Merry Christmas from Berdyansk!

December 25: Merry Christmas from Berdyansk! After getting ready, we went downstairs to breakfast and then got on the Internet to answer emails and update our blog. As we were heading upstairs to our room we ran into Rick and Fran Rahn, a sweet couple from Virginia that is adopting two girls. We had met them the first morning we went to breakfast and they had also gone with Don and us to church on Sunday. We stood and talked in the hotel lobby for over an hour so by the time we went up to our room, we were ready to go for a walk and find somewhere to eat lunch. Rick had told us about a cafeteria style restaurant that was very reasonable and had given me directions so we started out on our way. Unfortunately, something was wrong with the way I remembered the directions so we didn’t see any restaurants and were freezing. The icy wind was cutting like a knife. We decide to retreat inside one of the bakeries that we had eaten at on our previous trips just to escape the cold. Once inside we ordered cake and tea from a woman who spoke enough English to understand us. We knew we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, but the bakery only served dessert, so we had to take what we could get while being provided warmth. When we headed out again toward the hotel, we only had gone about a half of a block when we found the Cossack Cafeteria. This is a cheerful, delightfully decorated place inside, with a cafeteria style line, so you can just go through and point at the different items you want. Our meal, between the two of us, consisted of borsht, fried potatoes and mushrooms, cabbage rolls stuffed with meat, pork chops and bread was pretty good and very reasonably priced. It was a nice place to have Christmas lunch.

After eating, we had just enough time to check email quickly and then freshen up before taking a taxi to the orphanage. We found the boys when we arrived and went straight to the gym to play basketball. Vitya, Sasha and I played several games of 21, H-O-R-S-E and 2-on-1 but Zhenya didn’t have his tennis shoes on and said that he didn't want to play. We had a lot of fun and the communication went well. Vitya had to go practice being a DJ for the party that we are invited to tomorrow at 3:00. The boys wanted to make sure that we were definitely coming and we insured them that we were. We said good-bye to the boys and went to Galina’s office to find Valery. He needed to put some final touches on our paperwork before taking it to Melitopol for the 7:30 train to Kiev. On his was way to Melitopol, the taxi took us back to the hotel where we at supper at the cafe and then went to our room. I tried to stay awake but we were both tired from the day so we went to sleep about 8:30 pm. About 10:00pm, Valery called us to tell us that he was back from Melitopol and that he had gotten the documents on the train successfully. Dima then called us about 11:00pm to wish us a Merry Christmas. He had just gotten home from Aunt Cyndy’s and had left earlier than Ginger, Ella, Brooke and Baylee so he would be able to call us before we went to sleep. I have now read the entire adoption requirements document from the U.S, Embassy in Kiev trying to go to sleep and typed this additional information in the blog but cannot seem to get sleepy. Where’s a good, late night, English TV program when you need one?