Day 17- Catching up and saying Good-byes Tuesday Oct. 4

So Vagif was pretty exhausted from his trip. We all slept in, but he kept sleeping! We really had nothing planned for that day. Tonya was hoping to hear from Ksenia about the passport. Of course, Ksenia could not give a time to let her know, but she was hoping to know by early afternoon. We got some breakfast and decided to go out to the shopping area and grocery store. Vagif needed some new shoes, so we thought we would see what we could find. By this time it was almost 1 and Darren had to force Vagif to get awake. We finally got the group mobilized. We went to the shops above the supermarket. The shoe stores there were pretty pricey. Vagif found some shoes that he liked, but Darren did not like the price. We knew that the street vendors had cheaper prices, so we waited on the shoes. We did find a watch for him in another shop. I also bought a battery clock/alarm just in case.
Finally, Tonya got the call! The passport was ready!! They had to meet Ksenia at the passport office. And then they would be ready to go off to Kiev that night.

Darren, Vagif and I went back down to the grocery store and stocked up on food for dinner. In the meantime, Yarik called and was done at school, so he was on his way to meet us at the grocery store. We started doing some shopping and Yarik called again that he was there. I went out to meet him. We all got some foods for dinner. Instant mashed potatoes, kutleti, Vagif got a fish fillet, some different salads, and some bread and deli meat, etc. We went back to the hotel and stashed our groceries.
Earlier that morning, Darren had set up a gmail and facebook account for Vagif, so when we got back Darren showed him the ropes. The day before, Vagif had set us up in Vkontact, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. Now we have to upload the new pictures from this week! We are so excited to have this option of keeping in touch with him! Unfortunately, he still has only limited internet access, so we will get only small windows of opportunity, but it is better than before, when we just had to catch him when his cell phone was working! Now we can send messages!
At the hotel, Darren had to clean up the stuff he had in the upstairs room that was officially Tonya's room. Downstairs, Tonya and Tressa were packing up. Unfortunately, they had to pay for over half a day's charge on the room since they had not checked out before noon. If only we had known, we could have cleared the room earlier! Once they were done packing, Ksenia arrived to take them to the bus and it was off to Kiev for them! We said our good-byes. It will be quiet here without them.
Now that there are two guys who want internet, I don't get much time on the computer! The guys were online most of the rest of the night. Vagif skyping with Derek and Ellie and Darren working. We skyped with them for quite a while. Derek had us cracking up!! He is so crazy. It was great to see them smiling and having so much fun!

I was pretty tired and ready to sleep. There is a curtain that gives a little privacy between the living room and bedroom, so I pulled that shut and left the guys to their computers.