Day three

This morning we awoke and got a call from our driver that our referral was done early so we told him we would walk to pick it up. As every other time we decided to walk we got lost. Last night we had planned on walking to the TGIF to meet some families and well we were realllly lost. We did manage to make it back to our apartment after about an hour and 1/2 of walking. Today our being lost only cost us about 10 minutes extra of walking. It is a good thing that I do not wear makeup because the walking and heat.. well I would be more of a hot mess than I already am.

When we picked up the referral we managed to meet another couple adopting a child from RR. Originally they were adopting one little girl but when they got there they met a little boy named Jonah and decided to bring him home as well. I love it when we meet families that we have either followed their journey online or have heard about.

People here are not overly friendly but I can't say they are rude either. Dave and I have studied a lot of words like idiots, fools, etc and I am happy to report that so far we have not been called those. We did manage to get a lady to smile quite big when I tripped and almost fell on my behind. We have had on the occasion pity smiles when we try so hard to buy something and have no clue what we are doing. We are still hunting for toilet paper. As our happiness in finding toilet paper quickly turned to sadness when we realized it was paper towels.

Women are dressed to the hilt a lot of times. I mean even in the markets with kids in tow you will see overflowing dresses and skirts. Not all the women but most of them really do take pride and wear clothing that would seem fancy to me at least. Sequins on their blouses, mini skirts and stilettos are common. One thing I have not seen is tennis shoes on women. So of course my white tennis shoes are a bit off plus I dress basically tshirts and jeans or capris. So I feel out of place but yet nobody has even looked me up and down in disgust lol. Women wear sandals, flip flops, flat fancy dress shoes or high heels. I did bring some black, flat sandals for dressier wear but I find that my feet thank me when I put the tennis shoes on for all the walking we do.

I have seen men wear some shorts but it does not appear to be the norm. They are usually in jeans or dress slacks. Almost every man we have seen wears a man purse. We actually have found that our neck wallets are a real pain and tend to stick out so we have resorted to using a backpack for our important things including money. Kind of wish I would have bought Dave his own purse :)

I wanted to get more pictures of the people here but did not want to upset anyone. Tomorrow we leave for Joshua's region at 6:40p our time. The train is at least going to take us about 12 hours. So there will not be a post tomorrow. We wanted to leave tonight to head to his region so it would give us some adjustment time to find the bus routes to the orphanage etc but apparently the train is really busy on Friday so we were told..nyet.

So here are some pictures we took today....descriptions are underneath the pictures.

This is our referral for Joshua. Hard to see it but it appears our last name is Bopnep in Ukrainian.

When you approach busy corners there are these tunnels or steps leading into tunnels to cross underneath.

Those tunnels hold many many shops and stores. The tunnels are quite elaborate and come up in several areas so you have to pay attention to which direction you are going or you may end up on a different corner than you wanted to.

Had to show you the brooms. Yes we have one in our apartment. One thing that they do at least in our apartment area every morning is wash the sidewalks and parking areas.

Independence Square... the place always is crowded. This spot is steps that have water flowing constantly down them and people are taking their shoes off and just walking through the water.

More water walking.. I can't wait till we come back here with Joshua and we can get a picture of him with it.

Apparently this side is not as popular as the other side :)

If there is a fountain you are bound to find people walking in it

Shoppers heaven.. just stores and stores as far as you can see

Every evening these guys are out here- break dancing and entertaining for tips. Who needs So you think you can Dance when you can walk down the street and see these guys?? Well ok.. I am missing that show- I suppose I could ask if they could do some contemporary for me.
Ok this last photo I just took heading back to our apartment. You can probably not really see but the incline is pretty decent and after spending hours walking when we hit the bottom of our street I just dread it because we have to climb up it to get to our "home". Seriously I about shed a tear when I see it. There are many skinny people here and I now understand why.

We miss everyone so much but we are really looking forward to meeting Joshua on Monday. Thank you for your continued prayers for us. Our next post we will be in region just hours from meeting our son!!