Tuesday in Kiev

I need to change my attitude a little. It has just been a little hard the last two days, being in limbo. We will have our own apartment today and that will be a wonderful change from the sitting on curbside corners and stairs.

I will admit that most of it is my fault. I could have rented apartments and stayed a few hours in them on Sunday and Monday during the day time. I just didn't think it would be worth the $50-70 a day to sit in an apartment.

Last night, after Babushka (I learned the real spelling of this name) yelled at Nadiya, I found out the orphanage staff that were waiting with me, went around the corner and called her right back. She apologized, on behalf of me, for Babushka yelling and explained we didn’t want to miss her when she came and that we just wanted to go eat. There must have been some sort of miscommunication about the time she and George would pick me up. After this conversation, she told us to go eat and she and George would pick us up at the orphanage at 8:00.
So Nastia, Babushka and I went to Potato House again (surprise)! Nastia wanted pizza. We walked down the hill to the restaurant, I would say it is probably near a mile walk from the orphanage, maybe a little less. It was funny, Babushka kept complaining “Eye-ya-eye-ya-eye!” The whole walk and kept tapping her watch. She didn’t think we could walk there, eat, and walk back in an hour and a half. I reassured her we would be fine but she insisted we wouldn’t be. We were fine, by the way, with about ten minutes to spare. This included Nastia and I walking back up the hill because two buses in a row were full and couldn’t let us on.
I thought Babushka was going back to the orphanage with us but when we got to the bus stop she said she was going home. (We were at the bus stop on her behalf.) Anyway, we said our goodbyes there. She was very teary again as she gave Nastia, what would probably be their last hug together. I got a little teary this time and reassured her Nastia would write and we would send pictures. She really is a sweet Babushka that wants the best for her great-granddaughters. I am thankful she has trusted me enough to give me this opportunity of now being these girls’ mom.
As I look down on Nastia right now I am filled with a love I wasn’t sure was possible. A love that you definitely have for your birth children and I am grateful I am finally feeling for the girls. She is mine now and I am experiencing that mother bear feeling about her. I don’t want her out of my sight and I’m a little protective.
At 8:30 George got to the orphanage to take us back to their home. Thank you Nadiya for your hospitality! She has been wonderful. I apologized for Babushka yelling and she just laughed and made motions with her hand the says, “Forget it, no problem.” I fell asleep on their couch without even realizing it. (I was really tired.) She had turned the lights and TV off and left me to take a much needed nap while she entertained Nastia in the next room.
After I woke up she asked if I wanted to eat. Mind you this is 10:00 pm and I had just thoroughly filled myself at the Potato House. I kindly declined, but she insisted that I wanted Borsche, which she knows I enjoy. So she tows me to the kitchen and serves up some very yummy Borsche, then three types of sausage, cucumbers, potato and onion hash, bread, and lets see, was there anything else? I was stuffed! She was too funny. Babushka’s in this country love to fill you until you feel you’re going to pop.
After our filling, they took us to the train station and got us safely on our train to Kiev. When I say I’m looking down on Nastia, we’re on the train. She was able to sweetly convince the lady on the bottom to switch her spots.
We’ll be in Kiev in about 15 minutes, so I need to run. I have a few pictures I will hopefully post later today!

_______________________UPDATE___________________________

We were picked up by Irina and Elena at 7:30 this morning from the train station. We had some breakfast at the Potato House by the Kiev train station. I had strawberry filled crepes. It was yummy! Then we had Nastia's picture taken for the medical exam. We took these to the Clinic. She had to have a chest x-ray for TB which came back normal. Hooray! She didn't have to have any immunizations, which was really nice. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with sore arms. We finished up at the Clinic a little before 11:00 and were able to take all of the paperwork to the Embassy to apply for the visa.

They gave me an appointment for tomorrow at 2 pm to pick up the visa. Do this and we are done! We can come home anytime after that. I asked Drew to look at how much it would be to fly home Thursday, instead of Saturday. If it is really expensive we'll wait it out and we'll be home late Saturday night. Hopefully I hear from him about this soon! Hint, hint, honey...:)

After we were done with the embassy we went to the grocery store and bought enough for the next couple of days. I also bought about a year's worth of chocolate! Yum! Unfortunately, it is to share with friends and family. I won't be eating it all myself, darn.

They brought us to our apartment after this and Nastia and I took showers. We scrubbed Nastia down really well and she looks like a new girl, all clean and sparkly.

Thank you to all that have commented. It sure brightened my day!