Hi all,
Well it looks as though our trip to Dneprpepetrosk (sp?) didn't quite turn out the way we were hoping. After taking an overnight train ride to this city on Tuesday night, we saw a little girl on Wednesday who could only be described as adorable. Blue eyes with curly blonde hair. Shirley said that if she were to show pictures of herself at that age, you would think that they were sisters. The little girl did have a physical issue with her hips but we were assured by specialists at home that this would not be a problem to correct. It would take some initial work, patience and physical therapy but for the most part she would be running and playing with her classmates by Kindergarten.
Unfortunately there were other issues with the little girl that weren't revealed in her file at the State Department. We worked closely with our International Adoption Clinic and after a careful analysis by them, it was determined that these particular "other issues" would NOT be correctable over time. We agonized over this decision for quite awhile. Finally, as difficult as it was, Shirley and I simply had to refuse the referral. It tore us up but in the long run its for the best.
We will be leaving Dneprpepetrosk tonight on an overnight train back to Kiev. Our Kiev facilitator has already lined us up an apartment (with internet access...he promises) on the outskirts of the city. Once in Kiev we begin the waiting game for our 2nd appointment. How long will we wait? We have no idea; it could be as quick as a week or as long as 3 weeks. After we're given a new appointment date, we review additional profiles of children and can only hope that this time around we have better luck.
Some interesting tidbits of our trip. I had borscht (sp?) today for the first time. Its a Ukrainian soup (although the Russians also claim it) made of beets, beef, potatoes, plus some other unidentified floatables. It was actually pretty good. Even my finicky wife liked it.
Also, there will be a major holiday occuring in Ukraine tomorrow. On March 8th everyone celebrates "WOMEN'S DAY". Similar to Mother's Day but much, much larger in scale. It honors all women and the entire country shuts down. This year it happens to fall on a Saturday but everybody still gets the day off from work on Monday. Everywhere you look there are women carrying flowers. People that we've never seen before are telling Shirley the Russian equivelant of "congratulations" - the typical thing to say to a woman on women's day. Pretty cool, eh??
So to all of our female readers....
HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve
Friday, March 7, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
In Dnepepetrosk
Hi Everyone,
I want to apologize for the lack of postings during the past few days. Currently we are in the city of Dnepepetrosk - a city about 300 miles East of Kiev and about 100 miles from the Russian border. Unfortunately at the hotels and apartments, internet does not seem to be available in this city as was in Kiev. So my internet access has been limited.
We are here because we are checking out a little girl as a prospect. We are in close communication with the International Adoption Clinic in Columbus, emailing pictures of the little girl as well as her x-rays and taking measurements.
We will know within a few days whether or not we will accept this referral.
As always, thanks for all of your support.
Steve
I want to apologize for the lack of postings during the past few days. Currently we are in the city of Dnepepetrosk - a city about 300 miles East of Kiev and about 100 miles from the Russian border. Unfortunately at the hotels and apartments, internet does not seem to be available in this city as was in Kiev. So my internet access has been limited.
We are here because we are checking out a little girl as a prospect. We are in close communication with the International Adoption Clinic in Columbus, emailing pictures of the little girl as well as her x-rays and taking measurements.
We will know within a few days whether or not we will accept this referral.
As always, thanks for all of your support.
Steve
Monday, March 3, 2008
A day of rest
After yesterday’s turbulence what we needed was a day of rest for Sunday. That’s what the Doctor ordered so that’s what we did.
Despite the jet lag we forced ourselves out of bed at around 7am. We decided to do a little exploration of our new neighborhood near Independence Square in downtown Kiev.
I found that communicating with the natives wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I will say that relative to other countries there is little English spoken here. Nevertheless communication is possible although it is a skill that must be learned. I am not talking about enrolling in language courses, I am saying that first you must at least learn the basic, simple native words from phrase books. Also be prepared to use body language. Lots of gestures and pointing. If you are going to speak English, you must use SIMPLE English and only one or two words at a time. If you are going to rattle off a paragraph of college-level English then don’t get impatient or arrogant when these people look at you like you’re from Mars. Not only will you look like an idiot but you’ll be giving all of us Americans a bad name.
We found a cafeteria near our apartment and sampled the local cuisine. We had no idea what we were ordering, just pointed to a few different things for the cafeteria people to put onto plates. Most everything that they had laid out for breakfast looked like various strudels. Some were meat-filled, some cheese-filled. Shirley hit the jackpot when she pointed at something that turned out to be a Ukrainian version of apple strudel. Delicious. She also pointed to a tray of what she thought (and hoped) were potatoes. Turned out that was exactly what they were. And they were also good. I saw what looked like eggs being cooked and I love eggs for breakfast but I’d left our Ukrainian Phrase Book back in the room and didn’t have a clue how to say the word “egg”. So I had to do without. The coffee resembled Turkish coffee. You know - the kind where the coffee grinds are cooked right into the coffee and all of it is consumed together. Strong stuff – anyone whose eyes weren’t opened after a mug of Ukrainian java is either comatose or dead. Overall it was a good meal.
Kiev is a major city and with that comes many thousands of international visitors (like us) into the city every year. I will say that compared to other cities in the world, Kiev is very friendly towards it’s foreign visitors. Of course those airport post office types can be found anywhere in the world. But in general I found the people here to be welcoming and always trying to help. Any American that complains about Ukrainians as overall rude people has never been to a place like Paris or Athens? You want rude? Look no further!!
Traffic-wise, Kiev is the same as most any other major city. What would I compare Kiev traffic to? I’d say that the traffic here is like a cross between Philadelphia and Athens Greece. The speed and aggression definitely reminds me of my Alma Mater - that dear old City of Brotherly Love. Multi lane traffic converging at warp speed from several directions into two lanes without anyone either slowing down or getting killed is definitely Philly-like. But having thousands of cars thrown into a giant mixing bowl of chaos reminds me of Athens. If a driver can’t find a way there, he simply makes a way there. Drivers who cannot find parking places simply make one of their own. Cars are often parked with one side of it’s wheels up over the curve. These cars are sitting at 10-15 degree angles. When Shirley asked our facilitator if that damages the cars’ tires or suspension he just shrugged and said “who cares”. Another time during heavy traffic Shirley was walking back to our apartment and nearly jumped out of her skin when a car whipped by her on the walkway. Usually the traffic at Independence Square is pretty thick and this one particular NASCAR-like daredevil decided to do an end run around the traffic by driving ONTO THE SIDEWALK.
I did have an incident here in our apartment when I went to take a shower this morning. Just like most of us in The States, anytime I go to take a shower I’ll run the hot water for several seconds and then adjust both spigots to get a comfy water temp. Here I went to do the same thing; turned the spigot marked HOT and let it run. Thing is, the water wasn’t getting any warmer. In fact it stayed downright freezing. Now on the bathroom wall there is a sign that reads “IF THERE IS NO HOT WATER, DO NOT TURN THE BOILER ON BY YOURSELF BUT CALL THE ADMINISTRATOR – HE WILL HELP YOU”. All I could figure out was that this must happen fairly often. So after a few minutes I go to the guy at the front desk and try to explain that there is no hot water. He follows me into the room where I show him the freezing water. He reaches past me to turn off the spigot marked HOT, then turns on the spigot marked COLD and in no time at all the water is steaming hot. I felt bad about calling the guy into the room just for this but he just smiled, said “OK” and left.
Imagine that – here I am with two college degrees under my belt and I couldn’t even figure out that to get hot water for my shower I needed to turn the knob marked COLD. Sometimes I make a total idiot of myself!!!
Our facilitator met with us for dinner at….you guessed it….TGIFs. It was nice to see a menu in English and to know what our meal was made out of BEFORE taking a bite. Most of all we needed to discuss options and strategies for tomorrow’s court appointment. If all goes well we could be leaving Kiev as early as Monday night or sometime Tuesday for whatever region the orphanage that we select is located. Let’s just hope that all goes well; not that I dislike Kiev – in fact it’s a great city and I’d love to see more of it. But we’re here on a mission and our top priority is to stay focused. Besides we’ll be back for our final 2-3 days of paperwork, hopefully with a little girl in tow.
As for today its been a nice, quiet Sunday. After yesterday's experience we needed the down time. More important - tomorrow is going to be a big day and we need to be fresh.
Some of you have emailed me with suggestions on writing a book. I say – why reinvent the wheel? By the end of this whole ordeal I’ll have a HUGE book right here!! ;-)
Talk soon. Bye for now……SCZ
Despite the jet lag we forced ourselves out of bed at around 7am. We decided to do a little exploration of our new neighborhood near Independence Square in downtown Kiev.
I found that communicating with the natives wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I will say that relative to other countries there is little English spoken here. Nevertheless communication is possible although it is a skill that must be learned. I am not talking about enrolling in language courses, I am saying that first you must at least learn the basic, simple native words from phrase books. Also be prepared to use body language. Lots of gestures and pointing. If you are going to speak English, you must use SIMPLE English and only one or two words at a time. If you are going to rattle off a paragraph of college-level English then don’t get impatient or arrogant when these people look at you like you’re from Mars. Not only will you look like an idiot but you’ll be giving all of us Americans a bad name.
We found a cafeteria near our apartment and sampled the local cuisine. We had no idea what we were ordering, just pointed to a few different things for the cafeteria people to put onto plates. Most everything that they had laid out for breakfast looked like various strudels. Some were meat-filled, some cheese-filled. Shirley hit the jackpot when she pointed at something that turned out to be a Ukrainian version of apple strudel. Delicious. She also pointed to a tray of what she thought (and hoped) were potatoes. Turned out that was exactly what they were. And they were also good. I saw what looked like eggs being cooked and I love eggs for breakfast but I’d left our Ukrainian Phrase Book back in the room and didn’t have a clue how to say the word “egg”. So I had to do without. The coffee resembled Turkish coffee. You know - the kind where the coffee grinds are cooked right into the coffee and all of it is consumed together. Strong stuff – anyone whose eyes weren’t opened after a mug of Ukrainian java is either comatose or dead. Overall it was a good meal.
Kiev is a major city and with that comes many thousands of international visitors (like us) into the city every year. I will say that compared to other cities in the world, Kiev is very friendly towards it’s foreign visitors. Of course those airport post office types can be found anywhere in the world. But in general I found the people here to be welcoming and always trying to help. Any American that complains about Ukrainians as overall rude people has never been to a place like Paris or Athens? You want rude? Look no further!!
Traffic-wise, Kiev is the same as most any other major city. What would I compare Kiev traffic to? I’d say that the traffic here is like a cross between Philadelphia and Athens Greece. The speed and aggression definitely reminds me of my Alma Mater - that dear old City of Brotherly Love. Multi lane traffic converging at warp speed from several directions into two lanes without anyone either slowing down or getting killed is definitely Philly-like. But having thousands of cars thrown into a giant mixing bowl of chaos reminds me of Athens. If a driver can’t find a way there, he simply makes a way there. Drivers who cannot find parking places simply make one of their own. Cars are often parked with one side of it’s wheels up over the curve. These cars are sitting at 10-15 degree angles. When Shirley asked our facilitator if that damages the cars’ tires or suspension he just shrugged and said “who cares”. Another time during heavy traffic Shirley was walking back to our apartment and nearly jumped out of her skin when a car whipped by her on the walkway. Usually the traffic at Independence Square is pretty thick and this one particular NASCAR-like daredevil decided to do an end run around the traffic by driving ONTO THE SIDEWALK.
I did have an incident here in our apartment when I went to take a shower this morning. Just like most of us in The States, anytime I go to take a shower I’ll run the hot water for several seconds and then adjust both spigots to get a comfy water temp. Here I went to do the same thing; turned the spigot marked HOT and let it run. Thing is, the water wasn’t getting any warmer. In fact it stayed downright freezing. Now on the bathroom wall there is a sign that reads “IF THERE IS NO HOT WATER, DO NOT TURN THE BOILER ON BY YOURSELF BUT CALL THE ADMINISTRATOR – HE WILL HELP YOU”. All I could figure out was that this must happen fairly often. So after a few minutes I go to the guy at the front desk and try to explain that there is no hot water. He follows me into the room where I show him the freezing water. He reaches past me to turn off the spigot marked HOT, then turns on the spigot marked COLD and in no time at all the water is steaming hot. I felt bad about calling the guy into the room just for this but he just smiled, said “OK” and left.
Imagine that – here I am with two college degrees under my belt and I couldn’t even figure out that to get hot water for my shower I needed to turn the knob marked COLD. Sometimes I make a total idiot of myself!!!
Our facilitator met with us for dinner at….you guessed it….TGIFs. It was nice to see a menu in English and to know what our meal was made out of BEFORE taking a bite. Most of all we needed to discuss options and strategies for tomorrow’s court appointment. If all goes well we could be leaving Kiev as early as Monday night or sometime Tuesday for whatever region the orphanage that we select is located. Let’s just hope that all goes well; not that I dislike Kiev – in fact it’s a great city and I’d love to see more of it. But we’re here on a mission and our top priority is to stay focused. Besides we’ll be back for our final 2-3 days of paperwork, hopefully with a little girl in tow.
As for today its been a nice, quiet Sunday. After yesterday's experience we needed the down time. More important - tomorrow is going to be a big day and we need to be fresh.
Some of you have emailed me with suggestions on writing a book. I say – why reinvent the wheel? By the end of this whole ordeal I’ll have a HUGE book right here!! ;-)
Talk soon. Bye for now……SCZ
Sunday, March 2, 2008
A very interesting first day
Do you remember my first post when I promised not to write any more mammoth blog entries? Well guess what….I lied. This one is probably going to be bigger than the first one. To all of you non-readers, I apologize. But whereas other people like to jabberjaw in person or on the telephone, I am a jabberjaw of the keyboard.
Feel free to fast forward through any parts that are too dull or verbose for you to read.
This is how the first day of our Ukrainian odyssey unfolded. Initially everything went as smooth as clockwork. We were promptly dropped off at the airport by “Mom and Dad's Taxi Service" and checked our bags in at the DELTA terminal. We did get held up a bit when one of our bags exceeded the 50LB weight limit by 5 LBS. I was ready to just pay the $80 penalty but Shirley would have none of it; there are better things to do with $80. She pulled out a book and several magazines and the bag’s weight dropped to 50LBS on the nose. I really can’t figure out how that made the airplane any “lighter” since the extra 5LBS of stuff just got carried on board with us as opposed to getting checked in. Regardless, we cleared that hurtle and proceeded to the next one - bag check security.
While snowplowing our suitcases through the check-in line, a guy behind us thought he’d get cute and made a wisecrack like “how long y’all gonna be gone for… a whole month?”. Then he laughs out loud. I just turned around and say “No…8 weeks”. His reaction was kind of funny. While still looking like he was laughing, he suddenly just froze without making a sound - as if I had a TV remote pointed right at him and pressd the PAUSE button. Nothing like making an idiot out of yourself while trying to make fun of someone else, right? I actually would have been happy to chat with the guy and give him our story but then our number came up and we had to move forward and get checked through security.
The flight to Kiev itself was uneventful but long. I hadn’t flown internationally in well over 25 years. In those days overseas flights were made in those huge 747s that more resembled flying ocean liners than airplanes. This 767 was not nearly that big but is still referred to as a “Jumbo Jet”. For good reason; it seats a ton of people. It was a smooth, quiet ride done mostly at night. The service was good; seemed like every few hours there was food or a drink dropped onto our tray tables. All announcements were bilingual - English and Ukrainian. Looks like DELTA wants to compete with AEROSVIT (Ukrainian National Airline) for this travel route. And there were a lot of Ukrainian nationals on board so DELTA must be doing something right.
Our good fortune seemed to end upon our arrival in Ukraine. Before we left The States we were instructed to look for a person holding a sign saying "ZIMNES". After we landed and deplaned in Kiev, we proceeded to passport control and saw no sign with our name on it. We continued forward anyway, got our passports stamped, got our bags from Baggage Claim, got checked out by Customs and finally we made it into the main area of the airport. During that whole time we saw dozens of signs with names on them but sure enough, none were ours. Needless to say the anxiety level is now rising to a feverish pitch. Good thing for this one Good Samaritan of a security guard. While patrolling customs he couldn’t help but noticed me as I was constantly leaving Shirley in line and wandering all around the security area. It was apparent that I was looking for someone. The Guard was obviously someone of authority. He was taller than my 6’1”, middle aged and of an imposing yet kind demeanor. When he wasn’t watching people he was constantly either giving instructions or getting information from other guards. When he approached us and asked if there was a problem, we told him our situation and he did his best to help us out. When we pulled out our Ukrainian contact list of telephone numbers, he was nice enough to get his cell phone and begin calling. As luck would have it, almost half of the numbers on our contact list were no longer in service and the ones still in service were not being answered. Now feeling totally helpless and ready to blow a fuse, we couldn’t think of anything else to do but phone home. The only place in the airport able to make international calls was at the airport's post office. But the post office was “manned” by a pit bull of a postal worker. This lady obviously did not like foreigners. When Shirley politely approached her and asked to make a telephone call the lady barked out something nasty in Ukrainian and shooed her away. This drove my poor wife over the edge and she burst into tears. A Ukrainian civilian watching the scenario from a distance now charged at the mean lady and tore into her, letting her have it with both barrels. At the same time the Good Samaritan Security Guard also showed up to check on Shirley’s progress and began giving instructions to the postal worker. Between the two of them coming at her, that lady’s mannerism took about a second to make a complete about face; going from mean tyrant to practically standing at attention. It would not have surprised me to see her start snapping salutes to both Shirley and the two men. As far as the phone call itself, it didn’t much matter anyway. Despite the fact that at this point we’d been in this jam for almost three hours it was still 4:30am at home and only a voice mail message could be left.
Persistence paid off and the officer finally got through to one of the phone numbers on our list. Once that happened things began to move in the right direction, and fast. To make a long story short it was a simple error in scheduling. Our facilitator and staff were expecting us to arrive in Kiev on Sunday rather than Saturday. Such an error could have been made by anyone and once realizing the simple mistake, Shirley and I found ourselves not at all angry; if anything we were just relieved that it was over. When our facilitator/translator showed up 20 minutes later he felt terrible and couldn’t apologize enough. Meanwhile, he packed us into his car and we were off to Kiev to get settled in.
Before we left the airport I made it a point to look for that security guard so that I could thank him for all of his help. But in the meantime more flights had arrived and he’d resumed his patrol behind the secured doors of Customs. There was no way to get to him or even get a message to him. I hadn’t even gotten his name!
After settling in our apartment in downtown Kiev, our facilitator wanted to take us to dinner. He kept insisting on going to TGIFridays and there is a TGIFs very close to where we are staying. But by the time we had gotten to our apartment and settled in Shirley and I were totally exhausted. There is a small grocery store three doors away from our apartment so we bought water, OJ, bread, sausages, pork and oranges to take back to our room. The “pork” here is similar to what we would call "ham" back home only it is a lot less salty but VERY smoky. The sausages are like Slim Jims only about 4 times as thick. And of course Shirley bought a few chocolate bars needed to satisfy her sweet tooth. I knew better than to even look at them.
Before going to bed I decided to check email and saw that there had been a lot of recent activity. Back home word of our scheduling fiasco had gotten out and my HOTMAIL inbox was suddenly flooded with inbounds. Diligent as ever I answered them all. And as always, thanks to everyone for caring.
So that sums up the first day of our odyssey. If it seems like a lot to read but trust me, it was a lot longer to experience; a memorable 20 hour day to say the least. Regardless, we are here, settled in and getting ready for our Monday Court Appointment.
If anyone wants to leave a comment for this post, please click on the “COMMENTS” link at the bottom of this posting rather than at the bottom of this page. If you click the "COMMENTS" link at the bottom then your comment will be attached to our original post from last week rather than to this post. We may not ever see it.
Thanks again for reading. God bless you all.
Feel free to fast forward through any parts that are too dull or verbose for you to read.
This is how the first day of our Ukrainian odyssey unfolded. Initially everything went as smooth as clockwork. We were promptly dropped off at the airport by “Mom and Dad's Taxi Service" and checked our bags in at the DELTA terminal. We did get held up a bit when one of our bags exceeded the 50LB weight limit by 5 LBS. I was ready to just pay the $80 penalty but Shirley would have none of it; there are better things to do with $80. She pulled out a book and several magazines and the bag’s weight dropped to 50LBS on the nose. I really can’t figure out how that made the airplane any “lighter” since the extra 5LBS of stuff just got carried on board with us as opposed to getting checked in. Regardless, we cleared that hurtle and proceeded to the next one - bag check security.
While snowplowing our suitcases through the check-in line, a guy behind us thought he’d get cute and made a wisecrack like “how long y’all gonna be gone for… a whole month?”. Then he laughs out loud. I just turned around and say “No…8 weeks”. His reaction was kind of funny. While still looking like he was laughing, he suddenly just froze without making a sound - as if I had a TV remote pointed right at him and pressd the PAUSE button. Nothing like making an idiot out of yourself while trying to make fun of someone else, right? I actually would have been happy to chat with the guy and give him our story but then our number came up and we had to move forward and get checked through security.
The flight to Kiev itself was uneventful but long. I hadn’t flown internationally in well over 25 years. In those days overseas flights were made in those huge 747s that more resembled flying ocean liners than airplanes. This 767 was not nearly that big but is still referred to as a “Jumbo Jet”. For good reason; it seats a ton of people. It was a smooth, quiet ride done mostly at night. The service was good; seemed like every few hours there was food or a drink dropped onto our tray tables. All announcements were bilingual - English and Ukrainian. Looks like DELTA wants to compete with AEROSVIT (Ukrainian National Airline) for this travel route. And there were a lot of Ukrainian nationals on board so DELTA must be doing something right.
Our good fortune seemed to end upon our arrival in Ukraine. Before we left The States we were instructed to look for a person holding a sign saying "ZIMNES". After we landed and deplaned in Kiev, we proceeded to passport control and saw no sign with our name on it. We continued forward anyway, got our passports stamped, got our bags from Baggage Claim, got checked out by Customs and finally we made it into the main area of the airport. During that whole time we saw dozens of signs with names on them but sure enough, none were ours. Needless to say the anxiety level is now rising to a feverish pitch. Good thing for this one Good Samaritan of a security guard. While patrolling customs he couldn’t help but noticed me as I was constantly leaving Shirley in line and wandering all around the security area. It was apparent that I was looking for someone. The Guard was obviously someone of authority. He was taller than my 6’1”, middle aged and of an imposing yet kind demeanor. When he wasn’t watching people he was constantly either giving instructions or getting information from other guards. When he approached us and asked if there was a problem, we told him our situation and he did his best to help us out. When we pulled out our Ukrainian contact list of telephone numbers, he was nice enough to get his cell phone and begin calling. As luck would have it, almost half of the numbers on our contact list were no longer in service and the ones still in service were not being answered. Now feeling totally helpless and ready to blow a fuse, we couldn’t think of anything else to do but phone home. The only place in the airport able to make international calls was at the airport's post office. But the post office was “manned” by a pit bull of a postal worker. This lady obviously did not like foreigners. When Shirley politely approached her and asked to make a telephone call the lady barked out something nasty in Ukrainian and shooed her away. This drove my poor wife over the edge and she burst into tears. A Ukrainian civilian watching the scenario from a distance now charged at the mean lady and tore into her, letting her have it with both barrels. At the same time the Good Samaritan Security Guard also showed up to check on Shirley’s progress and began giving instructions to the postal worker. Between the two of them coming at her, that lady’s mannerism took about a second to make a complete about face; going from mean tyrant to practically standing at attention. It would not have surprised me to see her start snapping salutes to both Shirley and the two men. As far as the phone call itself, it didn’t much matter anyway. Despite the fact that at this point we’d been in this jam for almost three hours it was still 4:30am at home and only a voice mail message could be left.
Persistence paid off and the officer finally got through to one of the phone numbers on our list. Once that happened things began to move in the right direction, and fast. To make a long story short it was a simple error in scheduling. Our facilitator and staff were expecting us to arrive in Kiev on Sunday rather than Saturday. Such an error could have been made by anyone and once realizing the simple mistake, Shirley and I found ourselves not at all angry; if anything we were just relieved that it was over. When our facilitator/translator showed up 20 minutes later he felt terrible and couldn’t apologize enough. Meanwhile, he packed us into his car and we were off to Kiev to get settled in.
Before we left the airport I made it a point to look for that security guard so that I could thank him for all of his help. But in the meantime more flights had arrived and he’d resumed his patrol behind the secured doors of Customs. There was no way to get to him or even get a message to him. I hadn’t even gotten his name!
After settling in our apartment in downtown Kiev, our facilitator wanted to take us to dinner. He kept insisting on going to TGIFridays and there is a TGIFs very close to where we are staying. But by the time we had gotten to our apartment and settled in Shirley and I were totally exhausted. There is a small grocery store three doors away from our apartment so we bought water, OJ, bread, sausages, pork and oranges to take back to our room. The “pork” here is similar to what we would call "ham" back home only it is a lot less salty but VERY smoky. The sausages are like Slim Jims only about 4 times as thick. And of course Shirley bought a few chocolate bars needed to satisfy her sweet tooth. I knew better than to even look at them.
Before going to bed I decided to check email and saw that there had been a lot of recent activity. Back home word of our scheduling fiasco had gotten out and my HOTMAIL inbox was suddenly flooded with inbounds. Diligent as ever I answered them all. And as always, thanks to everyone for caring.
So that sums up the first day of our odyssey. If it seems like a lot to read but trust me, it was a lot longer to experience; a memorable 20 hour day to say the least. Regardless, we are here, settled in and getting ready for our Monday Court Appointment.
If anyone wants to leave a comment for this post, please click on the “COMMENTS” link at the bottom of this posting rather than at the bottom of this page. If you click the "COMMENTS" link at the bottom then your comment will be attached to our original post from last week rather than to this post. We may not ever see it.
Thanks again for reading. God bless you all.
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