Rest and Travel Day

Neither of us slept well last night. Excitement may have been part of it, but more likely too much celebratory espresso too late in the day. Fortunately nothing was on our agenda prior to the train trip tonight, so we rose late and moved slowly. Sasha found out for us yesterday that we have a free wireless Internet connection in our apartment, and he gave us the pass code. John was able to do some work. I was able to catch up on e-mail.

I packed, organizing some more, and cleaned up the apartment a bit. We finished up the bananas, cheese, red bell pepper and tomato, and had a large slice of bread. We also had coffee. We brought Frontier (Green Mountain) coffee and an insulated coffee mug with a built-in French press. The flat has one of those nifty super-quick water-heating pots, so we have enjoyed coffee right in our rooms.

In the afternoon we went out for a bit of shopping. We found some blue yarn to knit sweaters for two little boys. I think the clerk is rather intuitive, since she used no English and virtually all of our Russian deserted us. It was clear she understood, however, that I intend to make sweaters for two small children. She probably can guess boys from the color selection.

We also purchased some Roobios tea (red African herbal tisane), but were unable to get the clerk at the tea desk understand “chamomile”. They didn’t have any at the tea shop we visited with Oksana, either, but when we stopped for more water (and chocolateJ) at the little shop in the same building as our apartment we found a box of chamomile tea in bags.

We went to TGIF across the street at for supper, having enjoying a number of Ukrainian meals and not sure what to expect in Kharkov. We decided to eat early, at 4:00 PM, so missing crowds. John had Cajun Chicken Alf redo, I went for the Swiss (mushroom) burger.

Our referral was to be picked up from the Adoption Department between 5 and 6 PM today, and now at 5:30 we just received word from Sasha that he has our referral and train tickets and will pick us up at 8:00 PM along with the other Sasha, who will accompany us to and assist us in Kharkov.

Closer and closer . . .

We have not yet heard if our Canadian friends obtained Jennifer’s visa. We are also not sure where John and Ann will travel to meet 7 y/o Svetlana.

Hope to report more tomorrow!