State Department of Adoption interview~ Day 5

I have to actually go back and finish up last night since we set out again after my post!  Several other of the families arrived and we all met at a little restaurant up the street between those two buildings with signs on them.  It was fun to see everyone, but we made it home pretty late.  We are just no good at getting to bed at a reasonable hour yet.  I think it's still the time change and we just loose track of time.  That reasoning doesn't really account for why we wake up so early, but oh well.  I love this city at night.  The buildings are all so beautiful.  The city of Kyiv is populated by over 4 million people.  That is why any street you walk up or down the buildings are so big and tall.  I'm used to there being kind of a main downtown where a few blocks have sky rises or bigger buildings.  That is how every building is that I've seen here in Kyiv, aside from the churches.  That big glass dome is in the main square and is the skylight for the two story underground mall that stretches the other direction under the street and under the large statue you can see in the next photo I am standing in front of.

 We've been really surprised by the weather how warm and nice it has been.  There are several things that I brought that I don't even think I will use once or maybe won't use for long.  This was Sunday night and there was some sort of large scale event happening in the main square.  So many people came!  We were walking by here after it broke up.

 This is just a picture of a building on the main street.  I love the buildings here.  I don't have any idea what a lot of them are, but they are so beautiful.  I'm getting braver at taking pictures.

This road is the main road and we are staying just off of it.  We walked down to get to the main square and got to see a lot of people driving on the sidewalks looking for a parking place.  Yes, this is a wide sidewalk and that car is just driving along waiting for people to get out of his way.

This is what the entrance to our apartment looks like.  Spencer wanted me to get picutres to freak our parents out about how scary it is.  It's not so bad.  It kind of looks that way though.  The building is locked by a code and noone can get in.  The inside is actually worse, but once you finally get into the apartment itself it's pretty nice.   

 Our building door.  At least the light works, right?

Here is our elevator.  The elevators here are tiny.  Again it takes me straight to Mason.  First of all you have to go up one flight of stairs to get to the elevator and then it is REALLY tiny!  2 people squish especially if you are avoiding touching the walls!

So now I'll post about today.  Today was the day that actually scheduled us to come here.  Our SDA appointment was this morning at 9:00 am.  We were up and ready to go when Oleg arrived to drive us there.  It's interesting how the roads are all one way.  There rarely is a crosswalk even.  I only tell you this because a 15 minute walk took us longer to drive due to traffic and having to drive and manuever one way roads!  This building is the SDA.  I was amazed and understood immediately why they come and drive us here because even if we could find an address we would think we were in the wrong place once we arrived!  It is a very small office with 2 rooms for the SDA.  Thank heavens for Natasha.  I get all tongue tied and don't know what to say.  The pschyologist asked us about ourselves and I started to tell her, but Natasha stepped in and introduced us because I forgot to even tell her our names!  The interview part was VERY short.  I brought a photo book of pictures of our kids and family out doing things together.  My intention of doing so was mainly for Victoria, but it really was very useful here.  Natasha happened to be just looking at it when she came in the room so she handed it to the woman and that was our introduction of our family.  She shared a lot of official information about Victoria and asked if this was the child we would like to visit.  Yes, it was.  We were amazed how everything they did was handwritten.  When she put us on the registry officially allowing us to travel to the region where the orphanage is, it was a notebook that was all hand written.  We signed next to her written statement that those were our intentions and we were done!

The SDA is situated right next to St. Andrews Cathedral.  We were unable to go inside due to the renovations, but it was beautiful.  The road that this Cathedral sits on is made of very uneven cobblestones.  Beware with heels, not so great for a wheel chair, and Ethan - don't even think of trying to wear wheelies on this road!  Across the street is a litte pizza place and the tourist row.  It has market type shopes with souveniers.  Fun to browse.  There are so many mosaics here.  It's beautiful.  You can see Spencer in the pizza place with another family and a few of our facilitators.  Being 9 am I had crepes rather than pizza.  Delicious.  I should have taken another picture.

Here is St. Andrews.  I wish we could have gone inside to see it.

Looking down the street.  This street is so old. 

These are the cobblestones the road is made out of.  It is more like 4 wheel driving when you are in a car, but beautiful.  Natasha said that these are the original stones set for the road.  They are at over a thousand years old.  So much history.

The pizza place.  I am amazed by how well most sit down restaurants can accomidate English speakers.  The menues are great too, they have pictures and have the English translation.  Very handy.

Me and Natasha after a successful appointment.  Phew, we passed.  Now for the nerves and anticipation of traveling and seeing her!  She doesn't know we are here but she is aware that eventually we were coming.  Most of the families have bonded with the kids they are coming for.  We feel like we are actually here for a 'blind adoption' in many ways.  We do have a leg up because we were able to see her and see her interact with her friends and have visited with the family she stayed with.  They told us a bit about her, but really we don't know her very well at all!  Hopefully when she sees us it will go well!

After our appointments we were able to become tourists again.  We went to St. Sophia's Cathedral and paid to go see everything you can see.  Natasha arranged for an English speaking tour guide because of the large group we had.  It was so fascinating.  Sophia's is their oldest standing Cathedral.  They refer to it as their "11th century survivor."  It has obviously been renovated on the outside but the replica on the inside was so interesting.

There are many places inside and out that have the original brick, stone, mosaic, and fresco revealed.  I loved that about this church.

There were very few places we were allowed to take photos, but when we were I sure did!  We climbed all 209 steps of the belfry and were able to take some great photos of St. Michael's Cathedral we visited yesterday.

Here is the belfry we climbed that stands adjacent to St. Sophia's. 

The bells.  I wish I knew exactly why they tied hankerchiefs on the ropes.  It was neat though.

View of St. Sopia's from the belfry.

It's so nice having friends here to help us get a few pictures together!

I love turning a corner and finding a hidden statue that is so old just sitting there.  There are usually no plaques with explainations of what they are or when they were built.  It's so amazing.

The only place inside St. Sophia's we were allowed to take photos was at the mosaic of hand painted eggs.  It was breathtaking.  My photos don't do it justice.  I only wished I could get closer to see the intricate designs on the eggs.  At least we could take pictures though.  I was so happy when they said that!

I think this is one of my favorite things I have seen so far.  If you are coming.. Do not miss this!

My best attempt at a close up of the eggs.  We were told the history of Easter Eggs and that the painting of them around Easter dates back to Pagan times.  They believed that the egg represented Eternal Life and rebirth.  It was very interesting.  They are very proud to have so many things handmade and hand painted.  I can see why.  Everything they sell here is handpainted by a local artist.  Even all of the nesting dolls that you can buy.  They actually will give you a discount if you purchase more than one by the same artist.  None of this mass produced stuff.  Most everything you see is hand carved as well.  I love how unique that makes everything you buy.