Day 4 Travel to Region

This morning we woke up early and got ready to head to the Lavra Cave Monastery with another couple who are here in Kiev adopting.  Our driver Eugene was to pick us up at 10:00 but never showed until 11:30.  There was a HUGE bicycle race going on and many streets were closed and he said he couldn't figure out how to get to us via an alternate route, so we waited.  It was a beautiful morning and we sat in the park beside our apartment and watched all the bicyclers. It is so much fun to people watch here.  The monastery was mildly interesting for us.  It is a massive complex of churches, chapels, and caves that are still used to this day.  It is also the headquarters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.  To go down into the caves, you have to purchase a candle.  It's really tight quarters down there and both Norm and I felt like we were about to be set on fire by the person walking behind us, not to mention the small spaces filled with lots of people made us claustrophobic.  We're glad we went, but it was definitely not our favorite thing we did in Kiev.  After the monastery, we grabbed a quick bite of lunch and headed back to the apartment and started packing up our things.  Eugene and Nico were both back for us around 5:30 to give us the paperwork we needed for the orphanage and to take us to the train station.  The train ride went by quickly.  We left Kiev at 7:20 on Saturday evening and arrived in Donetsk a few minutes after 7:00 on Sunday morning.  We watched a movie and fell asleep pretty quickly, but didn't sleep well.  In fact, I don't think I've had a good night's sleep since we arrived.  I hope that once we get settled in Donetsk we can begin to relax a bit and get some rest.

Some things we have noticed here:

-Ukrainians LOVE their soft serve!  There are little kiosks everywhere and you constantly see people eating cones.  I had one the other day and it was better than the soft serve ice cream at home.  It was much creamier, 
-In addition to soft serve, they also love their PDAs.  I was sitting next to a couple in a pizza place that were definitely beyound second base right there in the restaurant.  Yesterday as we walked on Kreschatyk, Norm saw a couple standing in the middle of the street making out and the guy's hand was up the front of the girl's shirt.
-The grocery store has tight security.  There are guards standing at the in and out doors and posted throughout the store. 
-Overall, the people have been very friendly.  Sure there have been a few that have yelled at us in Russian for something we inadvertently did, but most have gone out of their way to be helpful and nice.
-Out allergies aren't a lot better here than at home.  There is so much cottonwood (at least we think that's what it is) blowing all over Kiev right now.
-EVERYONE smokes here (which isn't helping our allergies, either), but the cigarettes are longer and thinner than the ones in the U.S.