Here Comes the Sun!

Day 15 – Sunday, 27 December

Finally, a bright blue sky and sunshine bathed the courtyard behind our apartment! Neighborhood animals surveyed their territories, sniffing the trees, leaping from stairwell to windowsill.

We went downstairs a couple minutes early to wait for our driver in the crisp air. I discussed world politics with a pretty healthy-looking stray cat who alternately rubbed against me, attacked my head, and then rubbed again…clearly, I had violated etiquette by failing to present an offering of tuna to the King of the Alley.

We had been waiting about 15 minutes when Mark decided to call our translator to be sure we hadn’t been confused about our pick-up time; our translator was surprised to hear that we were still waiting and made a couple calls. There had been a communication mix-up with our driver, and a car arrived for us about 10 minutes later. These are the things you just take in stride…

Lena ran down to greet us when we arrived, returning New Moon and telling us how she and her friends enjoyed watching it. We pulled out Travel Blokus, and Lena quickly remembered how to play. She and Mark played a couple games with me helping both of them where I could. After a few minutes, we heard a bit of commotion upstairs, and kids started streaming out the front door; with the nice weather, it was time for the older kids’ groups to get some fresh air. Lena ran upstairs and reappeared with just her face peeking out of her coat, hat, and scarf.

We donned our coats as well, and followed her outside. The girls from her groupa quickly gathered around us and started practicing their English. We took many pictures, learned many of their names, and giggled as they played, sliding around on the ice, stomping in the mud, and generally enjoying the clear air and sunshine.

Too soon, the caretakers herded the kids back toward the front door. All of a sudden, all the girls ran over to a quickly-melting snowpile and started stomping around on it. We looked at them curiously until we realized that they were all cleaning the mud off the bottoms of their boots! We followed suit, and then everyone returned inside.

We had about an hour left of our visit with Lena, and we spent most of it watching her get better at Blokus. While she wasn’t winning yet, each game grew closer until the last game against Mark ended in a tie. She kept the game to play with her friends, and I suspect by tomorrow, she’ll be killing both of us.

When our time was complete, our driver took us to a restaurant by the Sea; we had heard about it, but in our 4 weeks here last time, never ate there! It was a beautiful day to sit by the window and look out over the sea; the ice gave way to soft waves about 100 yards off the coast. People took advantage of the great weather; couples walked along the coast, parents pushed strollers, people walked dogs on leashes (we were surprised by that one…you really don’t see a lot of leashes here!)

We enjoyed a couple of salads, including Herring Under a Fur Coat (which I found on the menu without the benefit of an English title!), a meatball soup, and a couple of kebabs. Add to that three beers between the two of us and we were stuffed for about $25.

We returned to the apartment with about an hour of daylight left; Mark couldn’t let it go to waste, so he asked our driver to take him up to the ?????, the open air market, for a couple of hours while I stayed at the apartment. He picked up several souvenirs and had a great time; arriving back home safe and sound at about 5:00.

We puttered around the rest of the evening, finishing up a movie we had started earlier in the day, reading, and watching a Ukrainian music contest on TV—similar to American Idol—while riveted to NFL.com watching the Steelers finally pull off a win. Unfortunately, the Colts game started at 11:15PM local time, and we logged off and crashed just before kickoff (and, as I’m writing the following morning, I’m really glad I didn’t stay up for it!!)

Tomorrow is a pivotal day for us; we need one more document to be completed by the SDA in Kyiv in order for us to continue with our court hearing on Tuesday. It typically takes 5 days for them to produce this document, but everyone is trying get it done much more quickly so we can complete court before the holidays, and return home on the 31st as scheduled. Stay tuned, and pray hard for us?