Extreme Day

Sunday, 20 May 2007

Since the first day we arrived at the orphanage (OK, so that’s only two days, but it seems like longere…) Masha has been asking to go to “Extreme Park.” Apparently, at least one of the families that came ahead of us took their child to an amusement park in town called Extreme Park. Seems now that all the kids have decided that this their adoptive parents purpose in life is to take them to this place.

We were originally going to try to put this off until later in the trip, but for a number of reasons, including her disappointment at cancelling Fun Spot Park last summer, we decided to go for it.

We met Fred and Lisa at the orphanage, and took the girls to town. Sveta gave us a tour of downtown, and we found a sporting good shop that had two, count them, two Frisbees left. To further confirm that they were supposed to be ours, one of them was pink and the other was purple, and they were cheap. They were dusty enough that we don’t think Frisbees are a very common purchase in this town, and I suspect we got the last two in town. At least it makes for a nice story….maybe by the time Masha is 30, it will sound like we bought the last two Frisbees in Ukraine?

We had a really nice lunch at a pizzeria downtown (although the girls ordered crab salad instead of pizza..) and then headed out of town to Extreme Park! Now, a word of explanation….To this point, I am assuming that “Extreme Park” is some kind of translation or made-up name that the kids came up with for this little local amusement park. Imagine my surprise when we pulled into the parking lot as saw “???????–????,” which is Russian for…you got it, Extreme Park.

I guess to a kid who has never been to Cedar Point, this place was extreme. There was a small roller coaster, a free-fall mini-“Power Tower”, bumper cars, etc, and there is a decent-sized ferris wheel that gives a pretty good view of the park and of the city. It cost one grivna each for entry into the park (that’s about 20 cents for those playing at home), and then it was either one, two, or three grivna to ride each of the rides. Masha and Khrystyna had a really fun time, but it was HOT, and there were very few shady places. Mama = Lobster!

When we got pretty well rided-out, we took the girls to a large fountain in the “regular” park that was next to the “extreme” park. We dangled our feet in the cool water until it was time for our drivers to pick us up. The girls were hungry, so we stopped to get some “real” food into them instead of the chips and ice cream they were asking for! We had to do a lot of “Nyet”-ing at the cafeteria…first to Pepsi instead of fruit juice, then to a variety of desserts, chips, gum, and candy. She did a pretty good job of accepting “no,” although she tried the sweet eyelash batting, accompanied by “Pleeeeeeaazzzzzze???” Does she really think I was born yesterday? Maybe the day before…but not yesterday!

The girls made another trip back to the cash register for extra bottles of water to take back to the orphanage with them, and they also got extra juice to take back and share with their friends. They really do seem to think a lot about the other kids and they share very well. We do hope that she keeps that up!!

We dropped them off at the orphanage, and stayed there for a few minutes in the room with the very loud bird before we left the girls for the evening. We stopped briefly at the internet café to check email, and then headed back to the apartment to clean up and have a nice quiet evening at home. We were completely exhausted from being in the sun and heat, and it was nice to take a shower, watch some TV, and chill out.

I’ll save the description of Russian TV for a less eventful day!