Day 5

It is still hard to get up. I finally got up at 10:30. The sun was shining on me. That's right, the SUN was shining on me. And it was WARM. Jet lag is a bear.

Not much was planned for today. We should get our referral from the SDA after 5pm. So we walked up to St. Sophias. We walked down to the SDA. The street has many beautiful apartment buildings (see photos). We walked past the outdoor mall. Nope, we almost walked past the outdoor mall. We stopped and bought souvenirs (those are so CUTE!). There was a lot of biting wind, so we went back to the apartment and had lunch. We needed to talk with Olga about transportation to Donetsk and/or Slavyansk.

Even here, many people have not heard of Slavyansk. It has a population of 140,000, but here, cities that size are considered small. In Colorado, there are definite city centers with comercial establishments and then sort of on the edges of those places of commerce, you have residential areas. This seems to be all mixed up here so you don't really know how big a city is.

We heard from Valentina and Olga that the rules for adoption are changing again. More forms to fill out. something about proof of housing size and ownership. If you are coming you have probably heard. We are in under the wire. The new rules take effect February 1.

A funny thing happened at lunch yesterday. Eileen was talking to Valentina about her brothers, and Eileen had her hands up near her face. Suddenly, Valentina grabbed her hands and started laughing. It turns out Eileen was making a rude gesture, and did not realize it. You have to be careful where you put your thumbs.

When Olga showed up, we decided that we needed to take a plane to Donetsk, since the social worker would not be there Friday. So we went around Independence Square to the travel agency, to get our tickets. The streets around the square are like any downtown: all one way streets. Another loop around the square back to the apartment. Then we had 30 minutes to pack. Then we ran to the SDA, to get in line to get our referral (its a good idea to be there 30 minutes early, otherwise you wait longer). Many of the other couples there spoke English. A family from Sicily, who used to live in Chicago. A family from Baltimore. We got in fairly quickly, got our referrals, and went back to our apartment. We had a whole hour for dinner. We were glad to eat our leftovers of chicken soup, bread (always a treat) and fruit.

After dinner we got in the car with all our luggage, and Sasha flew us to the airport. "Fly" is almost not a metaphor. The speed limit was 90, but Sasha was pushing 180. The highway lanes must be for: right lane - pokey petes, middle lane - go the speed limit, left lane - white knuckles. At one point, a "slow" car was in the left lane, probably doing the limit. We came up on his tail fast. Sasha started flicking his brights: flick...flick...flickflickflickflick. The guy ahead started to move over. Sasha was not happy enough, he passed the guy while he was still changing lanes. We may have been inches away from contact. We were also inches away from soiled clothes.

At the airport, we waited an hour, went through security, and hopped on a 737 (Donbassaero: Don(etsk)bass(??)aero). The airport here is like the one in Dusseldorf: you walk out onto the tarmac and climb on a bus, which takes you to the plane. Then you crowd around the steps leading up to the door of the plane, trying to stand behind someone taller than you so you get less wind in your face. The snack on this plane was a piece of candy, followed by a hambun (for those of you who are unfamiliar with dutch culture, it is a small roll with 2 small pieces of ham. This one was accompanied by shredded lettuce and tomato) and a pineapple juice. An hour later we were in Donetsk. It was very foggy, and the temperature was -1 C. We grabbed our luggage from the luggage trolley (much quicker than waiting for it to arrive inside) and went out to our waiting taxi. Really 5 minutes from plane to curb.

One thing we noticed on the plane and on some newscasts. It seems like a thing of pride to talk fast and not take breaths. We listened to a newscaster go for five minutes, and it felt like he never breathed in. It was like listening to the wind blow, up and down, up and down, bulabulabulaBULABULABULbulabulabula... The head steward of the plane could talk faster than anyone I have ever heard. When he spoke English, even though it was pretty good English, it was difficult to tell what he was saying. I took a class my sophomore year, and it was possible to listen to tapes of the lectures with the dead space removed. An hour long lecture could be heard in 30 minutes. You could do it if you paid attention. News speakers and plane stewards here can do it without electronics.

Sasha, the Kiev driver, has a nice expensive BMW, latest touch screen, etc. Donestk taxi guy's car was older, maybe a Fiat, but it had TV and other software. ("Glass" is Ukrainian for "cool".) The taxi driver was not prepared for the amount of luggage we had. We had to put several bags in the car with us. He just didn't know how to pack, the amatuer. Slovyansk is 100km north of Donetsk. The fog got worse and worse. Several times, he had to flash another driver to ask for directions. I guess that's what you do here: flash your high beams many times at another driver while flapping your left hand out the window, and that driver stops and asks, What the heck are you doing, you looney? We could not see anything on the trip, due to the fog and the fogged windows. We made a brief stop for much needed gas along the way. Our driver stuck his hand out the window to the attendant waiting there and the attendant put a small amount of gas in the car while THE ENGINE WAS STILL RUNNING.

At midnight, we came into Slovyansk. It was dead. The only thing that was moving was: a guy pushing a wagon loaded with goods (at midnight?), a few guys hanging around a bar, and taxis. Lots of taxis. We still had to ask for directions many times. And finally, there it was, down a dark street: Hotel Ukraine. The nicest building in town. We check in and crash. Set the alarm for 7am, and try to sleep. Tomorrow we see Sasha and Nastia.