Finally online

Well, we are finally online in ukraine! I never realized how much we rely on the internet until experiencing not being able to communicate with everyone. Anyway, getting here was painless, which was great. No problems and everything was on-time and very easy. We arrived at 9 am here, which is 1 am in the States and then arrived at our apartment by 11am. We spent the first day trying to catch some zzzzz's after missing a nights sleep. That evening our facilitator came to get us and took us to the grocery store, which was very nice. We bought a few things to eat and headed back to our apartment. The next day we were ready to get out and explore, so we walked and walked and finally stopped to eat lunch at . . . McDonalds :) After that we walked back to our apartment and waited for a woman who was supposed to come and take us for a tour of Kiev. She never showed up and I got quite depressed. All I wanted was to get out and go see the city (by car) and get a good meal. So much for that - it was salami sandwhiches again!! We have been existing on Frosted Flakes, yougurt and granola bars for breakfast, and salami sandwhiches for lunch and dinner. However, today we had our first appointment and it went really well, and afterwards we got a great cup of coffee and then went to have lunch at a Ukrainian buffet style restaurant. I'm not sure what we ate, but everything was delicious!! Finally, REAL FOOD :) now we are at an internet cafe - really more like a computer lab, so we can let you all know what is going on. We are not sure if we'll have internet connection in Marina's village - probably not, so it may be a while before our next post. We leave tonight or tomorrow morning as it is, at 2 a.m. and drive 5 hours to Novaya Vodolaga where Marina lives. They want to be there first thing in the morning so we do not loose any time. They will go and submit paperwork and ask for our court date. We could be there as little as one week or as much as three weeks - don't know yet. Our facilitator is pushing very hard to get things processed as soon as possible. He has warned us that there will be nothing to do in her village and it will be quite boring. We will be able to see her for 2 -3 hours each day after she is done with school. Other than that, we wait and go to court at our appointed time. So far, everything has gone perfectly smooth - praise God for that! I wish I could post some pictures, but I forgot the cord to attach the camera to this computer - how unorganized of me :) Ben and Jenn, please tell the girls we love them and miss them terribly! It has been harder on me than I had expected being apart from them. I think not being able to call home or email when we want is very frustrating and that has been the hardest thing to deal with so far. After our appointment today, we were able to buy the girls each a gift that is very Ukraine, but I will keep it a secret as to what we bought so they will be surprised. We also bought some Christmas gifts for other people in an open market. What else can i tell you . . . traffic is crazy here. They drive all over the place, they do not stay in their own lanes, there appears to be no speed limits and they all honk their horns at each other instead of using blinkers, etc. No one seems to know how to stand in line and wait their turn either - it's everyone for themself here. There is a lot of shopping here in Ukraine, much like Chicago or some other big city, with all the name brands and more. You can get anything you want here. However, the outlying villages are not that way and are very poor. Some other things we have seen are people sweeping the streets and parking lots with brooms made of twigs - like you would see in a fairy tale story book. They also park their cars on the sidewalks so the tow trucks can not tow them away - hahahaha! Most of the cars are very little, in fact when our driver picked us up at the airport, we almost couldn't fit our bags in the car. One of the suitcases had to sit in the back seat with me and it barely fit through the door! They'll have to use a bigger car to get us back with Marina for sure! Well, I don't know what else I can say right now except that I will put another entry on as soon as possible. Love to all!