Day 7

Sunny day. Hooha! We got up kind of late, Eileen got a long shower, I had to rush. Fortunately, Olga was late as well. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, same food as yesterday. Well, we only had choice 1, 2, or 3. Like before, the breakfast was quite large, and I am used to eating little or no breakfast. I must be putting on pounds. We decided to go public transportation, so we walked through some apartment blocks to another street, and looked for a stop for the electric vehicle. (What is this vehicle called? A trolley runs on tracks in the street, this uses overhead wires.) We walked a little further down the street, and found a gathering of people, it looked good. Soon the vehicle came down the street, and we piled on. It was a very short ride to the internot, we could walk to it from here,there were cleared paths, albeit all ice covered., not sure we want to walk 1/2 mile on ice.

At the internot, Tanya had already arrived. She did want to be adopted! She is staying at her boyfriend Igor's house, and Igor's mother counseled her to go. She told Tanya that this is her opportunity. Igor is 5 years older than Tanya. Many things could be said about this, but we are going to think positively. We talked with Tanya and the director for a long time, 90 minutes maybe. We were waiting on more doctor checkups for Sasha and Nastiya, which was happening right then. The director hears that we are looking for the other hotel in town. We wanted to know if we can get a better hotel deal. He knows where that hotel is, so he offers to take us there. OK, off to the other hotel. This hotel is on one of the main drags, there are many here. Slovyansk seems like it was several small towns that all merged, although there is only one central square. The room was smaller, and 60% of the cost of Hotel Ukraine but adequate. We decided to take it.

It was now noon. We went back to Hotel Ukraine to checkout. Checkout was at noon, but if we could be out in 30 minutes, then there would be no charge. Why are we always trying to pack all our scattered stuff in such short notice? With some time to spare, we had all our things in the director's car. Thanks Nickolai! He was gracious to shlep us around during his lunch hour. He drove us back to Hotel Daropa (sp?). I will be so glad when we finally drop off all the stuff we brought for the orphanage. Four bulging suitcases plus packs plus computer plus bottle of wine (we celebrated a little yesterday) plus dirty laundry (won't fit in a suitcase any more) plus other things that won't fit in a suitcase.

Back to the internot. As we crossed the threshhold, Sasha was waiting for us. With tears in her eyes, she jumped up and gave me a big big hug. And she kissed me on the cheek. That is big for Sasha. Then Nastiya came up and hugged me. They also went to Eileen and hugged and kissed her too. We all went into the director's office, and I got to sit with both girls on my lap. Now we had all three girls in the office. There was more discussion. Much laughter. Sasha and Nastiya both wanted to take pictures with my camera. At one point, Sasha and Nastiya signed consent forms, saying they wanted to be adopted. They each had to write a letter and then sign it. Nastiya does not write yet, so she had help.

At this point, the director needed his office for work, so we walked across the courtyard to the dorm. From what we saw, this is just a typical dorm, to hold 270 kids. That's right, in this one internot, there are 270 kids. Oh, man, some of them are so cute, smiling, playful, :( They just should not be here, but instead in a family. Sasha and Nastiya wanted to eat, so they skipped and ran down to the cafeteria. Tanya led us up to the third floor, where there is a play room for about a dozen kids. I think this room is for the kids in Sasha's group. Down some other hallws, we heard loud music. Maybe those rooms were for older kids. In less than 5 minutes, Sasha and Nastiya came in. They must have wolfed their food down, if they ate at all. We broke out some lollipops for the kids. They loved to have their tongues change color. Vika and her new dad were in this room. We got some pictures of them. Vika showed how she could count in Italian. We only spent 30 minutes in this room, then we needed to do some chores, plus we were hungry.

We walked to the restaurant Chinook, where we had eaten last night. Tanya thought this was a very expensive place. I don't think she had eaten there before. The food was again good. Then we caught a taxi to the train station to buy tickets. If we are going to adopt Tanya, we must go to Kiev, and Olga needed to go back to Kiev tonight. We bought all 4 beds in a coupee, the best way to have some privacy. Then Tanya asked if she could go to Kiev, since she has never been. Well, we bought 4 beds, and when we come back to Slovyansk, we will probably do the same since Olga will be with us, so, sure. Tanya is becoming very excited about hanging out with us.

I asked Tanya if she needed to attend school. She told us her director encouraged her to spend time getting to know us better. I thought that was wise. Sasha and Nastia got 10 weeks with us. Its a great idea to give Tanya her time too.

Another taxi, to the internet cafe. Oops, that was not what we wanted. I needed to get a modem so I can do some work. There is not much internet here in Slavyansk. Cell phones are everywhere, though. I spent 1000 Grivney on a little gadget plus some extra time. Now we will see how long 1000 megabytes of data transmission last. Then we looked for a currency exchange, but they all were closed. We walked to our favorite public transport stop, and decided to try the bus. Tanya left us here, since Igor's apartment was close. More hugs and kisses. The electric vehicle was 0,75 Gry, the bus was 1,25 Gry. For short trips, the taxi was 10 Gry. To get on the bus, you quickly form a queue in the street after the bus stops. Olga paid, so I missed that part. The electric vehicle had an old woman that walked around while the vehicle was moving, taking your money, and giving you a little blank piece of paper with a slight rip. People here are more interactive. I (Eileen) was told my coat was dragging on the dirty floor and another woman reminded a young lady that her purse was still open from extracting needed change. Thoughtful gestures.

At the hotel, Olga was kind enough to help me get my internet connection setup. The directions were all in Ukrainian or Russian. I would have been ok, though. It's just technical words. And there were clear pictures. Oh yeah, and I could have figured out how to add time to the SIM. That's just numbers and stuff. After rebooting a couple of times, and removing and attaching the modem a couple of times, and re-inserting the CD a couple of times, the software finally installed. Hooray, we're done. NOT. I tried to connect to amazon and google, and no luck. I tried changing the security settings on the modem. Now the software did not even report a connection. OK, put that back, that made things worse. Now when I tried amazon, everything worked ok. Score! Another victory! Things are moving so fast, I'll take any success that I actively participated in.

At 8pm, Olga left to catch the train to Kiev. Earlier in the evening, loud music began blaring. Uh oh, our cheap hotel may have some drawbacks. Now it's about 10, and the music is still loud. I may be dreaming about Hotel Ukraine. Is it worth $30 a night for quiet? I have my trusty earplugs, hope they can defeat the evil noise/music. Actually, the music seems to be coming from the town square. It must be very loud at the other hotel.

I may be sending pictures a little more slowly from an internet cafe, instead of using up my paid bandwidth. But lots of pictures coming soon.

Spending tomorrow with our new additions sans translator. Tanya is either excited or a talker or both. She badly wants to communicate! We will bring all our translation books.