River of Thoughts

Christine Royse Niles — Changing the world one word at a time

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A Ball on a Boy

by Christine | Leave a Comment

Saturday, 19 May Not quite as time-adjusted as I had thought, I was awake and ready to meet the world at 6:30 AM. I got up, made a cup of tea, and went through a couple of sections of Russian using the Rosetta Stone program. I now know how to say “The horse jumps” and “A ball on a boy.” Really useful stuff. At about 8:30, Mark got up, and we got ourselves around and ready to go by the time that our driver Sasha arrived at 10:45 to take us to the orphanage. We had brought gifts for several […]

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We All Scream for Ice Cream

by Christine | Leave a Comment

Friday, 18 May, 2007 Today was the day! Our train arrived right on time at 9:00 AM. We were met by two drivers; one for Fred and Lisa, the other for me and Mark. We both had so much luggage and the cars were both so small that Sveta barely fit in our car! We dropped Fred and Lisa off at their apartment, and then drove to ours, about three miles away. The apartment here is very large, and comfortable(unlike the elevator, which *barely* holds three very friendly people. There are two bedrooms, an eat-n kitchen, and a separate living […]

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The Train, The Train

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Thursday, 17 March Today, we didn’t have any real plans, so we took the opportunity to sleep in a little bit. And then a little turned into a lot. We got up around 11:30, which left us just enough time to pack all of our stuff, eat lunch, and check email. Mark walked out to the grocery to pick up a few bottles of water and some snacks for the train. At 3:00 on the dot, Zhana arrived with a new driver who would take us to the train station. She had thoughtfully prepared us a care package for the […]

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Dog Fight

by Christine | 2 Comments

Wednesday, 16 May Wednesday at 11:00 AM was our scheduled appointment with the SDA; the State Department of Adoption and Protective Rights of Children. This is the first official step in our adoption activities, and without their approval, we would be headed back home without Masha…so it’s a very important step. We got up early on Wednesday, made a cup of tea, checked email and uploaded the Tuesday blog entry. We showered and dressed for our SDA appointment (skirt and blouse for me, slacks and a shirt (no tie) for Mark. Our driver Sergei picked us up promptly at 9:30, […]

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Huh?

by Christine | Leave a Comment

Tuesday, 15 May Mark to Christine: “Hey, honey, what time is it?”Christine: “It’s 3:15”Pause…Mark to Christine “Hey, honey, what did I just ask you?”Christine: “You asked what time it was.”Mark: “Uh, what did you say?”Christine: “3:15.”Mark: “Oh, OK, Thanks.” We’re a little zoned out, but I think we’ve made the transition to Ukraine about as well as can be expected. we spent Tuesday in Kiev, getting a feel for the city. We went to bed around 9:30 on Monday, dead tired. We both woke up about midnight, and decided it was time to put the sleeping pills we brought to […]

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