Church / Circus ~ Day 11

If you are following these posts - I posted 2 posts today, so be sure to read scroll down!
I was very excited about today to be honest. We bought tickets for the Ukrainian Circus and we were going to pick up Vika to take her along with the other kids. We are not very good at sticking to our plans but we got a call this morning from another family who is here saying that they are having their kids ride the bus with the school and are meeting them at the circus. The circus was a field trip for the older kids from the orphanage today. That would give us time to at least go to sacrament meeting at church. That sounded like a better plan, less driving and we could go to church!  I finally took a picture of the outside our our apartment building.

This is the street we live on.

 Church was funny. The missionaries sure tried their best to translate. We had the same problem with the dual language meetings though. This time it was the man who was conducting / speaking who kept switching languages on him. Our missionary translator was frustrated by it and it is mostly just fascinating to me. After the meeting some of the sisters grabbed me to chat. They are so sweet and try to speak to me in English. They asked (through small amounts of English and some pantomiming) what we are doing in Zaparozhia? I told them we are here to adopt a 16 year old daughter. One of the women, Olga, got very excited and told me that I should take her daughter with me! Awkward! She ran to get the missionaries and they translated that what she was saying was I could take her daughter with me because she speaks English and could help me. I’m honestly still thinking she wants me to take her to America because she kept mentioning BYU, but she also suggested she could help me as a translator while I am here. That could actually work out when Spencer leaves!  Here is a picture of the church.  It's easy to find because of the 'Tide' Box on the building!

We were late at this point and had to rush to the circus to meet the kids. I felt bad that Vika was standing there with our translator just waiting for us.
We went inside to find our seats and they were almost on the top row. Vika was sweet and said that it was much more interesting from this perspective. You can see so much more of what is going on.. A very polite way of saying that she’s used to sitting much closer! It was similar to a black box type setting. People were seated around the ring and it wasn’t really too big, so even the top row wasn’t very far. It would still be considered extremely close at home. I’m used to the Ringling Brothers in the big basketball arena type places. This was more like what you see in cartoons or something! I loved it. When Vika and our interpreter asked what was so different about our circus we both only had one answer… Nets.

The show started with some dancers. The outfits of these circus performers left very little to the imagination. Glad I didn’t have a teenage boy is all I was thinking! Then the hula hooper girls came out. Who in the world thinks of hula hooping swinging from a rope by your neck? They sure think of things like that in Ukraine! There was a lady with 5 little dogs all dressed up as children that she had trained to so all sorts of funny little tricks, there were trained cats, and monkeys. The monkeys were funny. Ezra would have died. I could hear Ethan laughing and was wishing they were there.. then I thought of the logistics of having them, mostly Mase, there and it made it easier not having them. We should have been more brave and videoed it though. Our interpreter kept telling us that they were saying no cameras allowed so I’m happy with the few pictures I snuck I suppose.

If you’ve ever seen Ocean’s 11 there is a part where they see Chinese acrobats climbing and doing tricks on poles. They did that. They were just crazy strong. It was incredible. They were climbing up a 20 foot pole upside down with only their arms touching the poles. Really it was amazing!
Vika loved the stuff that scared her. I did too because it was amazing, but it scared me into a stomach ache! Honestly, no nets! Plus it’s not really like they have their equipment very securely mounted. There are a few wires that they attached with a carabineer type system, safe enough I suppose.
The first thing we saw was a flying act. They mounted these stands that were 25 – 30 feet off the ground for 2 men to climb up and stand on. Of course they put a few bed mattresses underneath it.. honestly, like 2 twin mattresses. Then there were 2 men holding a more gymnastic pad type mat to have it mobile to catch the dude I suppose. On the far end was one of those launching type swings where they really get it going and one of them jumps and launches so high into the air. Of course he would end up in the crowd if it weren’t for the men standing on the platforms there ready to catch them! I was freaking out. There were no safety precautions at all. Vika thought it was pretty funny every time I would gasp, which was a lot. After those men all lived it was intermission. She was trying to explain what was coming next and how much it would scare me. O great.

The next death defying act was one of those rotating mouse run type things.. I did get a picture of it so I don’t have to try to describe it too much. It was pretty amazing and of course they have to jump on the outside as it is rotating around and then to do it blindfolded. I’m not sure if the man’s slipping while he was doing it was part of the act because he dropped and grabbed the edges for comfort, but once again no nets. This act didn’t even pull out the twin mattresses. Crazy. They lived though.

The animals were fun and it was incredible how close we were. Vika’s favorite was the Hyena. The Leopards just kept taking swipes at the trainers, so their tricks weren’t very long. The camels walked along the edge of the ring and did all sorts of camel tricks. There were trained horses doing tricks. Vika liked them too. She said that she wanted to be a Veterinarian because she loves animals so much. She asked what you have to do in America to do this as a profession. We shouldn’t have told her! She found out it was probably 6 extra years of school and changed her mind to being a hairdresser. She’s funny.

She seemed distracted a little bit and kept talking on the phone. I think it was her brother and he was telling her he was coming to see her today. She asked us if she was just riding the bus back with the other kids or if we were coming with her to the orphanage. We asked what she would like us to do and of course she said we can come if we would like, she didn’t care. I told her that we were OK letting her go back and just spend time alone with her brother if she would like and she was excited about that. I’m glad that he is coming to see her more frequently now that she is leaving. We were sad to not have more time with her today, but we told her we would be there tomorrow.
After the circus we walked her to her bus with her class. She grabbed hold of a girl we have never met before and they were off. Now what?! We walked over to the Pizza place with the Cooks and had yet another pizza for dinner. At least they have the delicious ‘hot chocolate’ dessert there. It is so worth it! We visited for a while with them there. It was nice to just chat. It was getting later and I told Spen that I was ready to go shopping for my watch. I’ve wanted a watch since I left our house for the airport. It drives me absolutely nuts not knowing the time.

Shopping here is SOO much different. I mentioned yesterday a bit about it. They are salespeople. In the watch store the man was so sweet and we had to use gestures to communicate, but he pulled out the few watches I liked and took the plastic off of them. He tried them on me and made sure that Spencer got a good look at what they looked like on me. I chose one and I swear you would have thought I bought a car. He filled out my warrantee and handwrote my receipts and signed all sorts of forms. I had to sign forms. He carefully wrapped my box and information up in a little bag, and walked us to another part of the mall to have my watch fitted. This wasn’t a Rolex, by the way. It’s a $30 Casio. I love it and it’s great, but I feel like I won the lottery buying it! It’s awesome!
I was happy with my purchase and we came home to make dinner and chat with the boys. It has been nice to get to see them again finally. I miss them so much. I’m hoping that one of these days we can Skype with them and Vika. She is nervous because she doesn’t know English to speak to them, but we assured her they wouldn’t care!