March 10 - The Berger family at Omaha's Epply Airport. We said our good-byes and boarded the plane leaving Liz, Andrew and Christina in the care of Grandma Rose.
March 11 - We made it! All flights on time, no major problems. As we write this, we are not sure what day it is or whether or not we should be sleeping or trying to stay awake. We slept very little on the 9 hour trip from Chicago to Warsaw. Once we landed in Kiev, the “VIP” service met us at the gate and whisked us through the customs process. The VIP service was led by a man named Alex who spoke urgently and moved quickly. He waved his finger at us and commanded, “You! You! Follow me!”, while teasing and joking with us as we were overwhelmed with the commotion in the Kiev airport. We nearly had to run to keep up with him as he brushed people aside. Once out the door, a younger man who works with our facilitator, Alexey, drove us through the city to an apartment in downtown Kiev.
We have a comfortable, almost clean, little apartment in an old neighborhood of the city. I don’t know the address of our building or even the name of the street we are on. All we know is that we currently reside in apt. #8 in the ugly, gray building across the street from the pretty blue building. We have electricity (although, the lights dim whenever the refrigerator runs), a working cell phone but no access to the internet until sometime on Tuesday.
Since arriving at the apartment, we have been on our own (without a translator or tour guide) and survived so far. We exchanged money, found a pizza café for dinner and made two separate trips to the grocery store. We even managed to call home. Today was a beautiful, sunny day that gave way to a cold rain this evening.
March 12 – Today’s big accomplishment’s have been sleeping in, finding a McDonald’s for lunch and most importantly, finding free Wi-Fi in the lobby of a Radisson Hotel near our apartment. (Amy VP: the hotel staff told us there are no internet cafes around here. :-)
Prayer request: Our appointment with the ministry of adoption is Tuesday at 10 a.m.
March 11 - We made it! All flights on time, no major problems. As we write this, we are not sure what day it is or whether or not we should be sleeping or trying to stay awake. We slept very little on the 9 hour trip from Chicago to Warsaw. Once we landed in Kiev, the “VIP” service met us at the gate and whisked us through the customs process. The VIP service was led by a man named Alex who spoke urgently and moved quickly. He waved his finger at us and commanded, “You! You! Follow me!”, while teasing and joking with us as we were overwhelmed with the commotion in the Kiev airport. We nearly had to run to keep up with him as he brushed people aside. Once out the door, a younger man who works with our facilitator, Alexey, drove us through the city to an apartment in downtown Kiev.
We have a comfortable, almost clean, little apartment in an old neighborhood of the city. I don’t know the address of our building or even the name of the street we are on. All we know is that we currently reside in apt. #8 in the ugly, gray building across the street from the pretty blue building. We have electricity (although, the lights dim whenever the refrigerator runs), a working cell phone but no access to the internet until sometime on Tuesday.
Since arriving at the apartment, we have been on our own (without a translator or tour guide) and survived so far. We exchanged money, found a pizza café for dinner and made two separate trips to the grocery store. We even managed to call home. Today was a beautiful, sunny day that gave way to a cold rain this evening.
March 12 – Today’s big accomplishment’s have been sleeping in, finding a McDonald’s for lunch and most importantly, finding free Wi-Fi in the lobby of a Radisson Hotel near our apartment. (Amy VP: the hotel staff told us there are no internet cafes around here. :-)
Prayer request: Our appointment with the ministry of adoption is Tuesday at 10 a.m.
1 comment:
Renee,
While you're there, make sure you go to a restaurant and order verenike. Try the cottage cheese kind and the fruit kind. Our Mennonite ancestors came from that area, and I make verenike every Christmas. I know a lot of the restaurants will serve it. I think they serve it with sour cream. We put a sour cream ham gravy on ours. And sugar on the fruit ones. Verenike is a noodle dough that is cut in a circle and then filled with dry curd cottage cheese or fruit. It is then sealed and boiled. Very yummy! Yuri has probably had them.
Rachele
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