Friends in far away places

It is about 10:30pm Wednesday night. We got in about 1am, and to our apartment by about 2. Matt is sleeping again, Jet lag is not his friend. I slept about 3 hours on the Denver-Frankfurt flight, and then about 3 more on the bench in McDonalds of Frankfurt airport during our 10.5 hr layover, not doing that again. Matt did not sleep until about 3am after we got to the apartment, not a wink on the flight or in the airport. So I feel really great, I really think the Homeopathic Jet lag Prevention pills Selene and Clay gave to us helped a lot! Thank you so much Selene :) I tried to get Matt to take them too, but he said no. So all you fans of Matt blogs will have to wait another day for him to post. Our apartment is wonderful, I posted photos on the picasa link, we are truly blessed to have such a great clean apartment again, very comfortable, warm, bright, hot water, internet, close to downtown, the square and SDA, we could not ask for more. Thank you God for all of it! Waking up today having a shower after all the travel, finally getting to enjoy my Vanilla Coffee, and read my Bible while looking out the window and seeing beautiful snow covered rooftops and amazing view of St Sophia's was great. It has finally sunk in we are here again really doing this. After Matt woke up and showered we decided we should go out for a while, because the day light is very short here this time of year. We needed to exchange money and get a new SIM card and purchase minutes for our Ukrainian cell phone. So we bundled up and headed out, a short walk to the big court yard by sophia's and down the hill to independence square, stop at the Bank. After waiting for about 15 minutes, the lady who does speak some English tells us the exchange is closed for a while. Oh OK, that is odd. She returns less than 5 minutes later and directs us up the stairs and says now you can exchange up there, ok good that was short lived. So we get the grivna and just outside McDonalds purchase the SIM and Minutes from the outside vendor. He is very nice, limited English but helped us get exactly what we needed and he even set it up did all the little codes and got it working and we were off to eat. You know so far this trip has been awesome, people are being friendly, no delays or issues with the flights, great place to stay, only thing I would change was the lay over that was tough, but Matt was wonderful to stay awake and watch me and the luggage so I could sleep. So we get into Mc Donalds, not the same one I got locked into the bathroom last time, but the other smaller one, still a little PTSD began when I walked in, no not really,but I did not even think of going in that bathroom. Matt went to order, and I saved us some seats and called Heidi and Felix to see if they were still in Kiev, as they picked up there referral today and will be leaving on the train to Khearson soon. Heidi answers and they are walking around about a block away, that is so cool. They meet us at McDonalds. Felix forces Jordon to go and order for them, Nyet Spasiba, Da, but in the end she lucked out and got the English speaking lady with the picture menus, nice try dad. It was so great to be with them here. Matt and Felix were coming up with many blog ideas I am sure they will share later. The two of them you know they really need to be seperated in public :) Heidi makes a call and brings us a wonderful Surprise, Nadya! I can not believe it, awesome to see her again after the 2+ years since Anya's adoption. You know she is still laughing about our favorite American Woman!! She can not even look at Matt with out laughing :) If you are not aware Nadya was our translator last adoption, read the other blog if you want the detail about the American Woman. Anyway she is just the same, like the sister I never had, but always wanted. Another unexpected blessing. After a bit the Roge's have to go and catch the train, so Matt and I head out to find a grocery and go back to the apartment. The weather is a little cooler since the sun went down but still very tolerable, I would guess about 30 degrees. As long as you have a few warm layers and some thing to cover your ears, it is fine. We walk the same way we went passing one closed grocery and stoping at another and finding nothing on our list. The third one is OK, could not find the right water, nor deoderant for Matt, which he forgot to pack, but we get the other items on our list and move on. Valentin can hopefully help us find a bigger store with more tomorrow. We have gotten a little off, maybe a bit lost, we back track a block or two, and then stop to compare the photos we took earlier to figre out where we went wrong, and as we decide to go one way up the street, Matt stops and looks at the building across the street, he asks is that our apartment? So we cross over take a closer look and yes there it is, we had walked past it on the other side of the street twice, hey things look a different in the dark! So back at the apartment, I finally get through to Oksana on her phone, which she tells me is broken, and she had borrowed a friends and put her SIM in it. Both her and Vlad are so excited, you can here it so clearly in their voices, that is the biggest Praise God moment of the day!! I explain to Oksana that we may not be in Izmail until Monday, discussion is still going on with Valentin as to our departure date due getting our referral docs on a Friday, and the weekend, and if we will drive the entire way from Kiev, or take a train to Odessa and then taxi from there to Izmail, depends on the weather, who knows at this point. Anyway Oksana is fine with it, she is just thrilled to know that we are actually in Ukraine, she gets a little teary for a moment and projects that to me, telling me Mom it is Ok don't cry, which I am not. I then get to talk to Vlad, he can hardly hold in his screams of joy when I tell him where we are. I tell him three days and we will be together, and he lets out a big YEAH! Then ask me in fairly good English if I will take photos of Kiev for him. I then tell him that Heidi and Felix are here too, but will go to visit Lizzy tonight, and he shocked and asks, Felix? Oh good me like Felix, me too I say back. He is such an awesome little kid. Then Matt talks to them both for a few minutes and we tell them goodbye and that we will call tomorrow with more news on the travel. After about 10-15 I love you's back in forth we finally hang up the phone. It has been a pretty great day. I am going to try to contain my excitement, read a bit and try to sleep. Valentin will be here at 9:30 for us to go to the SDA appointment. Our Ukrainian phone is 380 99 706 1890 if calling from US dial 011 then the number.