Oct. 17th -in Donestk

Greetings to all of you!

Yesterday we showed up early for our SDA appointment and went window shopping at the local tourist vendors near the SDA building. Mark & Sally told us that would be the best place to buy souvineers when we come back through Kiev to head home.

If we bought them yesterday, like the vendors really wanted us to, we would have to pack them around for the next month! We are trying to make things as light as possible.

We successfully received our Referral from SDA to see Valentina - Thank you Lord! It's been a long time coming. There was an Italian couple there waiting for the same thing. She was in near tears at receiving their referral. John and I weren't quite that emotional. I suppose it's because we know Vala could accept or reject us. We'll feel the real emotion when she actually says she wants to be adopted by us. That will be the triumphant moment!

At 7pm we met Sergiy and his family at the train station. We weren't able to get the economy sleeper car, they were all taken through the entire weekend. John and I were able to get a 1st class car though with Sergiy and his family just a couple of doors down. His sweet daughter and son accompanied his wife Vicka and him. She knows very limited English so communication is hard. His little girl gets car sick and they give her medicine before the hour long car ride into the station. She was pretty groggy when we met last night, poor thing.

Here are some pics from our train's sleeper car last night...

This is an old Soviet train car. It felt like we were riding in a bit of history. And I suppose we were. The first class is very nice. It has only two beds, instead of 4. The four beds would have given us more room to put our luggage on the upper bunks, but we were glad there was storage we could stuff our suitcases under the bunks. They had the nice velvety type backs to make setting up comfortable. Also, in first class, the train staff makes your bed up for you.

We got coffee (very strong) that evening and the next morning. We brought bread and some sausages from the market to have as a dinner snack. The coffee costs 4 greivna a piece (at the exchange rate now, that's only about 50 cents, not bad).

The heaters kick on when the train starts moving. It cooks you out! You have to stuff blankets and pillows over the vent to keep the heat from radiating in. The windows do not open.

Smoking is very prevelant here. It appears everyone smokes and they smoke everywhere. Including on the train! We eventually had to close our sleeper car door just to try and block out the smoke, as we're not used to it. But when you shut the door, you shut in the heat. Have to pick the lesser of the two evils, I guess. :0)

We arrived in Donestk at 7:20am this morning, right on time. Train travel is very popular as well as using the Metro. Our apartment, we found out, will not be ready until 12noon. Sergiy's in-laws (where he's staying) do not have room for us. So he dropped us off at the Pirate Ship restaurant. (Since I can't read Ukrainian, that's what I'll call it for now) Mark & Sally have eaten here several times and used the internet. Thanks for the recommendation. Although the internet is constantly going off line. We were able to IM Sarah for 1 1/2 hours - she should have been in bed sleeping, though! lol

John took a picture of me checking our e-mails. We are trying our best to stay in contact with those watching our daughters and managing our business while we're gone. Unfortunately, there are no apartments available with internet right now. So we'll have to come to places like this in our free time. It's really important people e-mail us if they need to get in contact with us - not to wait until we contact them. That way, we can respond as soon as we can get on the internet - thanks to all of you who are filling in for us! We can't tell you how much we appreciate it!

This is a cool ship like restaurant that's open 24hrs a day. It's got some really neat decor, although it, like everywhere else, is pretty smokey. It's not well lit, the pirate theme, you know mateys!

Much love to you all! We look forward to seeing you all soon.

John & Jenn