Day 53 Wacky Wednesday!! Nov 9

After such an exciting day the day before, it seemed hard to come down from the emotional roller coaster. We got up in time to say Hello to Abbey who was across the hall from us and was on her way home that day. It was nice to see her one more time before she left the country, as we had started our journey together so many days before.
I got the boys up and ready for the day. We had to meet Nastya first thing in the morning and we had not had any time to get food. As we were waiting for her, we tried to find something quick and easy to eat. She called and was delayed in traffic, so we were able to get some food for breakfast. We were going to meet her at the corner by the grocery store, so the boys waited outside as I ran in and got some yogurt drinks and apples. She finally arrived and took us to the Embassy. It did not take long to get the paperwork filled out and turned in. Then we went back out to meet Nastya and go to the medical facility to get their medical exams done.
Unfortunately, once we got there, we found out that the passports did not make it to Kiev the night before and they were going to try to fax the copies to the medical staff to get their physicals done. We waited and they tried several times to get good copies of their passports, but none of the faxes came out clear enough for the staff to be willing to do the exams. Nastya made arrangements for us to come back the next morning to get them done.

Yarik and Mom in Kiev

We also decided to switch to the room where Abbey had been staying. It was a little bigger and had a separate room for me to sleep. We had to move all of our stuff to the new room, at least it was on the same floor, so we did not have to try to get everything back into the elevator again! That was quite an adventure the day before trying to get it all in at once!

Sergei and Mom in Kiev

Skateboarders for Sergei to watch

We really had nothing else to do that day, but explore Kiev and get food. We wanted to try to see the Saint Sophia cathedral, so we walked in that direction. When we got there, we did not have enough money for me to get in with the boys, so we just looked around from the outside. Next we went downtown to the main square and got some photos. Sergei found some kids skateboarding and enjoyed watching them. We had to be back at a certain time to meet a gal who was bringing their passports to our apartment, so we could not explore as much as I had hoped. It was fun to see the boys getting a chance to see their home country capital. We also enjoyed stretching our legs and getting to walk a bit.

Sergei and Yarik walking  back to the apartment at sunset.

We hurried back to the apartment and arrived in time to meet the gal with the passports. We were so relieved to have them in hand...at least I was!! The boys were pretty excited to see their new names on their passports. We later got some groceries and I made dinner for the three of us in our apartment. We had a fun evening eating and playing pillow fights and what not. Sergei found some games on the internet to play, but the internet was terribly lousy, so we did not get much done on there.
We tried to get settled and sleep, but it was hard to get used to another strange place. Sergei was not happy with his bed and I tried to make it better for him, but it did not work out very well. We had another early morning pick up with Nastya to get us to the medical exams again and then the plan was to get to the Embassy to pick up their visas so we could leave by Friday!!