Day 3 – Tuesday, 15 December The sun shone brightly through the window as we awoke and glanced at a clock…11:30! Clearly, Tuesday dawned very late for us. But knowing that we had no obligations for the day, we tried to relax and use the time to recover from the trip. Neither of us had slept too well; we had forgotten that we are soft Americans used to our soft beds and squishy pillows…Add to that the stress of losing our luggage, Mark’s phone and iPod, and not being able to plug in any of our other electronics and charge […]

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Day 4 – Wednesday, 16 December Still a bit jet-lagged, the screaming alarm at 6:30 AM came as a shock to both of us. We realized that we actually had to get up when the backup alarm on our phone shrieked at us from the other room. We launched into gear, quickly making breakfast and dressing up for our appointment with the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption (SDA). Unlike many countries, Ukraine does not allow pre-identification of children, so obtaining a referral to “meet” Lena and begin the adoption process is the first step in every adoption in Ukraine. While […]

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Day 5 – Thursday, 17 December I have discovered the key to our formerly successful anti-jetlag strategy: prescription drugs. In the past, we have employed tactics that included deliberately not sleeping on the plane and pushing hard through the first day to ensure exhaustion and a solid first night’s sleep. In the past, our first morning in the new place, we have awoken pretty much refreshed and ready to rock. In the past, we’ve supplemented sleep for the first few nights with Ambien. Please note the correlation. This time, we didn’t get around to calling the doctor for a new […]

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Day 6 – Friday, 18 December A weak light broke through the frost-covered window of our compartment, causing me to roll and face the wall and beg for a few hours in a soft bed with a fluffy pillow. Sleep on a train is only marginally more possible than sleep on a plane; at least on the train, you have the ability to lie flat, albeit on a hard, narrow bunk with sheets the texture of tea-towels dried on a clothesline. Again, I strongly recommend the use of pharmaceutical assistance! We finally shook off the cobwebs a little before 10; […]

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Day 7 – Saturday, 19 December We must feel like this is our second home, because for the first time in a week, we both slept well and long. I woke around 8, made a cup of tea, and found a nice warm spot at the kitchen table next to the radiator to write. Mark and our translator both rose a short while later. “We have small problem.” Um…uh oh. That’s never a good thing to hear. Our translator proceeded to explain to us that the holidays in Ukraine begin on 31 December and then run the full first week […]

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