We have internet !!!

What a sweet feeling it is to be connected to the world again.  There are times at home when it is frustrating when our internet goes down for a few hours and I feel a little disconnected, well being over here, not knowing the language and not having any communication with anyone puts a whole new prospective on things.  


So here is our last day and a half.  We arrived at the Paris airport yesterday morning about 4:15 am.  When we got there and we looking on the board to see where to go, we noticed that our flight had been cancelled.  Our stomachs almost instantly started to turn.  We realized that not only our flight was cancelled but numerous flights.  We then saw flashing on the board that Lufthansa airlines was on strike !!!!  Just our luck !  We knew that they had several international flights that went through them so we knew this wasn't good.  There were also hundreds of other people who were a little upset as well !  If it wasn't bad enough that they went on strike, they also decided not to send anyone to come to their desk to deal with everyone that was effected, but they also decided to not pick up their phones...how is that for customer service !!!  So the worry set in and we had to ask fast.  We had no international phone connection and were in france, so we were hoping we could find someone who knew english to help us,  but no one seemed to know everything.  One lady at the info desk told me that Luftansa would not come all day and we could wait until tomorrow to see if they come.  We knew that if we missed our appointment today,we would be in a bad situation which could add a few weeks to our trip.  We ended up finding a flight with air france that was a direct flight, but we had to pay a lot to do it !!!  We made it to Kiev airport about 11:45 am yesterday, it was good flight and the only positive thing was we were sat in business class, and we got treated very well and had a great breakfast !  We had a little communicating problem with Sasha, our facilitator who was to be picking us up at the airport, he thought we were getting there 11:30 pm, when it was in fact 11:00 am.  We waited at the airport about 4 hours until our driver finally got there.  We are thankful we were able to get internet at the airport, if not, we would have been there until midnight, but we were able to skype and get a ride.    We brought international phones with us, but have been unable to get them connected yet.  One of our friends was generous enough to buy us 2 brand new internet phones before we left for us to bring and use while we are here, we are so grateful for his generosity !!  After we left the airport, Sasha took us to the market to get some food and then took us to our apartment.  We got a rotisserie chicken, some Ukrainian salads,pierogoes, milk, butter, eggs, ham, cheese, fruit, bread, juice, forzen dumpings and some bottled water, it cost us about $18 US, figured at home, we would have cost about $70.  We have been brushing our teeth with the bottled water, the water here is not suitable to drink.  We were both exhausted when we got here, so we ate, and then went to sleep.  Out of 3 nights traveling I had skipped sleeping entirely for 2 of the nights.  We slept pretty well.  Our driver, Sergey met us here at 8 this morning and we headed to the SDA for our appointment.  We got there early, so we waited until they opened.  When we went inside, we were taken to a small room, and there was another American couple, who we didn't know, that were taken to the other room.  A lady named, Viktoria, sat with us and Sasha and had all our paperwork.  She looked over it and asked a few questions, most were directed at Russie.  She asked why we wanted to adopt girls who were older, how we met them, and asked us if we had any other children.  When he told her we had four other children, her eyes got big and looked at me to confirm that russie's words were true, and then asked Russie if our house was big enough for all our kids, and if we would be able to financially support all of them.  The only other question she asked was to me, and she asked if I was able to stay at home with the kids, and I told her I did, she said she thought that was great.  We signed a paper saying she reviewed the info with us and that was it.  Sasha had to stay and do some more paperwork and we went to a cute little coffee shop and had breakfast while we were waiting.  We both ordered omelets.  They were greasy, but once I patted them with my napkin and got the greece off, they were pretty good.  Russie had a cappuccino and said it was very good.  I was anxious to try the black tea and I ordered some, but I ended up with green tea.  The guy actually knew some English and there was an English menu, but russie kept telling him that he wanted creme with his coffee, and he thought russie was telling him that I wanted green, russie didn't realize that the guys thought he kept saying green, so I ended up with green tea, it was just ok. Russie also wanted water as well, and the guy was asking him bubbled or regular and I said to say regular and russie kept saying yes, when he said bubbled, so russie ended up with bubbled.  He forced one glass of it down to try to act like it wasn't that bad for me, but after the one glass, he said it was horrible and just wanted me to think it was good, so I would try it...lol !!!  Anyway, we agreed to let Russie do the talking at the appointments, because our facilitators basically translate everything to sound the best way, and I will talk with the natives !!!   After our breakfast, we went to the computer store to get our internet working.  Thank goodness we got it working !  Sasha then had to go back to the SDA and we walked through some souvenir shop on the street right by the office until he was done.  We were surprised to find that all the people selling stuff there knew English.  One guy, Dan, was asking us about the living in PA and if we had snow to ski there, he knew English very well.  He asked us if we were there to adopt, we said yes, and he said, "Adopt me too" and started to laugh, he was a nice man.  Sergey then brought us back to our apartment.  We are planning to go to dinner tonight with Eric and Dema to a restaurant, so we are excited for that.  We skype with them earlier and Dema is so excited and was excited to find out that I was in kiev as well.  We also skyped with Mick and Janel McCracken, who are in Krivy right now and they are going to skype with us at the orphanage with the girls later today.  We are excited to tell the girls that we are here and will see them in a few days.  We are planning on getting out SDA paperwork tomorrow at about 4:oo pm and then take the over night train to krivy tomorrow night.  This environment is so different here and takes so getting used to and we are out of our comfort zone in a lot of different ways, but we realize what we are here to do and realize that this is not about us and how comfortable we are.  The air here is hard to take, it is very polluted and thick, and a cloudiness that is always here because of that.  It makes me so thankful for clean air and sun !!! We home everything at home is going good and hope to skype with everyone soon!  Lori, give my babies a kiss for me tonight !!!