Where's a babushka when you need one? (Thursday July 15, 2010)

We are in a nice little cafe having some fresh fruit juice right now. The sun is spilling in and we are watching the well dressed folk of Kiev passing by. There's a cute little boy who is selling flowers. I'll have to buy some from him before we go back to the apartment.

Both of us have our laptops. Monique told me to watch my Mac carefully because apparently they're a hot item here in Europe. I might be getting a trifle paranoid. Maybe it's just the standard two sets of doors with two locks that they have on every apartment make you want to look over your shoulder a little more often.

Actually, I feel pretty safe. When we came home Tuesday night we had to walk about 2 miles in the dark. We stayed on well lit streets and I noticed there were several single women still out. We left our translator Maria at the metro station so she didn't have to walk back by herself. But in general we try to be in before dark which isn't too hard because it stays light so late now. Calvin has done so much pavement pounding in the last few days he knows the area quite well right around our apartment. This morning he went running and gave the security guy at the Canadian consulate "bones" as he passed. Weird. I guess it's a guy thing.

Things went very well with our SDA appointment yesterday. Our luggage arrived at 5:00 pm on Tuesday so we were able to wear some clean clothes! Always a plus when you're trying to make a good impression. They had an adorable photo of Anastasia as a little girl in their files. They told us if we would give them a current photo when we left, they would give us theirs. Done deal! We visited a few tourist sites but it got unbearably hot so we came home and visited with Natasha and then took a siesta. Our internal clocks are obviously still a little whacked out because our siesta lasted about 4 hours. We woke up at about 8:30 pm and forced ourselves back to bed at 2:00 am and woke up bright and early feeling well rested. We would like to go to an opera, but they are not in season right now. Apparently, they have excellent operas here in Kiev.

Tomorrow we will fly out of here bright and early at 5:00am and then we'll have about a one and a half hour drive to Feodosia. It will give us another day to be able to transact adoption business. Otherwise, we'd have to wait until Monday. Can't wait to see Anastasia! I can't help but wonder what she's thinking and feeling right now. I wonder if she has any misgivings and what her biggest fears are. Her older sister, the only other one who is eligible for adoption (17 years old) is pregnant. Sad. We have never felt any particular inclination to adopt her, but her present situation really cinches our decision.

Even as I type, the Gledhills are having their SDA appt. We'd love to meet up with them later -we'll have to see because I don't know what their schedule is.

Calvin's been poring over some a guide to Kiev. He's marked a few interesting ideas for dinner tonight. Everyone keeps trying to take us to places they think we'd like, such as mall food or pizza. Really??!!! What I'd really like is to be in some babushka's kitchen eating her food. They're a little hard to find though.