Day 3 Referral

The weather in Kiev is absolutely perfect right now.  It's so beautiful here!  This morning we visited the FC Dynamo stadium.  This is Kiev's soccer team.  They don't give tours of the stadium, so we could only walk around and take some pictures.  When we got back, we walked to the souvenir stands near the SDA.  They sell all kinds of chachkes here like t-shirts, key chains, soccer jerseys, magnets, matryoshka dolls, etc.  We spent some time browsing before meeting up with Lisa and Terry Brown and the other driver named Eugene.  Lisa and Terry are another Reece's Rainbow family and they're here adopting two little boys with Down syndrome.  Then the five of us went into the SDA and picked up our referrals. This meant handing them our passports, them recording something in a book, us signing next to it, and them handing us our translated dossier and a referral letter.  This all took less than 10 minutes.  Once we were done at the SDA, Eugene drove us to buy our train tickets for Sunday night.  The train station was a nightmare.  It took over two hours to buy the tickets and they didn't even have what we needed.  They were sold out of all tickets for Sunday night, so we had no choice but to go Saturday night.  Then, and we still don't understand this, we were charged almost double for the tickets.  We quickly figured out that poor Eugene is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so Norm called Nico to try and figure out what in the heck was going on.  He didn't know, but agreed the tickets were overpriced.  He told us to buy them because otherwise we risked not getting them, so we did.  Once that fiasco was over, we headed back to our apartment and then to dinner.  We had read about an Italian place called Il Patio that sounded good.  We walked down Kreschatyk St., which is the main street of Kiev, looking for the place.  As we walked, we stopped to buy a phone card and a homeless girl pushed me because I wouldn't give her any money.  We have given to numerous beggars since we've been here, but tonight we had only brought enough money for dinner and the phone card.  Although I didn't appreciate being pushed, I felt bad about not giving her anything and, in retrospect, wish I had.  She obviously needed it more than I did.  Anway, we finally found the restauant.  For those of you coming to Kiev, it's right next door to TGI Friday's.  In fact, the two restaurants are connected and share a bathroom.  It was really, really good and I would highly recommend it.  They even have an English menu, which was a bonus! Today was the last day of school for kids in Ukraine and there was a party atmosphere in the city.  All day long we saw kids walking around all dressed up and wearing sashes across their chest.  Tomorrow is what's called Kiev Day and we were told that the city will be packed.  Apparently the celebrating started early because as we were walking home from dinner, we saw a huge concert taking place at Independence Square.  There were thousands of people dancing and cheering.  Once we got back to our apartment, we could sill hear the concert.  Then fireworks started going off so we went our on our balcony and got to see a great fireworks display.  Tomorrow we are waking up early and going to see the Lavra Cave Monastary with another Reece's Rainbow family.  It's the #1 tourist attraction in Ukraine, but I don't really get what it is.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow.  After that, we're going to come home, pack up, and head for the train station.  I can't believe that soon we'll be in the same city (well, almost) as Dasha and that we will finally meet her on Monday!! 

I doubt I'll post tomorrow since we'll be on the train, but I'll be back on Sunday and then Monday with PICTURES!!  :)