Singin' in Ukraine!

7:30 am in Kiev. I (Bill) couldn't sleep last night. Stayed up trying to figure out how to download e-books on an older i-pad. Got up at 6 and had coffee on the balcony of the apartment where we are staying. We arrived here yesterday at about 2pm after a 10am flight from Frankfurt. We met are pre-assigned taxi driver, Vitaly at the airport. He took us to a supermarket to exchange money and get a few groceries and then onto our apartment in downtown (I think) Kiev. Vitaly doesn't speak much English although we managed to exchange some nods and grunts concerning the Euro Cup championships and he helped us find the pasta in the market. When we got to the apartment which is in an old 19th century brick building, nobody answered the door bell so Vitaly had to call our facilitator who had to call the landlord and ask him to let us in. The first impression of the place was not great as we walked through dark dilapidated hallways and got on a tiny, scary elevator up to the 8th floor. But when we went into the apartment we found a very nice, clean place with very high ceilings, a kitchen, bathroom and a living room/bedroom plus the aforementioned small balcony looking down on a bar and the street below. We can hear very beautiful church bells chiming on the hour.

Last night we had a bit of a scare. We decided to go out and look around the neighborhood at about 6pm but when we left our apartment we found a locked door in the hallway leading out of the place. We tried our key in it and couldn't get it unlocked. We tried to call someone for help and couldn't get through. Finally we reached someone in the states and eventually got word to the landlord. But the landlord wouldn't come up to let us out. He said we just had to "play with the lock." We'll I did that for about an hour before the thing finally unlocked. The lock is so dodgy that we decided not to go out for fear of not being able to get back in. I was already in a pretty foul mood before all this happened so needless to say, it was a difficult night.

This morning we are waiting for our power of attorney to come pick us up and take us to our meeting with the Ukrainian adoption department. In previous blogs I've called this a "hearing" but I'm told its not that formal. Just a 15 minute meeting to get basic info and apply to go see V. If all goes well we will get that approval by tomorrow and get on a train for Crimea.

We're singin' in Ukraine. Just singin' in Ukraine. What a curious feeling I'm having again.
We're locked in our room till we catch the next train.
Yes, we're singin' and dancin' in Ukraine. (Everybody now....!)