River of Thoughts

Day 18 – Wednesday, 30 December First class train pillows resemble bricks a bit less than their second-class counterparts. I will say, also, that the bathrooms in the first-class car are infinitely better than the second-class. Almost worth the increased price! As a result of the improved environment, my sleep was slightly less bad than the first train trip. Mark is starting to get a bit of a cold, so he barely slept at all. I was up before the sun, and as the light came up, I packed our things away. Mark needed to sign some documents at the […]

Read More

Day 17 – Tuesday, 29 December If a candlelight dinner is romantic, what do you call a shower by the flame of a tankless waterheater?? One thing that we had noticed this trip was the improved availability of public utilities…we hadn’t had a single power or water outage on this trip, except for on the train. Around 9:30, as I finished writing, Mark showered and shaved; as I opened the bathroom door and flipped on the light, the light flipped back off again. Checked the switch, it was on. Checked the next room, no light. On our very last day, […]

Read More

Day 16 – Monday, 28 December 5:50 AM: THUNK THUNK……THUNK THUNK THUNK…………..THUNK THUNK…..THUNK……rattle rattle……THUNK THUNK…..THUNKTHUNK! The neighbor apparently decided today was the ideal day to break through the concrete wall of his apartment with a sledgehammer to run a new electrical outlet or some other such nonsense. Yes, before 6 in the morning. Yes, it’s still dark out. This is crazy even by Ukrainian standards. I got back to sleep long enough to have some disturbing but now forgotten dream about operational process related to equipment delivery, and woke up in a cold sweat. Am I really hardwired to dream […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

Day 14 – Saturday, 26 December Call us boring, but we just didn’t do that much today. The weather was awful; cold and rainy and gloomy. We went to the orphanage at about 10:40 and had a good visit with Lena. We gave her the DVD copy of New Moon and then played games—Uno is a big favorite, and we also played several rounds of Set, with Lena trouncing us each time. After our visit, we returned to our apartment, grabbed a bit of lunch. Our driver returned around 2:30 to take us to the “upscale” mall in town. We […]

Read More