Monday, October 4, 2010
Well, it’s 9:15 a.m. in Kiev and we finally feel like we got some sleep. It’s 2:15 a.m. back home and but our internal clocks keep trying to take over. We are trying to force our bodies to adjust to the time change. We woke up last night at 1:30 a.m. (Kiev time) because our bodies were saying it was 6:30 a.m. We have had a little harder time with jet lag than we thought. Of course we aren’t in our twenties anymore, or thirties and barely forties…. We took a FULL Ambien after 8 pm on our Munich flight so when we had our 4 hour layover in Munich we were both comatose. Of course Jeff decided to sleep sitting straight up with his head nodding off for 4 hours but I had to lie straight out horizontally on the chairs, because I was miserable. It was a slight bit embarrassing when I woke up to find bunches of people around me looking for seats. Jeff woke me because I was drooling and snoring. He must have been so proud!
Our Munich flight on Lufthansa was wonderful. It did not seem like 10 hours because we each had our own TV monitor with lots of movie choices and was served food and drinks continuously on the flight, even though we had “economy” seating. That is an amazing airline! Also, when I asked where the bathrooms were they told me the washrooms were downstairs. Wow…..okay! When we were taking off on that flight Jeff kept saying, “How does this huge jet get off the ground?” It was a full flight of over 300 people with luggage and bathrooms downstairs. I said, “Jeff let’s not think about that right now” ha. I told him I was so proud of myself, because that’s the longest I had gone without re-applying lip gloss, as I had no purse with such items in it. Didn’t know I was capable of such things.
On our trip from Munich to Kiev, we sat next to the nicest little guy going back home to Kiev from a student exchange program in America. He spoke English but with such a heavy accent that it took all my energy to listen to him. It truly was amazing talking to him. He said to us, “why don’t Americans, ever adopt Americans?” He also said very sweetly, “why do you have to come over to our country to get children.” I explained about the hosting program to him but he still didn’t quite get it. Good question huh? I told him we didn’t have orphanages in America. He finally said, “What is an orphanage?” Sasha never got that word either. It is because they call them “boarding schools.” He also spoke about communism and said, “He wished Ukraine would get back under Russia….things worked out better when Ukraine was under Russian.” They have a new president too…the things he said about him, I will not post….let’s just say I said, “Wow” a lot! He also said Jeff looked German with those blue eyes and blonde hair, but that I definitely looked American. I need to work on not looking so American today! Ha He worned us about showing anyone our documents too, only officials!
When we arrived in Kiev, our wonderful adoption lady had arranged for us to meet a man who had an alias name. He was incredible…I think his real name is Jack Bauer, or THE GODFATHER! He walked us past all of the lines at customs, handed them our passports and said to us, “C’mon.” We just kept walking, picked up our luggage, didn’t have to put it on the security belts and were out of the airport in 5 minutes. As we were walking I heard, “Misty?” Okay, that was the most shocking thing to hear in the midst of all these Ukrainian people. It was our facilitator who was meeting us there to take us to our apartment downtown. It was a very smooth exit out of the airport and our facilitator is absolutely amazing! She knows the ropes and got us to our downtown “flat” in about 45 minutes. Bill Clinton was actually visiting yesterday to speak on AIDS so we fought large crowds of people in the streets to get to our place. The traffic was horrible because of Billy. Evidentially they love ‘ole Billy here and say the economy was great when he was in charge. No worries, I didn’t get involved in a political argument.
The city really is quite beautiful such amazing historical architecture. We are in the middle of town, in a high rise apartment called a flat. That is all you see when you drive from the airport. FLATS EVERYWHERE!!! Ukraine has a population of 5 to 6 million people. It is very cold right now and many of the women had on their beautiful black spiked boots and black wintery outfits. The pollution here is so bad so most everyone wears dark or black colors. When we first got to town, we dropped our suitcases off in the flat and walked downtown with our facilitator to exchange our money to ukrainian money.. pronounced “grievna.” Then we gathered some water bottles and came back home to sleep. As you can see, our apartment is very nice….just had a smoky odor. Evidentially when the cleaning ladies clean, they smoke while doing so…..very popular in this area. They sold cartons of cigarettes on our flight here “duty free.” No taxes for cartons of cigarettes, what a bargain. Haha. We have heard they don’t really eat here in this area of the country; they just smoke and drink coffee. I’m pretty sure we fit in, because we smell like we smoke a pack a day.
After Jeffy wakes up, we will walk around and get breakfast and coffee at a coffee shop down the street. There is huge underground mall with lots of designer clothing. I’m so glad I didn’t bring my winter coat….we just may need to buy one. Ha ….Not sure the prices for designer clothes are TJ Maxx pricing though.
We have all the modern day conveniences here in Kiev, but do not know about our next stop in Donetsk, way out in the country. We have hot, clear water, electricity (except a blow dryer that won’t reach the mirror…no I’m not complaining.) We still have to use a water bottle to brush our teeth just like in the Dominican. Our stomach is definitely not ready to drink their water. We can’t decide if our bed was really comfortable or if we were just really tired. We also have spotty internet, but hope to get that resolved today. We haven’t figured out how to get our heater working either, so the blow dryer has been very useful! I usually can’t stand to blow dry my hair with the major hot flashes at home…but here it’s a pleasure. Ha! Unfortunately no robe to warm us up Perrills…haha.
Anyway, today we have our SDA appointment at 3 p.m. I think that stands for the State Department of Adoption. I’ll post more later after that. We can’t wait to see our little guy. Our flight leaves at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday and we arrive into Donetsk at about 8:00 a.m. We will have almost a 2 hr. drive to his region and then get settled into another apartment there. I hope by about 11:00 we will be at the boarding school hugging him. Evidently there will be five adults in the room with us when we see him, so we were told not to get upset if he doesn’t get excited and come hug us immediately. His orphanage directors and facilitors will be there watching him with us. We will have time with him every day, but this initial meeting with include the facilitators.
Just went walking around for a little bit. Jeff and I didn’t venture too far and are already back into our apartment. I think this culture is so interesting and exciting! Jeff just keeps looking around making sure we know our way back and that no one is looking at us. He is totally not into this, but would do anything four our little boy Sasha. All of the stores have black clothes, black boots and shoes. So many beautiful women here and they dress “to the nine’s.” The spikes are insane! We also noticed that there are no fat people here…..truly! I think it’s because they smoke their meals away and don’t eat! We are thinking about taking it up, so we can drop a few pounds. Ha Actually, we may lose a little because when we don’t have our translator with us we don’t know how to order any food. We did learn a few new words that we are remembering by funny phrases. This is what it sounds like: duck spit on ya…..this is how to say “”good bye in Russia, with the emphasis on SPIT. Also, when we see Sasha we will say: yellow blue bus. This is how you say, “I love you.” Paseeba is how you say “thank you.” Now you can practice your Russian today. Also, no one smiles or looks at you in the eyes unless you are talking directly to them. Jeff and I are trying to “blend in,” and not say hello to everyone. It’s very different and now we know why it took some major training to get Sasha to speak to everyone and say hello and shake hands. They look down and a lot and try not to make eye contact.
More later……God is so good and has been so faithful to us. Thanks for all of your prayers! We are in good spirits and are enjoying our journey thus far. We miss our sweet family and friends, but know we are here for a purpose. It was so hard saying good bye to the kids and my mom and dad and many tears were shed….but as Kelsey said with a very serious voice in my ear, “Mom, GO GET MY LITTLE BROTHER AND BRING HIM HOME.”
love you all,
misty & jeff
Our Munich flight on Lufthansa was wonderful. It did not seem like 10 hours because we each had our own TV monitor with lots of movie choices and was served food and drinks continuously on the flight, even though we had “economy” seating. That is an amazing airline! Also, when I asked where the bathrooms were they told me the washrooms were downstairs. Wow…..okay! When we were taking off on that flight Jeff kept saying, “How does this huge jet get off the ground?” It was a full flight of over 300 people with luggage and bathrooms downstairs. I said, “Jeff let’s not think about that right now” ha. I told him I was so proud of myself, because that’s the longest I had gone without re-applying lip gloss, as I had no purse with such items in it. Didn’t know I was capable of such things.
On our trip from Munich to Kiev, we sat next to the nicest little guy going back home to Kiev from a student exchange program in America. He spoke English but with such a heavy accent that it took all my energy to listen to him. It truly was amazing talking to him. He said to us, “why don’t Americans, ever adopt Americans?” He also said very sweetly, “why do you have to come over to our country to get children.” I explained about the hosting program to him but he still didn’t quite get it. Good question huh? I told him we didn’t have orphanages in America. He finally said, “What is an orphanage?” Sasha never got that word either. It is because they call them “boarding schools.” He also spoke about communism and said, “He wished Ukraine would get back under Russia….things worked out better when Ukraine was under Russian.” They have a new president too…the things he said about him, I will not post….let’s just say I said, “Wow” a lot! He also said Jeff looked German with those blue eyes and blonde hair, but that I definitely looked American. I need to work on not looking so American today! Ha He worned us about showing anyone our documents too, only officials!
When we arrived in Kiev, our wonderful adoption lady had arranged for us to meet a man who had an alias name. He was incredible…I think his real name is Jack Bauer, or THE GODFATHER! He walked us past all of the lines at customs, handed them our passports and said to us, “C’mon.” We just kept walking, picked up our luggage, didn’t have to put it on the security belts and were out of the airport in 5 minutes. As we were walking I heard, “Misty?” Okay, that was the most shocking thing to hear in the midst of all these Ukrainian people. It was our facilitator who was meeting us there to take us to our apartment downtown. It was a very smooth exit out of the airport and our facilitator is absolutely amazing! She knows the ropes and got us to our downtown “flat” in about 45 minutes. Bill Clinton was actually visiting yesterday to speak on AIDS so we fought large crowds of people in the streets to get to our place. The traffic was horrible because of Billy. Evidentially they love ‘ole Billy here and say the economy was great when he was in charge. No worries, I didn’t get involved in a political argument.
The city really is quite beautiful such amazing historical architecture. We are in the middle of town, in a high rise apartment called a flat. That is all you see when you drive from the airport. FLATS EVERYWHERE!!! Ukraine has a population of 5 to 6 million people. It is very cold right now and many of the women had on their beautiful black spiked boots and black wintery outfits. The pollution here is so bad so most everyone wears dark or black colors. When we first got to town, we dropped our suitcases off in the flat and walked downtown with our facilitator to exchange our money to ukrainian money.. pronounced “grievna.” Then we gathered some water bottles and came back home to sleep. As you can see, our apartment is very nice….just had a smoky odor. Evidentially when the cleaning ladies clean, they smoke while doing so…..very popular in this area. They sold cartons of cigarettes on our flight here “duty free.” No taxes for cartons of cigarettes, what a bargain. Haha. We have heard they don’t really eat here in this area of the country; they just smoke and drink coffee. I’m pretty sure we fit in, because we smell like we smoke a pack a day.
After Jeffy wakes up, we will walk around and get breakfast and coffee at a coffee shop down the street. There is huge underground mall with lots of designer clothing. I’m so glad I didn’t bring my winter coat….we just may need to buy one. Ha ….Not sure the prices for designer clothes are TJ Maxx pricing though.
We have all the modern day conveniences here in Kiev, but do not know about our next stop in Donetsk, way out in the country. We have hot, clear water, electricity (except a blow dryer that won’t reach the mirror…no I’m not complaining.) We still have to use a water bottle to brush our teeth just like in the Dominican. Our stomach is definitely not ready to drink their water. We can’t decide if our bed was really comfortable or if we were just really tired. We also have spotty internet, but hope to get that resolved today. We haven’t figured out how to get our heater working either, so the blow dryer has been very useful! I usually can’t stand to blow dry my hair with the major hot flashes at home…but here it’s a pleasure. Ha! Unfortunately no robe to warm us up Perrills…haha.
Anyway, today we have our SDA appointment at 3 p.m. I think that stands for the State Department of Adoption. I’ll post more later after that. We can’t wait to see our little guy. Our flight leaves at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday and we arrive into Donetsk at about 8:00 a.m. We will have almost a 2 hr. drive to his region and then get settled into another apartment there. I hope by about 11:00 we will be at the boarding school hugging him. Evidently there will be five adults in the room with us when we see him, so we were told not to get upset if he doesn’t get excited and come hug us immediately. His orphanage directors and facilitors will be there watching him with us. We will have time with him every day, but this initial meeting with include the facilitators.
Just went walking around for a little bit. Jeff and I didn’t venture too far and are already back into our apartment. I think this culture is so interesting and exciting! Jeff just keeps looking around making sure we know our way back and that no one is looking at us. He is totally not into this, but would do anything four our little boy Sasha. All of the stores have black clothes, black boots and shoes. So many beautiful women here and they dress “to the nine’s.” The spikes are insane! We also noticed that there are no fat people here…..truly! I think it’s because they smoke their meals away and don’t eat! We are thinking about taking it up, so we can drop a few pounds. Ha Actually, we may lose a little because when we don’t have our translator with us we don’t know how to order any food. We did learn a few new words that we are remembering by funny phrases. This is what it sounds like: duck spit on ya…..this is how to say “”good bye in Russia, with the emphasis on SPIT. Also, when we see Sasha we will say: yellow blue bus. This is how you say, “I love you.” Paseeba is how you say “thank you.” Now you can practice your Russian today. Also, no one smiles or looks at you in the eyes unless you are talking directly to them. Jeff and I are trying to “blend in,” and not say hello to everyone. It’s very different and now we know why it took some major training to get Sasha to speak to everyone and say hello and shake hands. They look down and a lot and try not to make eye contact.
More later……God is so good and has been so faithful to us. Thanks for all of your prayers! We are in good spirits and are enjoying our journey thus far. We miss our sweet family and friends, but know we are here for a purpose. It was so hard saying good bye to the kids and my mom and dad and many tears were shed….but as Kelsey said with a very serious voice in my ear, “Mom, GO GET MY LITTLE BROTHER AND BRING HIM HOME.”
love you all,
misty & jeff
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