The Last Post

We have now been home for two weeks. The difference in Sophia is incredible. It took her 5 full days to get over her jet-lag and then another two to really start settling in. But now she is exploring the house, loves going outside and even started walking last night.

We took her to the doctor last week and she was put on some antibiotics for her nose, ears and throat infection. Now that the infection is gone, we can't believe her energy. She is sleeping about 12 hours per night (8:00-8:00) and even has a two hour nap every afternoon. So we are even getting the sleep we want. Let's hope it lasts.

Looking back at this experience, we realised just how lucky we were to find Sophia. The journey was long, nerve racking, streessful and Lisa and I have never been so close. Lisa and I absolutley love our new family and life!

Thank you to everyone for your comments and emails of love and support. We could not have done it without you.

Sophia, Lisa and Andrew Hrycajkiw
XOXO

Day 55 - Life at home

We spent the weekend trying to get Sophia used to her new life. Unfortunately, she is way too tired, so all we can do is give her as much as she will take. This is not very much, because she is not sleeping or eating very well. Everything is new, so we are trying to be as patient as possible.

Day 53 - Welcome to Canada Sophia

Yesterday and today was absolutely crazy. We picked up Sophia and spent all morning and afternoon at the passport office in Uzghorod. We rushed back to Svaliava to catch the overnight train and just made it (with just 6 minutes to spare). Then we took the 14 hour overnight train to Kiev. If one thing works as it should, it is the trains. We arrived exactly on schedule. Our facilitator was there to meet us and we went straight to the Canadian Embassy. There, they quickly processed us and within an hour we were off to the airport. From here all went smoothly (except for the fact that Sophia had now gone a day and a half without a good sleep or meal). Once we entered Canada, Lisa and I were ready to jump for joy. We are so happy to be home!

Day 51 - Well, bad news, sort of

If you read yesterday's blog, we let everyone know that if things went well today, there will not be a new post today. Obviously, things did not go well again. We are still waiting. But, we did get some good news, we were informed we will be recieving a red passport for Sophia. This will occur tomorrow afternoon. The passport director is actually going with us to Uzgorod to ensure all goes well. I told him that if we have the passport in hand by 4:00pm, we can get back to Svaliava, get Sophia and make it to our train to Kiev by 6:30pm.

We have already purchased our train tickets and the Canadian Embassy in Kiev has been made aware that we will be arriving at around 10:00am and they must complete the visa within one hour. Luckily, the embassy is closed to visitors on Fridays, so we will have no interuptions while there. From there, we head straight to the airport.

Thursday night and all day Friday are now going to be very painful, we do not expect to sleep much, eat much and have a very cranky child with us, but at least we are on our way home and can't be happier about that.

Day 50 - Hotel California

"Welcome to the Hotel California...you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave!"

Well today was pretty much a right off. We found out early this morning the passport office needed a couple more documents, so we ran around gathering them and delivered the full passport package to the office around 10:00am. We were told they would approve this after lunch. 2:00, 3:00 then 4:00 pm came and still no word. We decided to go back to the office and wait. Finally at 5:30 the Chief called us into his office and told us we has not been able to get the people he needs to aprove our request. We need this approval because we had asked for a slightly different passport then the norm. We require Sophia to get a red passport (the old style as of this year) as opposed to the new blue passport. This is important because a red passport can be created within a couple of hours whereas the blue is totally digital and takes 10 days.

We were asked to go back at 10:00am tomorrow to get the documents and deliver then to Uzgorod and hopefully within an hour leave with Sophia's new passport. This is still totally up in the air, so watch and shoot.

On a positive note, tomorrow we will be picking up our daughter and saying our goodbyes to the orphanage. If all goes well we will not have time to post anything tomorrow as we will be on a train to Kiev. So hopefully we get the RED PASSPORT!

Day 49 – It’s Official…

After a full day of running around, we are now the proud parents of Sophia Halina Hrycajkiw!

Today started with a little bit of a panic. We picked up our facilitator at the train station at 9:00, after a quick coffee, we were off to the court to pick up the Court Decree. We were told it was to be ready around 9:00am, but we found out the presiding judge was out of the city all morning and would return after lunch (really means 2:00pm). We told the clerks this was not acceptable because we need to obtain the new birth certificate today. To add fire, we found out the records department (which issues birth certificates) is closed on Tuesdays, so this delay might cost us 2 full days. Well after a couple of phone calls and a box of chocolates and bottle of sparkling wine, the clerk was now able to sign and stamp on behalf of the judge. Halina was now officially ours. We were on our way to Uzhorod by 10:30. We got to the records department right before lunch and snuck in just in time. Then off to get the new birth certificate legalized at the city hall. Our daughter’s new official name is Sophia Halina Hrycajkiw. Then back to Svaliava to sign the release form from the orphanage, meet with the notary for all the certified copies we will need and an application for a new passport. Once all this was done, it was off to the Svaliava passport office (the chief of which was waiting for us), to compile all the paperwork we will need to get the new passport.

We will not know yet how long the passport will take, but for now everything we wanted to accomplish today was done. Hopefully tomorrow goes like today, and we will be on a train Wednesday night back to Kiev to finish this long process.

Day 48 – Started to pack

Lisa and I took some time this morning to buy most of the last minute stuff we will need for the long journey home and actually started to pack all of the our stuff up. It does not look so bad; 2 huge suitcases and a sports bag for check-in and 3 small bags and a stroller to carry-on. I think we even managed to shed some weight from the trip here (mostly because we eat all the food we brought).

At 9:00 am tomorrow, we pick-up our facilitator and then don’t expect to stop running around until late. If tomorrow and Tuesday go well, then things will be awesome. Wish us luck!

Day 47 – 6 days left in the wakie

It has been a slow week here. On Monday, Sophia’s group was closed and divided up into other groups within the orphanage. Luckily Sophia was moved into a small group with three of her old friends. New the group now has 12 children and the caregivers are all much younger. Sophia has had a little bit of trouble adjusting to her new surroundings, caregivers and friends. She seems to have regressed slightly in her walking and talking. We think this is an indication of what it will be like when we get her home.

We spent the day touring some of the wonders of Svaliava. We went for some more of the famous mineral water, visited the 800 year old all wooden church (another famous site) and then went up into the mountains where we caught our own “forrae” a unique fish (related to the salmon family) which only lives in pure moving water and had it cooked for us on the roadside. This was probably the best fish we had ever eaten.

We have added some more pictures below of Sophia and our day.

Day 44 - Drinks with the chief

The countdown has begun. We have booked our flight home. We depart Ukraine the afternoon of 5 December. We are 9 more sleeps until the big trip back over the pond.

Last night we found out our landlord is leaving on vacation and he invited us into one of the private rooms at the hotel for a celebratory drink. We found out last Friday what Ukrainians call a "drink". It really means the glass keeps getting filled until the bottle(s) are gone. Lisa did not take part as she was still recovering from the "drink" we had on Friday night. Yuri, our landlord introduced us tot he Chief of Police for the region. They asked what was left for us to do, and once they found out, they started calling all department heads we will need to speak to, to make sure all goes smoothly for us. We are now formally known by Police, city officials, passport office and records as " the couple form Canada; he speaks Ukrainian, and she only speaks English". If we have any problems, the chief gave us his personal phone number.

We now know the in Ukraine it is not what you know, but who you know.

Day 41 - The Waiting Game

Now that court is done, we must wait for an additional 10 calendar days for the Judge’s decision to take effect. We are told this is when all the third parties are given time to review all the documents and ensure all is in order. We are confident this is the case so all we can do is wait. We are planning to receive the final court decree on Monday 1 December and then spend the next four days getting a new birth certificate, passport and Canadian visa. If all goes as planned, we have leave Ukraine on 5 December. We will add a new post every couple of days for this week, as we do not think much will happen here.

Winter has finally arrived and the town looks beautiful in white. Last Friday was Saint Michael’s Day, so to all people named after him happy namesake! Saturday evening, Lisa and I noticed candles burning in almost everyone’s windows. We asked some friends what this meant, and they explained it was the 75th anniversary of “The Holodomor” or Great Famine where the Soviets murdered (through starvation) almost 5,000,000 Ukrainians. It was a noticeably sombre evening around town.

Day 39 - Court complete...Success

Well today has been a whirlwind. We arrived at court this morning, to hear that our facilitator was on a train which arrived 35 minutes after court was due to start. As we waited, the power went out in the building, and it did not turn back on until 8:45 (maybe there is hope he will make it). No such luck, the orphanage lawyer informed the judge that our facilitator was not here. We were told that if we need him, court will be rescheduled for one week later. That was not going to happen, I told them we will proceed without the facilitator. After about 20 minutes answering the judges questions, he stood up, said he awards Halina, now to be named Sophia, to us and this judgement takes effect in 10 days. He then quickly walked out and Lisa and I stood there looking at each other thinking, is that it? After some handshakes from the orphanage lawyer and the director of juvenile services, we were now parents. We went out to the street to wait for our facilitator (because he had brought with him the last important document needed from Kiev). When he arrived, we told him court was done, give the document to the orphanage lawyer and Lisa proceeded to go up one side of him and down the other. I was so proud of her, I just stood there and cheered her on.

We spent the rest of the day going around to the various governement departments to find out exactly how things work in this oblast for getting the rest of the documents we need. We will take the weekend to plan our exit stradegy, but our hope is to be flying out on 5 December.

The moment you have all been waiting for......

Introducing...Sophia Halina Hrycajkiw

Day 38 -Our last post about Halina

We have slowly gotten to know Halina and her personality. Here are just a few of her traits: independent, head strong, very impatient, (when she wants it, she means NOW) bright (likes to be shown something once and then figure it out on her own), loves music and likes to show off. Oh….did I mention the shoe fettish.? Sounds like a couple of people we know!

We look forward to announcing her new name and posting her picture tomorrow after court.

Day 37 - Halina's first steps

Yesterday during our walk to the orphanage we noticed snow on the mountains tops. Today Lisa and I woke to dark clouds. Just as we arrived at the orphanage, the flurries started and it snowed all day. We enclosed a couple of pictures.

Today during our afternoon visit, Halina took her own first steps. She was with one of the caregivers, and decided to let go of her and walk about 4 feet into Lisa’s arms. We were all shocked. So we tried it again and again. By the time I figured out to go and grad the camera, Halina decided she would rather sit down and play with some cubes. Things seem to be getting better by the day, we are definitely starting to feel Halina is missing us. She gets so excited when we arrive and when we start to leave she reaches for us and starts to cry. We just can’t wait to bring her home.

We spoke to Victor and he will be arriving in Svaliava Friday mourning at 4:45 am. This is actually our choice because flying him in is just too expensive.

Day 36 - Pictures of our daily walk to the orphanage

Day 34 – Another quiet day

Lisa and I took the morning off again today to go visit the local monastery. We got there in time for Sunday mass. Churches here (at least the Orthodox ones) do not have pews, everyone stands. Those which cannot find room inside, stand outside and look in through the doors and listen to the service through speakers on the outside of the church. The grounds are beautiful and it made for a very pleasant morning. We enclosed a couple of pictures.

Day 33 – A visit to the Sanatorium

After a long day yesterday we decided to take the morning off and visit one of the local sanatoriums. Our intent was to pamper ourselves for a few hours at the spa but soon found out it is closed on the weekends. So, we spent a couple of hours walking the grounds and went to have some lunch (we posted some pictures). A change scenery was much needed.

Day 32 - Court date

After the run around today we finally received notice of our court date. It is Friday November 21st at 8:30am. The procedure usually takes about 15 minutes and then Halina will officially be ours. Well, after the 10 day waiting period. After court we will post some pictures and announce her new full name. Finally!!!!

Day 30 - SDA approval received

Today we recieved a call from Victor our facilitator. He had our approval from Kiev and he was sending it on the Ukrainain fedex tonight. We will recieve it tomorrow morning and delivery it directly to the orphanage lawyer. He has told us he will take it to the the judge tomorrow and inquire about our court date. At least it's another small step completed.

Day 29 – Anxiously waiting for our court date

Well the last couple of days have been extremely slow. Lisa and I took a moment to observe Remembrance Day this morning, but it was very hard in a room full of screaming children. The weather is starting to turn. Today we woke to clouds and 4 degrees, but by afternoon the sun came out and made for a pleasant day.

We have been visiting Halina twice daily. The rash on her cheek cleared up and the doctor is letting us feed her bananas and yogurt again. She let us know this morning how impressed she is with Halina’s development (walking and talking). The caregivers let us know that Halina now starts to act up at 10:00 am and 4:00pm because she now understands when we are arriving. Hopefully this means she is starting to miss us!

The orphanage lawyer has not yet received word from the courts as to when our court date will be, and Victor has not yet received the approval documents from Kiev. All we can do is wait. Today for lunch we sat down at the restaurant and ordered without the menu. We no longer need it as we have it memorized.

Day 27 - Tourists for a Day

We went to visit with Halina again this morning. The rash on one of her cheeks was still there, so we just assumed we would not be allowed to feed her. We played with her for an hour and a half until it was clear food was all she wanted. We pretty much let the caregivers take over and get her ready for lunch.

Lisa and I knew the afternoon would not be pleasant, so we decided that today would be a good day to visit some of the local sights. We spent the afternoon in Mukachavo a beautiful old city about 25 km south of Svaliava. We have enclosed some pictures of the city center and old fortress.

On our way to Mukachavo, we stopped at an old well on the side of the highway. The locals come here to fill water bottles of the famous mineral water of the Carpathian’s. We should have taken a picture but we will next time, but basically we stuck a well used cup down the well, drew water and drank it. It was very hazy and tasted kind of like Perrier.

Day 25 - Shopping at the Bazaar

Well today was another beautiful day in Svaliava. The sun is out, blue skies and light cool breeze. During our morning visit with Halina, one of the orphanage doctors asked us about the rash on Halina cheeks. She though were might be feeding her some juice, but when we told her we only feed her bananas, and yogurt and some other fruits, she said that she gets all those things already, and does not know what the rash is from. She asked us to only give her chai until the rash clears up (a day or two). Boy, Halina was cranky this afternoon.

We went shopping at the bazaar this afternoon and found Halina a new pair of shoes, as she has almost outgrown the ones we gave her were a couple of weeks ago. On our way to the hotel, we stopped in at a restaurant for lunch. The varenike (perogies) were delicious but still not like baba makes.

We are now waiting to hear when our court date is, and then wait for it to come. The next few days are going to be pretty boring (except for our visits with Halina).

Day 25 - The Caregivers

Today after our morning visit with Halina, we realised that not all of her caregivers are the same. Today’s crew was the cranky crew. There techniques were not as entertaining for the children. We took Halina out for our daily walk and on our return entered a room filled with silence. The care givers had sat them all down, gave them no toys and told them to be quiet. One caregiver stood in the corner snacking and watching a soap opera while the other was making notes in the daily log. Luckily Halina started to sing and laugh. We brought her some toys and all the kids started to play.

It is funny how some of the ladies are so helpful, while others are not. One of the cranky ladies asked me what we are feeding her to cause the rash on her cheeks? We told some banana, yogurt and other fruits. She then told us that she eats all that already and we don’t need to give her anymore. I challenged her on what we were told by the doctors and then asked her what we should feed her, and she said bananas and yogurt are alright (we assume she probably does not like the extra diaper changes Halina will reqr). We left smiling and politely told the ladies to pound salt.

Day 24 - Another Great Day.

Today was a big day. We found out that the last of Halina's blood work came back and it was all negitive and the X-rays came back as normal. The orphanage lawyer had us sign our petition for the courts and then took our dossier to the judge and had it filled. We are now waiting for our court date which we think should be in the next 2 weeks. The count down to comming home will be on soon......

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing and feeding Halina. What a great time we had. She is really responding well to us and is so exsited to see us arrive. What a feeling it is to have a little one squeal when you walk in the room.

A friend in need

Ulrika, a friend I have known for about 7 years is having complications with her pregnancy. She will be undergoing an emergency C-section today. All your thoughts and prayers have been helping us so much, we ask that you take a moment and say a little prayer for her and her ‘jellybean”.

Day 23 - What a Morning.

Today a doctor from Kiev conducted her medical examination of Halina. Lisa and I sat in a room by ourselves for over 2 hours waiting for the results. This was so stressful. Finally we met with the doctor for our debrief. Our course English is not her primary language, and we could not really get a straight answer from her. Finally after about 25 minutes (and my repeated attempts to get her to tell us what her recommendation to Vienna will be, Lisa blurted out “IS SHE ADOPTABLE?” The doctor looked at us and said “of course”, she is healthier them most children she sees. This was great news. Now we did not mind listening to her ramblings about diseases in various parts of the world.

There were two major concerns she had with Halina 1) the repeated bouts with her respiratory illness (which she believes was pneumonia but could have been tuberculosis) as a precaution we took Halina for a chest x-ray to rule TB out. The preliminary results were negative. 2) Her delays in walking and talking (which are probably related to the first concern). She informed us of a bunch of minor little things but all so minor, they are not worth mentioning. She could tell that Halina has started to blossom and thinks she will be a healthy normal child. What a relief!

Day 22 - Starting a Routine

Well Lisa and I have been working hard to figure out how we can work ourselves into Halina's day. I think Lisa has figured it all out. Today we put our plan into effect and it worked out beautifully. Halina is happy in the morning and miserable in the afternoon. We believe this is because of the gap in her meal times between lunch and dinner. So today we had a small treat in the morning and a big snack (a banana, kids yogurt and treat) as soon as we arived in the afternoon. She was so happy all day. We followed up our afternoon play session with chai (which all the kids drink here) and she was good to go. She was a little sad when we started to wave good-bye for the night.

We are totally hooked.

Tonight we are expecting the doctor from Kiev to arrive, so that she can do the immigration in the morning. All the things seem like they are progressing, just not as fast as we hoped.

Day 21 - More Paperwork

This morning Lisa and I had to go to the Government offices to meet with the Juvenile Services. They informed us that the paperwork we are expecting to pick-up will be ready at 3:00pm this afternoon. This freed up some time so we hopped in a taxi and went to see Halina. Again she was very happy to see us but seems a little cranky again. We played for about an hour, and at 11:20 (like clock work) she had had enough. So started her tantrums, but we knew that it was lunch time so we sat her down and let the care givers go through their lunch routine.

On our way back to our room, we received a call from the immigration doctor in Kiev. She wanted to know details about coming complete the immigration medical. So we tracked down the orphanage director and found out the remaining blood tests we had ordered would not be ready until Wednesday. We are going to try to arrange her to travel here for Thursday morning, complete the medical and send her home on Thursday night. We also found out that Victor was at the Canadian Embassy this morning to pick-up the necessary paperwork for the immigration medical. Two big steps being completed simultaneously, gotta like that. Things may be slow, but at least we had some progress.

Day 20 - "Little Miss Cranky Pants"

This weekend was absolutley beautiful. We have been in T-shirts and eating outside. We tried to create a new post yesterday from our hotel room. Unfortunately we had a couple of bad settings in our cell phone and as a result our prepaid card was sucked dry within 5 minutes. Oh well, we went to see the guy who helped set it all up and another 25 Gryvnas later, we found the problem. We will try it out again tonight.

Halina, which is now how we call her (coincidentally Andrew's mother's name). It took a while to figure out that Ukrainians do not have a G in their alphabet (actually they do, but it a long story). They say the cerillic "G" as an "H", thus Galina to the Russians is really Halina to all her Ukrainian caregivers and little friends at the orphanage.

Yesterday, we think Halina was cutting in teeth and she was a "liitle miss cranky pants" for both of our visits. Not much we could but listen to her tantrums.

Today is her 19 month birthday and it was a great day. We spent over 4 hours with her and she was in such a great mood. She gets very excited when she sees us and did not want us to leave (until some food was placed in front of her that is). We are working on geting her to stand on her own and take her first steps. We think this will happen before we leave Ukraine.

Day 18 - Happy Halloween

Today was very interesting. It appears my Ukrainian has started to either help or hinder. The director of the orphanage has been woking very hard to get our file processed. He was hoping to have us sign a bunch of paperwork this afternoon and go and see the judge (for what I have no idea). This is going on concurrently with running around getting a copy of Galina's birth certificate and some passport photos off to Kiev. Unfortunately, the director has asked us to do a couple of things that our facilitator does not understand. It was clear yesterday from the director that he feels my Ukrainian is very good and says we can easily get a few things done withot Victor our faciitator.

Victor is a hard to read. It seems we need to force his hand to get action from him. So today in the director's office I did just that. All of a sudden he now understands what is going on and has given us some good info to go ahead with.

Alas, the people we needed to see in the governemnt offices were out on a conference so all the running around we did will be worked out on Monday.

Day 17 - Making Progress

Today we spent the morning with Galina. She is starting to recognize us when we come in with a big smile. We will hopefuly hear in the next 2 or 3 days how her medical test went. She seemed extra quiet, but this was probably because she was out of her normal pattern for a couple of days.

We have been bringing treats to Galina (bananas seem to a big hit) and today were able to feed her lunch. It's funny how she stores all the food at the top of her mouth and cheeks like a chipmonk.

Today we are working on getting a couple of passport photos taken and getting them to Kiev on the old FedEx train.

Day 15 - We received our luggage from Kiev

This morning I went to the train station and waited for the train from Kiev to arrive. Igor (one of our facilitators) gave all our remaining luggage to the conductor and I needed to find her on car 12 to pick them up. I was not sure how simple this was going to be, but in the end, once I found car 12, asked for Ulia and identified myself and Andrew, she handed me all the luggage. This must be the Ukrainian version of FedEx.

We are off shortly to see Galina (hopefully she is in good spirits after being poked and prodded). We brought some treats to make her fell better (bananas and cookies). Afterwards, Lisa and I are off to have dinner at a lady's home. We met Nadia a couple of days ago at the orphanage where we see her every once in a while visitting with the children. She does not speak any english, so I will be putting my Ukrainain to the test.

Not much else to report.

Day 14 - All quiet on the western front

Today Lisa and I acted as tourists in Svaliava. People here are wonderful. Yesderday while having dinner at a restaurant we frequent, the cook asked if she could prepare a new meal for us that was not on the menu. Nerviously we agreed, she brought out an orange paste and bowl of feta cheese. The paste was a blend of corn and whipped cream. We were told that this is not really a dinner meal, more for lunch but she wanted us to have taste. Believe it or not, the paste was good, and even better covered in feta. The small dish is probably enough to keep a whole company of men warn during the winter!

We have downloaded some more pictures of around Svaliava. We spent a lot of time at the bazar today looking at children clothes. We purchased a new pair of leather shoes and a winter coat. We hope they are going to fit.

We were able to walk to the orphanage today. It took almost 30 mins but of course we did not take to most direct route. Lisa and I tried this twice before and both times got totally lost. Finding our way (even if it was the long way) is great. Now we can work on getting a shortcut.

We were not intending to go by the orphanage today because we wer told Galina will be away for tests. But since we were there, we decided to stop in. The director stuck his head out of his window as we arrived and told us Galina had left and will probably be spending the night at the hospital. He let us know that we should come back tomorrow afternoon. This is actually a relief to us, because it meant they actually remembered to send Galina away for the tests as we were told. Lisa and I have little faith in people sticking to the proposed timetable. We really hope all went well.

Our Hotel

Urainian self propelled lawn mower!

Day 13 - Updates

Our apartment is really a hotel room right in the center of town. The owners are amazing. They have bent over backwards to help us. An example of this is Andrew left our cell phone in a taxi cab yesderday the after a couple of hours of calling every one they knew and driving us to the cab company, we found it. We feel as though they are kind and genuine people.

Things here are really inexpensive. For $15.00 USD you can eat a great meal. Soup, salad, a main dish and drinks. The town is really a step back in time (about 50 years). More photos will be attached later.

We go to visit Galina twice daily (for a total of about three hours). All is going great. She has beautiful big brown eyes, a great smile and is tall for an 18 month old. She is pale, and has super short brown hair (because they shave their hair to prevent lice) and has an infectious giggle. We have seen her five times now and already see an improvement. She is not walking, but you can tell is really trying. She has no words yet, but just today started making about three new expressions and sounds. Galina recognizes us when we arrive and waves bye when we leave. Her caregivers seem to be very caring and helpful.

We have decided not to announce her new name or post pictures of her as we want to wait until we are sure all is in order to complete the adoption. All the medicals will be completed this week and this is a a major hurdle. Once we have a court date and all is good to go, we will make our announcement. Sorry to make all of you wait.

We will continue to provide updates, but there will may not be one tomorrow. Galina is off to Uzkarad (bad spelling) and we will not see her, so there will not be much to tell. But we will try to post more pictures.

Our arrival in Svaliava

From Kiev we decided (no, actually were told) we should fly to Lviv and then make a decision on how to travel the last 200 km to Svaliava. The flight was great. One hour (as opposed to 12 hours on train) and the pilot fly with out with military pecision. We started the engines at our departure time, began to taxi and immidiately off we went. We fly in Lviv and I have taken longer taxiing a Cesna at Buttonville airport then the 737 did. Off the plane and an old cart waited for us at the terminal entrance with all the bags on it.

Lisa and I spent the evening with some great new friends we met; Joe and Martha. Both are currently triing to adopt a little boy Lviv through the same agency as us. We spent the evening talking about our experiences, sharing photos and laughing about how some things work here in Ukraine. In the morning we drove to Svaliava, which took 3.5 hours and brought us within an inch of our lives. We would probably best describe driving here as street racing (except without the care of getting caught).

Our first exposure to Svaliava was seeing horse drawn carts, chickens, goats and ox being walked through town. After meeting with the town child services rep, we discovered the Svaliava was celebrating its independance from Nazi rule. All the governement services were shutting down. After pleading to have the proper paperwork generated, we tried to find the orphanage director. Finally tracked him down and met him. All went very well. We went to the infirmery to see Galina for the first time, but she was not a happy camper. We saw her for about 2 minutes and then off we went to do more paperwork.

After running around for a solid 3 hours, we needed to find a place to stay.

Day 12 - We have Contact!

Hello everyone. Lisa and I arrived in Svaliava yesterday around noon and it has been a hectic past 36 hours. It has taken all of this time just to find a connection to the world via the internet, so we apologise for the brief post. Now that we found this bar (it's in the basement of a row of houses in the middle of some back woods part of town) we will try to give lots of details tomorrow.

All that to say, Lisa and I have now visited the orphanage 3 times to meet a beautiful little girl named Galina (which is to become her new middle name). She seems very healthy and already recognizes us when we arrive with big smile.

Lisa and I could not be happier and already miss not being around her.

We are living in the one commercial hotel in town (about 20 mins walk to orphanage) and the owners are amazing. If everything is open tomorrow, we will provide a pile of details for you all.

Day 10 - Leaving Kiev

Finally, we got a call from Victor with our approval to visit the little girl. We will be flying to Lviv in about 2 hours and spending the night with our new friends from Canada Joe and Martha (they are from the same adoption agency as us in Toronto). Tomorrow morning we will hop on a quick train ride to Svaliava and go directly to the orphanage. We will be spending the weekend in Svaliava and hopefully lots of time with the child. Sunday night, we will be heading back to Kiev on an overnight train with Victor, the caregiver and the little girl for a medical examination on Monday. After that point (if all goes well) we then will head back to Slaviava to spend the rest of our stay in there.

Well at least we can finally get moving, but NO SWAN LAKE FOR YOU.

Day 9 - Still waiting

Just heard from Victor and we still do not have permission to travel to Svaliava. It is become very apparent that although the we own the watch, they own the time.

Lisa and I spent the day touring the south end of the city. More photos below. We have really started to love this city (as much as we are trying to leave it). We would describe it as very clean and safe. It is funny watching people young and old sitting around every walkway drinking beer and laughing. Yet all of the rubish ends up in the trash bins. The people here really have pride in their city. We found out from some locals that Kiev in similar to Toronto, in that it is the city most Ukrainians loves to hate. I guess that is what happens with all economic centers.

We will be digging deep into Ukrainian culture for dinner this evening. We will be eating "varennike" or perogies as we know them in Canada.

Hopefully we will be on a train tomorrow and therefore no post for the blog. We shall see.

Photo's of Kiev's Botanical Gardens.

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The Opera House -They will be performing Swan Lake on October 25th - We will try to get tickets.