Our Appointment Day Arrives

[Robin]

We were picked up this a.m. by K in car with another family who came from Canada. We sat in a courtyard outside the SDA with them while K spoke with the officials from the adoption department. It was a little surreal.....we hoped that K could come in with us, but the other couple was probably hoping the same thing. Turns out that he put them with a colleague who could translate in French, so K went with us. A very pretty young woman came out and escorted us upstairs to a small office with an older woman waiting behind a desk. We introduced ourselves and sat down. The young woman (whose name neither of us could remember after the appointment--too stressed, I guess) turned out to be our interpreter. The adoption official started off asking what gender and age were were hoping to adopt. Once we answered she began to tell us that there weren't any girls that were available in our age range--maybe we could come back in a few months. If we wanted another appointment, we were behind 20 other couples. Needless to say, the first 10 minutes of the "discussion" were excrutiating. K stepped into the discourse and started asking questions about other options. The older woman began to flip through a big three-ring binder filled with pages covered with plastic and started to describe various children that were available. We went back and forth asking questions about each of the children. We settled in with a discussion about a girl who just last month turned four. She had been born prematurely and has had some problems with her joints and has had surgery to correct them. The older woman called the orphange and asked some questions for us. We felt reassured by what we heard and decided to ask to see her. The orphanage director described her as smart and well-liked by the other children. She also apparently likes to sing.

[Phil]

Robin's getting verklempt, so I'm taking over now. Anyway, we decided that we would like to accept a referral to see her, so K rushed it through this afternoon, and we'll actually be traveling to the orphanage on Wednesday to meet the child. The city is 2 hours from Kyiv, so it may just be a day trip, unless we decide to stay for an extra day or two. In any case, we'll be moving apartments in Kyiv either way after Wednesday, which I'm sort of bittersweet about. Bathroom flood and tiny sleeping loft notwithstanding, I've come to love our little place and its tiny, ancient elevator.

[Robin]

Okay, I've recovered. After our appointment we walked back to our apartment and tried to assess the impact of this decision. We are both feeling hopeful. We spent the rest of the morning braving washing clothes (worked!), reading (finished Harry Potter #7--it was terrific), and had lunch in our apartment. We then ventured out to go back by the SDA to take a picture and then headed down the hill to a section of town called Podil. We searched for the Chernobyl museum only to find it and discover that it was closed for a "sanitary day." It was a pretty hot walk and we couldn't believe it was closed. Doh! We spelled relief with a beer at an outdoor cafe. When we walked back we headed in the direction of a park and took the Funicular up the hill. The Funicular is a hillside train that has a terrific view of the Dnepr River and goes through a park behind St. Mikhail's cathedral. We are now sitting in a restaurant near the cathedral eating borsch (again, but another version, this time with something like kale as the base) and trying the dim sum of the area--vareniki. The dumplings were wonderful, filled with cabbage and accompanied by spices and vinegar (I know that sounds weird, but trust me, it was yummy).

[Phil]

By the way, the reason we're having borsch yet again is that this borsch restaurant has free wi-fi, so we'll probably be having borsch every night that we're in Kyiv.

Onto the more mundane: above are some photos from yesterday. I'll let Robin tell you about them:

[Robin]

The first one is a view from the Hyatt Hotel's Bar 8, which is on the 8th floor. The hotel is practically brand-new, and its modern glass front is an anomoly for this city. We walked by and saw the opportunity for a vantage point for good pictures from their rooftop restaurant and couldn't resist going in. It was sunset and it was beautiful to look over St. Sophia's cathedral (the oldest church in Kyiv).

The second one is a picture of us at Bar 8 taken by the maitre'd. Since they had just recently opened, the staff was amazingly solicitious, to the extent that they actually brought blankets out to other patrons when the breeze kicked up. They also had a phenomenal bathroom (#8.5 on the Wiegerink scale--very similar to the museum in Oaxaca!).

The third picture is of St. Mikhail's monestary. It was destroyed by Stalin in 1937 and was completely rebuilt in 2001 (frescoes and everything). It was Carolina blue and striking to see in the sunshine.

The fourth picture is of the bulk frozen food section of the Megamart--the largest supermarket in Kyiv (see earlier post). K explained that we don't have this in the States because it probably costs too much to employ someone to weigh your frozen goods. It was marvelous to behold--all the varieties of frozen goods to scoop out and take home in individual bags.

[Phil]

That's all for now. Tomorrow we're going to try to visit the monastery caves and the enormous "Rodyna Mat" (Motherland) statue. And maybe we'll have some more borsch....