Lynch Family Adoption: I Smell Smoke, Great Monuments & Adventures in Navigation

Monday, October 15, 2012

Today is Monday, which means the cleaning lady comes and we have to get out of the house from 9am-5 pm. Unfortunately for Weej, he came down with a cold and didn’t feel like leaving the house at all in the dreary, misty cold. But we had to, so we did!:)

We dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready to roll. N., the cleaning lady, showed up 15 min early but we were out of her way soon thereafter. We decided to start our dreary YUCK day at Coffee House. Our sweet friend Ox. was working today, so we enjoyed our time with cappuccinos and hot tea (she keeps us stocked up with buy one get one free Cappuccino couponsJ) Jo. decided to get hot chocolate. (Future adoptive family tip, don’t order “Hot Chocolate” at Coffee House unless you want a bowl of hot chocolate pudding….literally.:) What we know as hot chocolate in the US is “Cacao” here, (I think). If you order hot tea here, they will ask you what kind. Nearly every place has black or green and others. I had a delicious pot of green tea, which Ox. put into a to-go cup for me when we left rapidly due to the next adventure on tap….SMOKE smell, followed by SMOKE coming through the air vents into Coffee House!!! Yikes! We exited rapidly (nobody else seemed concerned, even though we heard sirens and saw suited up Firefighters with axes go storming to the apartment above Coffee House! ) Fortunately the building ended up being OK, as we ran into Ox. again later in the day in the metro! Out of over 2.5 million people in Kyiv, there was our sweet little friend in the Metro station- not even that close to her workplace! So yes, we were meant to spend the afternoon together.:)

After leaving Coffee House, we had more adventures in navigation. We found an out of the way area and broke out our map to find some of the sights in Kyiv which we had wanted to see but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. We did it again! All by ourselves, (P & J, you trained us so well!) we found the Friendship Arch, the Philharmonic and the enormous statue of Prince Vladimir of Kiev (CC Moms- we just HAD to see that one….new timeline card, week 10, I think!!:)

The Friendship Arch is a monstrous metal rainbow-shaped, silver structure which was constructed to symbolize the friendship between Russia and Ukraine. After seeing the Ukrainian holocaust museum, when the Soviets starved millions of Ukrainians to get them to submit, and talking to all of the Ukrainian friends we have made…Russia is not real popular here. After doing some research, I discovered the Friendship Monument was constructed in 1982 and “devoted to the reunification of Russia and Ukraine…and was dedicated to the sixtieth anniversary of the Soviet Union and the celebration of the 1500th anniversary of Kiev.” I wonder if the “Friendship Monument” makes some of the locals shudder as they remember their days under Soviet control.

Behind the Friendship Monument is most likely an amazing view of the Dnipro River when the weather isn’t so dreary/misty/grey. We could barely see the water or any of the surrounding sights…but we should have plenty of time to come back on a clearer day. J

The park surrounding the statue was beautiful! It was a peaceful oasis, complete with graceful trees, changing leaves, quiet paths, the smelll of autumn, and even some colorful flowers still blooming! To top it all off, the birds were unaffected by the dreary day and chirped along happily. It was so nice I had to video tape it by doing a slow 360 so I could capture it all, including the birds! It was in this beautiful park that we received word that our facilitator was going to meet with the judge at 2 pm. Weej called the kids over from their nature exploration to circle up and PRAY with us! It was a special moment in a special place!

Oh, I am going to take a moment to interject something related to that prayer that I STRANGELY forgot to mention in the last blog update! Any of you on facebook or receiving my email updates already know, but in case you are in not in either of those groups, I want to fill you in on something. Last Friday, we got a call from our facilitator telling us that his associate went to Court twice (two separate days) to attempt to get a court date for us. The moody judge sent her away the second day and told her that she didn’t want to see any more adoption cases until the end of October. (?!?) That news left us reeling, as we were expecting a date on or about Oct. 17^th, plus or minus a day, based on everyone else’s experiences of ~ 3 weeks from SDA appointment to Court date. While my teaching responsibility is covered at home by my amazing friend, R., Weej is rapidly running out of vacation time. Although he is approved for FMLA and won’t LOSE his job if he runs out of vacation time, he won’t get paid either….so on one income,that just isn’t an option. Flying home and back again is also very costly. So we were less than excited to get that news last Friday! After sending out massive prayer requests to everyone we know, at Church, on facebook and by email, we had peace. I honestly have not worried about it at all since then. We are being covered in prayer and it shows. I am at such peace about it, I even forgot to mention it in my blog! Wow! God’s peace surpasses understanding once again!

And- to update that status with today’s news, we are now feeling hopeful that the judge may actually give us a date this week after all!! Our facilitator actually got in to see her, which was miraculous. After two attempts last week, I admire her persistence and willingness to go try again today! (I can now picture the Wizard of Oz bellowing from his chamber, “Go away!!!!” ) Once she got in to see her, she found out the judge wants another document. While that news typically used to concern me greatly back home, the document she needed was rather easily obtained by a trip out to the orphanage this afternoon. AND the judge told her she could come back with our document tomorrow morning at 9, and she would TRY to get us a Court date THIS WEEK!!! YAY!! The prayers of our friends have covered us and given us a new ray of hope. We continue to pray for tomorrow at 9 am to be a good day for the Judge, that she doesn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed and that she grants us a court date this week!

Now back to our day:

After leaving that beautiful park, just a few short yards downhill is an insanely busy, massive intersection at the end of Kreshatyk. It is strange to have gone from such peace and tranquility to the mass chaos of Kiev traffic.

We weren’t sure what to do next, so decided to go in search of the Arizona Barbecue place our friends P & J found on Sunday. Weej would walk many, many miles in search of a cheeseburger right now! We never found it since we were actually in the wrong part of town!:)

We strolled down Kreshatyk, got some ice cream (the only customers on this dreary day!), bought a cup of fresh raspberries to share from a street vendor and explored the underground mall. P&J had invited us to Dreamtown Mall for the afternoon, so we decided to join them to stroll around a bit more and just enjoy some time with them. Ox. joined us and we strolled the length of that amazing mall together. I must say, it was MUCH more awesome when we were there on Sat. night and the skating rink had music playing and blacklights on, the curling and bumper cars and bowling and all other attractions were busy and full of life. Today, on a Monday afternoon, not a soul to be found in the fully lit roller rink. No music, no black lights, no bustling crowds, no suspended piano player on a layer of plexiglass,…it was an extreme difference all throughout the mall!

After we’d covered the entire Mall, we in the Lynch family were EXHAUSTED from lack of sleep and miles of walking around all day. We decided to call it a day and were able to navigate back to the metro, ride the metro, find the bus and make it home all by ourselves!:). We are finally feeling comfortable here!

On returning home we debated going home to cook chicken and vegetables, standing on our dead tired feet and legs, spending $7 on a package of chicken at the grocery, or just grab some more $2 burritoes. J Burritoes EASILY won out for me.:) Avoiding the cook time on weary legs and the clean-up mess was totally worth an extra $3. We would have spent that $3 on the rest of the food to go with the chicken anyway! We really can’t buy groceries for what we can buy most of the kiosk type foods here. Ab. opted for the even cheaper grilled chicken sandwich for about $1.50. Unfortunately the man misunderstood us and instead of the chicken sandwich, Ab.got my “favorite” item on the menu there: the Hum and Beacon sandwich (their “English” translation didn’t work out so well on that one…it is supposed to say, “ham and bacon”). Ha! Ab. wasn’t so jazzed about the “Hum and Beacon” sandwich, so Daddy ate that and gave her his burrito. Dad’s are great, aren’t they?

We returned to the apartment and have remained horizontal since about 7pm. We watched “The Lorax” and have been enjoying some downtime- finally.

Hopefully I can continue to keep up this blog daily now, since three days worth took me HOURS and wasn’t posted until 3 am!

Till next time!