sweet treats

Yesterday we went up to the school and met the 3 girls again and told them we thought we should walk to "center" to get an ice cream. "Center" is the center of town where their little stores are which by the way they call "magazines". So, they thought that was a good idea and we set off on our way. We kept passing other stores here and there which usually have just one word on the outside of the building, indicating what they sell there. Most stores don't have windows, so it's hard to SEE what they sell. I would ask Marina as we walked along, "do they sell ice cream" and she would say no and tell me what they sell. It is quite a walk to center, but fortunatley it it mostly down hill. We finally found a store that had ice cream and then the girls wanted a sucker each and then I wanted a chocolate bar and some Pepsi, then Marina wanted Fanta orange soda . . . so a few purchases later we left there and continued our way into center, because Marina wanted to look around and didn't want to go back to school yet. We did and then she decided she wanted to buy a bag of chips - potato chips that were cheese flavored. We got those and then decided to get a taxi back to the school. She was afraid that we were going to put just the 3 of them in the taxi and say goodbye, and she was quite relieved when she realized we were going too. When we got back to school, we still had another hour to visit so we sat in the sunshine and visited some more and took some more pictures and then it was time for Olga and Natasha to go do their homework. They left and we visited a bit longer and then it was time for Marina to go in, so we said goodbye and she told us today we didn't need to come get them, but that they would come to us here. Whew! No excersise today :) I told her we would work on making some goodbye cards for her teachers today while she was here and she thought that sounded like a good idea. I asked her if she was going to make cards for her friends and she said no "to big", which meant there are too many of them. She said she has 10 friends and can't make that many cards. We'll see. I think it would be nice if she could make each of them a little something.

It's 10:15 here now and we have had our breakfast and are watching CNN and just heard about the high school shooting in Ohio. Olga just walked in from going to center with a few bags and one has two fish tales sticking out of it and . . . they are still wiggling!!! I wonder if that is lunch or dinner? I'm sure James is hoping neither :) Maybe we'll go to center this morning and get Natasha some of the things she said she needed. It's sort of hard because then you feel like you should get the same things for Olga as well. They are never apart from one another. In fact I thought Olga would be with Dennis most of the time, but she isn't. Mostly she is with her girl friends. We've only seen him once since we've been here. The other thing we have seen a lot of is kids even LITTLE kids smoking at school. They think it's really cool - not all of them, but the boys do. We asked Marina where they get the money for cigarettes, and she told us that they work for women outside of the school and earn money and that is what they spend it on. Everyone smokes here - well, okay not everyone, but I would say MOST. The other problem here is the pollution. It seems none of the cars are running with catalytic convertors and they emitt tons of smog and stink! In the city of Kiev there were times I felt like I couldn't breath and tried to hold my breath as long as possible. It's a big problem here.

Well, I'm going to check email and so is James. He's practically falling asleep waiting for me to finish this so he can check his mail :)