russian, which is one things I do happen to know... she motioned toward her water bottle, and then toward ours. Turns out it is not proper to have your bottles standing on the check out belt. They are supposed to be lying down. To me, it seems like they take up a lot more room and roll around... but I suppose they also don't risk tipping over and crunching anything or making a racket.

When we got back we made the sandwiches and Shane grilled them on the stove. SO good. And I had fresh sliced tomato with it. Yum. Made my day immediately better. Ha.

Also, we got a court date! Tuesday, June 29th. This is good news! I had really really hoped that it would have been next Thur/Fri... but I guess since we lost a couple of days it didn't work out. And Monday the 25th is some sort of holiday, so gov offices are closed. I am a little bummed that it is a week and a half away. That means we have essentially 11 days of nothing.... and then the court date... and then another 10 days of waiting. It is almost like we have two waiting periods now. Which makes it seem like so much longer. 

I did forget to mention the menu at one of the restaurants we went to the other night. It was really yummy, and they had a version of their menu that essentially had English subtitles. I appreciated the English so much, but it was hard not to get a little tickled at some of the descriptions. They had an appetizer that said "Regally Baked Cheese," and a Side item that was "Potatoes are roasted with salt and papper". Also, there was a seafood section... and a few things had crab on them. They had misspelled one, so what we could have ordered was "Oysters with Crap." We didn't order those. Ha. Shane did get some pretty great Salmon though. I hope to go back there at some point.

We watched the last episode of Band of Brothers, and I finished Defiance (the book). I wish we had Defiance, the movie, with us to watch now.

In the living room are a handful of english books that previous people who were here adopting had left. All of them have a little inscription in them. Shane has decided he is leaving a baseball book he brought. "For the guys." 

If we head out to camp, I am not sure what the internet situation will be. I know our modem doesn't work there, because we tried it yesterday... but Shane Duke says that he gets it. We will probably be out there for 2-3 days and then come back for a day. It will all depend on the internet, etc., because Shane has to be able to get on his company's server, etc.

Hope everyone at home is doing well.