Friday Sept. 16
Hi from Kiev. Not much is new. Just a lot of waiting. We are hopeful we will get an appointment next week at the adoption center. We were told that this was likely. The way the system works is that we won't know until the evening before if we have an appointment the next day. We are hopeful for success.

Yesterday we went to the WW II memorial. It was very interesting. Today we went on a river boat cruise. We could see a lot of the sights/places that we have been. It was a fun day. Our translator is very personable which makes it much more enjoyable.

Other than that it is just daily routine stuff. We have not had hot water for the last 3 out of 4 days. We have been boiling water to take a bath. Otherwise the water is too ice cold to take a shower. There are a lot of dogs here. It seems they have a lot of strays. Darren has been feeding one of the dogs that is around the apartment.

We have been walking around the soccer park track every day and there have been neighborhood girls about 8 to 10 years old that are just facinated with us because we are american. They have been talking to us in the few english words that they speak. The other day they recited "Good morning, good morning, good morning to you. Good morning, good morning, glad to see you." Yesterday there was a group of about 10 of them that followed us on our walk. They were saying "My name is ---" and we told them our names. They also asked how old we were. Then they sat on the bleachers and we left. They saw that we were leaving and chased us to our apartment elevator and said "bye bye". Then they ran up 8 flights of stairs and told us bye bye again. We were cracking up--It was so cute.

Yesterday we ate at Fridays. American food-yum.... The food is just different here plus we are picky anyway. For the most part, we season our food much more. There is another restaurant that is called Arizona BBQ which everyone says we need to go to. Apparently they have margaritas. So for the sake of research (since Lasco has Margaritas) I must try at least one. I will have to report back to work. We have to keep the competition in check.(Ha ha). Anyway, we miss everyone. We will report back soon.
Christine and Darren.