Fifth day of our Waiting Period ~ Day 20

Today was my first day without Spencer and the first day I did not go to the orphanage for a visit since arriving in Zaparozhya. There really isn’t a ton to tell or show today so I decided I would take pictures of the fun little quirks of apartment I am staying in currently. First my disclaimer so that anyone reading this does not confuse any of these comments as complaints.. I love the apartment I am in and honestly it’s the best one so far! I’ll be very sad to leave this apartment but there are some funny little things about each place we stay and here are a few from this one.
First of all is the key to open the door. I just love it. It is so different. The doors here are no joke. When our door is fully locked you can see 7 bolts that lock it closed. I thought that was a lot until I visited the Faber’s and they have 18. At home our door has 1. These doors may very well be made of lead as well. They are some serious doors. My mother in law would LOVE a door like I have here. I feel very safe and secure inside my block apartment.

Next we will journey into the fun of the bathroom area! I didn’t take pictures of this but the bathtub covering is a very plastic façade. You couldn’t tell if I took a picture because it really looks nice. Then you bump into it and it bends like a cool whip container! Funny. The bathroom is where the washer is located which is a fine place for it actually. I’ve seen apartments with the washer in the kitchen, so this is more normal. The strange part is that it is set on a shelf that is about 3 ½ feet off the ground. It is very small capacity and not extremely heavy, but there is something definitely wrong somewhere inside this washer. I can’t even mention the fact that it turns all of our clothes a nice gray/blue color (including my pretty white coat – that’s another story entirely) because I don’t think that is unique here. I can mention that when we finally worked out a system to wash our clothes it includes washing them and making sure that the spin cycle is turned off. We then have to stand guard and set it to just do a spin cycle because the washer is half full of water. We first thought we could just wring the clothes out, but we didn’t realize that none of the water drained from the cycle without the spin cycle turned on. After waiting close by for the water to drain we watch as it starts spinning. As it picks up speed we have to grab the top of the washer and put as much weight hanging on it as we possibly can to try to keep it from shaking and falling from the shelf. When it starts to bounce beyond control we unplug it and wait for the door to unlock and free our semi clean, but not rinsed clothes. At least I have a washer and I am not washing clothes in the tub is my mantra as I am hanging on hoping to not get squashed by a washing machine!

We then move to the fun (why we don’t get this in America is beyond me) scented toilet papers. I think they are great. Not really that soft if I’m being honest, but they are much better than the ‘gas station-like paper towel-esk’ toilet paper that is provided. My first purchase was the peach scent; we are now trying the cherry scent. It adds a little fun I suppose.

The next room we will move to is the bedroom/living room. When we ‘contracted’ to take this apartment we were very excited because they gave us the list of ‘amenities’ and it included Internet. Nowhere in Zaparozhya includes Internet, nowhere including here as it turns out. When Spen went looking further and searched the place (I included a picture of the area she gestured towards when she explained the Internet access) we found no Internet. After the phone calls to clear the matter up, it turns out the Internet we were promised is the convenience that the restaurant in the building around the corner on the other side has Wi-Fi. “Maybe if we go and order something there and obtain the code for the Wi-Fi it will work in our apartment.” It doesn’t.

We were also told we had a full kitchen stocked with all the necessary dishes and appliances. The stove and oven were mentioned in our tour.. You can see the cupboard where the oven should be. There isn’t an oven. It isn’t an appliance I would use every day, but it sure is funny that it was included in our list!

What is funnier though is that 2 of the burners on our stove are ‘dummy’ burners. They don’t work and have never been hooked up to work. They look nice though!

Our sink is fun because it has a mind of its own. It chooses when it will or will not drain. The flexible tubing underneath the sink is helpful for this little quirk because then we can manually drain the sink and start over or ‘reset’ it.

 This is my biggest obsession/addiction of this trip.  This yogurt is just plain non sweetened yogurt, but has these delicious chocolate crunchy things to mix in it.  I LOVE it.  yum.

Today has been fun. The other families we have the pleasure of knowing through this experience have made the ‘down time’ of this trip fun. I have loved my time getting to know them and learning from them. I feel honored to be associated with these families and today they were all so wonderful in making sure I wasn’t left on my own. I went to the Faber’s apartment and all plans were changed when we woke up to rain. We all walked to the mall and their family friend who is from Ukraine, Lucy, was very helpful in choosing a few books in Russian to take home for Victoria and hopefully someday me and Spencer! Russian is hard to learn though, that may be a while! We walked over to the grocery store and Lucy helped me pick out some chocolates and candies. You may be thinking that is silly to need help choosing candies, how could you possibly go wrong there?! Some of them have little fillings that happen to contain alcohol! Not something I want to just guess and try my luck with!
I had a nice visit with Anne and we then set out to catch the bus to go to a restaurant for dinner. The bus is more like a van and I never would have tried to take it without someone who knew what they were doing.   It will be easy to find again because across the street is this beautiful church.

 The place that we went to and met everyone at was kind of a cafeteria type place where you can walk through a line and point to what you want. I was allowed to use my camera in this restaurant so I got a picture of my dinner. I’m not brave enough to try the meat roll things yet. I still have peanut butter from home from protein!

I got a cresent roll for my dessert..  Surprise!  It was FILLED with poppy seeds.  They eat a lot of fish eggs here so really when I broke into this roll that was the first thing everyone at the table thought it was!

 I ate some of if, but it really was just too many poppy seeds!

Anne was nice enough to offer to take my picture with the restaurant.  This proves it.. I really am here!

Here are a few pictures from our walk to the bus stop after dinner.  I really do think that despite the gray and crumbling nature of this place, there really is a lot of beauty.  You just really have to look for it sometimes!

It was great to have them walk me all the way to my door and make sure I was safely home. So nice and very appreciated. I was able to skype with each of my kids, my dad, and Spencer from Paris. It was a good, but very late night for me!