A Crazy Exciting Day!

Well, not really. I'm just messing with you!

It was really more of the same. Although I did learn a few things about Ukraine or maybe about myself today that I'd like to share with you:

1. Sitting in a restaurant for your one meal out each day can be kind of lonely.
   Sitting in a restaurant for your one meal out each day while playing Sudoku on your borrowed cell phone rocks!
   
   
2. Walking the quarter mile or so through the old cemetery on the way to downtown at dusk is not so scary.
   Walking the quarter mile or so through the old cemetery on the way back to the Bible House in pitch black at 8PM is a bit more scary, especially when someone is walking behind you about 20 yards the whole way.
   
   
3. Being here by myself does not give me much opportunity to speak English in sentences longer than a few mono-syllabic words. Even when I speak English with someone who clearly understands English, I still use the same few mono-syllabic words (and even a little bit of a Russian accent....).
   
   
4. I know I have super human hearing when I can pick up an English word spoken in a hallway filled with kids at the internot (Today I met a couple from Texas adopting a 15 year old girl at the same orphanage as Natasha and Pasha. I hope to meet up with them for dinner or something soon.)
   
   
5. Surgical masks are like gold (and I scored one today for free!).
   
   
6. You don't need to ride the buses to get around Kherson...you just need good walking shoes and a lot of time on your hands (I haven't ridden a bus yet, and have walked every where. I'm not getting on those buses....you just know they're filled with all those people who have swine flu and haven't scored a free mask like I did!)
   
   
7. Even if you don't speak Russian, you can still usually communicate OK with servers helping you at restaurants. It becomes infinitely more difficult when all the servers in the restaurants are wearing surgical masks and all you have to go on is eye contact!
   
   
8. A few good chuckles watching a re-run of The Office can really lift one's spirits.
   
   
9. Hearing a 14 year old girl tell the 14 year old girl that you're adopting that she would like to have a family too, breaks your heart no matter how many times it happens.
   
   
10. Aw heck, I don't have anything else. I just wanted to have a list of 10 things on my post today.
    
    

Well, the only real news of today is that our request to have the 10 day waiting period waived or reduced was denied. Oh well, at least we tried. Tanya said that the judge was sympathetic but there was nothing she could do about it. So, we wait. One week from today we'll have the final court decree and we can start sprinting again.

Thanks for everyone's prayer support. Please pray that Pasha would feel well soon and that Natasha and her roomies would use the hand sanitizer I gave them today! :)

Later,

Bruce