Happy Friday and Happy Labor Day Weekend fellow blogites! In a few hours, many of you will be fighting the traffic to get "down the shore." We hope the weather is good.
It is a bit cooler in Kiev but sunny and very nice. Karen and I have been doing some sight seeing and trying different places to eat. We went to a pizza joint on Wednesday and an Irish Pub last night (I did the fish and chips - Karen did the traditional Irish pub cheeseburger). Earlier in the day we took a boat ride and saw the sights from the water and took the metro back to the square. Today we will be headed to an art museum with our translator.
We are getting good at getting around, ordering food and making sure we have enough water for the next day. After dinner, we usually head back to our apartment - put on a movie and crash. Last night was "Office Space." One of those movies that gets funnier each time you watch it. We found a church that has an English mass on Sunday so if we are still here we are going to give it a shot. Some of you have been asking about the best e-mail address to use if you want to get in touch with us. It is best to use my work e-mail that way we can get it on my blackberry any time. The only way to get mail from other addresses is through the Internet cafe.
We wish we had more news to report than what movie we saw last night (like you really care) but....
Enjoy the Holiday Weekend. M&K
Friday, August 31, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Day 5
We just finished reading your comments from the last post and are overwhelmed by the number of people following our adventure as well as the support and best wishes from everyone. It is also great to get some updates on the Phillies and Birds. Thank you to everyone.
We had a meeting this afternoon, but nothing definitive yet. We are hopeful that we will know more by the end of the week. We remain optimistic. While we know we are in good hands with the in-country team that is working with us, we feel even better knowing who is pulling for us (and praying for us) in the states.
Maya - our apartment backs up to the blue church with gold domes next to a huge park that fronts the river. It is a beautiful area (that is where I run every morning).
Frank - Karen and I walk down our street ever morning and have coffee in the square right next to the statue of Michael - Arch Angel of Ukraine.
Karen and I had dinner in a traditional Ukraine restaurant on Monday night. I had my first bowel of borsch. It was great. Ice cream cones are only $.90. Karen is in heaven. Choices are chocolate, lemon or chocolate and lemon. When you order water, you have to specify with or without "gas." Karen has developed a serious addiction to my Blackberry. Never wanted anything to do with it until it became our life line to all of you. The weather has been beautiful. The city is very very nice and very clean.
When we get more info we will pass along. Keep the prayers coming!!! K & M
We had a meeting this afternoon, but nothing definitive yet. We are hopeful that we will know more by the end of the week. We remain optimistic. While we know we are in good hands with the in-country team that is working with us, we feel even better knowing who is pulling for us (and praying for us) in the states.
Maya - our apartment backs up to the blue church with gold domes next to a huge park that fronts the river. It is a beautiful area (that is where I run every morning).
Frank - Karen and I walk down our street ever morning and have coffee in the square right next to the statue of Michael - Arch Angel of Ukraine.
Karen and I had dinner in a traditional Ukraine restaurant on Monday night. I had my first bowel of borsch. It was great. Ice cream cones are only $.90. Karen is in heaven. Choices are chocolate, lemon or chocolate and lemon. When you order water, you have to specify with or without "gas." Karen has developed a serious addiction to my Blackberry. Never wanted anything to do with it until it became our life line to all of you. The weather has been beautiful. The city is very very nice and very clean.
When we get more info we will pass along. Keep the prayers coming!!! K & M
Monday, August 27, 2007
Update from Ukraine - Day 3
Sorry it has taken us so long to update our blog. We moved out of our first apartment on Sunday morning and the new apartment does not have a hard wire internet connection. The aircard we brought as a back up is not connecting to the network yet, but we have our hopes that we will be back up and running soon. In the meantime, we are writing from an internet cafe in the center of Kiev. $2/hour for intrnet time - not bad.
As we mentioned we are in a new apartment. Very nice. We hope to post pictures soon. On Sunday we learned that our appointment for Monday was cancelled. Without getting into too much detail, we learned that we needed to wait to make sure that all went well the first time around. Our team took us around and taught us how to exchange money, use the washing machine, use the internet cafe, cross the street, etc. Everything has been a real learning experience. Kiev is very nice. very clean. Many - many people. We have lots of pictures to share.
Today we went sightseeing. We visited an Orthodox church that was more than 1,000 years old and walked through a war memorial. We also did a bit of grocery shopping. No malls for karen today. A lot of walking. Michael found a very nice park to run in each morning and there is a coffee shop righ down the street from our apartment. After sightseeing we wnet back to our apaprtment and got a call from our team to let us know we have an appointment for Wednesday!!!! We are very excited. We will spend tomorrow seeing more of Kiev and getting ready for the big day.
We cannot tell you how much we look forward to reading your comments. Very few people speak English so we almost feel as though we are talking to all of you when you write. Keeps us going when we get frustrated or sick of talking to each other (never happens). We hope to send back some pictures soon. We are well. Our team is very nice and very helpful. We are finding everything we need and looking forward to Wednesday.
Please keep us in your thoughts/prayers and pray that things go well on Wednesday. Bye for now from Kiev! K&M
As we mentioned we are in a new apartment. Very nice. We hope to post pictures soon. On Sunday we learned that our appointment for Monday was cancelled. Without getting into too much detail, we learned that we needed to wait to make sure that all went well the first time around. Our team took us around and taught us how to exchange money, use the washing machine, use the internet cafe, cross the street, etc. Everything has been a real learning experience. Kiev is very nice. very clean. Many - many people. We have lots of pictures to share.
Today we went sightseeing. We visited an Orthodox church that was more than 1,000 years old and walked through a war memorial. We also did a bit of grocery shopping. No malls for karen today. A lot of walking. Michael found a very nice park to run in each morning and there is a coffee shop righ down the street from our apartment. After sightseeing we wnet back to our apaprtment and got a call from our team to let us know we have an appointment for Wednesday!!!! We are very excited. We will spend tomorrow seeing more of Kiev and getting ready for the big day.
We cannot tell you how much we look forward to reading your comments. Very few people speak English so we almost feel as though we are talking to all of you when you write. Keeps us going when we get frustrated or sick of talking to each other (never happens). We hope to send back some pictures soon. We are well. Our team is very nice and very helpful. We are finding everything we need and looking forward to Wednesday.
Please keep us in your thoughts/prayers and pray that things go well on Wednesday. Bye for now from Kiev! K&M
Saturday, August 25, 2007
We're Here!
After a rough start out of Philly (2 hour delay) our flight out of JFK was on time. We landed in Kiev around 8:30 am (Ukraine time) - 1:30 am US time. After a quick ride from the airport to the city, we moved into our apartment (for now) and did a little bit of grocery shopping. What an adventure that was. We have a meeting with some of the members of our team at 4:00 pm today and should get more information - if we can stay awake.
I will try to get the camera going to send back pics of the apartment and downtown Kiev. Lot's of shopping for Karen. So all is well for now.
I will try to get the camera going to send back pics of the apartment and downtown Kiev. Lot's of shopping for Karen. So all is well for now.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Are you still there?
Good news! We received word from our agency last week that we have an appointment in Kiev on the 27th of August. While we have had a couple "false starts" in June and July, we believe this one may actually be it. We are set to fly out of Philadelphia airport this Friday morning - arriving in Kiev around 9:00 am Saturday morning. Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes off as planned. We want to thank everyone again for their support throughout this process and also for your donations of movies, books, electronics, etc. They will all go to very good use over the next month.
We are very excited to get started on the next leg of this journey and hope to share much of it with you through this blog. So no news this week is good news. If all goes well, our next entry to this blog will come from Ukraine. Stayed tuned!
We are very excited to get started on the next leg of this journey and hope to share much of it with you through this blog. So no news this week is good news. If all goes well, our next entry to this blog will come from Ukraine. Stayed tuned!
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