Seventh day of our Waiting Period ~ Day 22

It is very difficult for me to not have many pictures to post, but I haven’t really gone anywhere for the last few days! Today I wasn’t planning on going to the orphanage for 2 reasons, cost of transportation and this evening Kim and I were moving into a new apartment together.
I think the theme of my day today was the internet. Coming to Zapirozhya from Kyiv was difficult. We were spoiled in Kyiv. Internet is very hard to come by here. We had to purchase a wireless air card that works like a prepaid phone. We put 100 gryvnias on it and had no idea how long that would last us in Internet time. Today the card wouldn’t work so I was assuming that meant I was out of money. It was pretty isolating being alone in an apartment in a city with not a whole lot to do in close walking distance without the Internet. The other families had their courts today. I could have tagged alone with the Cerans to the orphanage I’m sure, but I was waiting for Kim to finish up with their busy day to move.
After a lot of knitting and reading I finally packed up my stuff. I thought I sent more with Spencer than I had. Oh well. I had a lot of extra little things I won’t have to take home at least. That was comforting. It’s a tricky balance. I’m here alone for likely up to 3 more weeks and enjoy having the comfort of more things to do and wear, but lugging it around certainly isn’t fun. I’m hopeful that this new apartment works out until I leave to Kyiv, then home.
Thank heavens Andy was there to help me haul my stuff out of the old apartment and into the new apartment! It would have taken me several trips up flights of stairs. Our new place is nice, not as nice as my old one but there are 2 big reasons I wanted to come here; 2 rooms and a roommate were here, and we were promised the Internet here.
Before the landlord even left we made sure we could get on the Internet. This would have been a very uneventful day had we been able to plug in the Ethernet cord and just logged on to the kyivstar network with the login he gave us. Of course that didn’t work and the plan soon became that we had to pay extra for the Internet we weren’t getting and the landlord’s husband would be by later that evening to help us get connected. Those sounds all fine and good, but remember that I am in Ukraine and neither Kim nor I speak Russian.
He did come and mess around with our computers for a while and from what out interpreter on the phone was saying he couldn’t get anything to work and had to call a computer specialist to come and help him. Looking back we made a few mistakes. Spencer brought a router that we got very excited about having. We plugged that in and that was very confusing for them. We were only allowed Internet for 1 apparently. Also, Kim’s People Net (which is the name of our wireless air cards) wasn’t working either and we were asking them at the same time to help us get access to that too. We love our Internet here! A smelly computer man showed up after a while of awkwardness with the landlord’s son and he loaded something and reconfigured things on Kim’s computer and 20 minutes later she had Internet access. The router was a big problem and he ended up resetting it and I think he was asking for the disc to reinstall it on Kim’s computer at one point. The air card thing was a mess and the point that he was going to leave was about 1 ½ hours into this whole process and we really only had Internet access on Kim’s computer with no air cards working for me. The point where my frustration broke visibly was when the smellier 2nd man pulled out his cigarettes and walked out into our laundry area and smoked. Really?! We got yelled at and in trouble for wearing our shoes 6 feet into the apartment earlier when we arrived and met the landlady, but smoking is OK? This country doesn’t make any sense to me. Two interpreters later, 100 gryvnias, and almost 3 hours later we had 2 computers reconfigured to work with the Ethernet cord one at a time. That’ll work today!
We took turns skyping our families and checking emails. My friend reminded me that today officially marks my 3 week point. I didn’t start my blogging until we arrived so the first of travel wasn’t counted so much but 3 weeks ago today I boarded an airplane to start this process. I’m hoping that I’m past the halfway point but from what I’m seeing you never really know what will happen from here. There aren’t really any concrete times for getting things finished from this point. My plane ticket home is exactly 3 weeks from today and I would love to have a need to change that flight to an earlier date, but for now I’m halfway there. It’s officially turning into a countdown!
I usually try to take pictures of the new apartment before we get all settled, but that seemed to crazy this time.  Try to see around all of our junk!  This is my new bedroom.

Across the hall peaking into Kim's room.

Our very quaint kitchen with no real cupboard space! (but we do have an oven!!)

The seperate shower and bathroom.  That bathroom is like a little capsule!  If I were any more clausterphobic I may be in some real trouble.  The bag is for protecting our feet from the nasty of that rug.  Gross.

This is by far the smallest bathroom space I have had since arriving to Ukraine.  There is nowhere for anything to get hung or put.

Our living room.  Kim Skyping her family.

The decor is very shiny.  Not the most up to date and new apartment, but it is nice to be here with Kim!

For added safety we have an inside door.  At least it's padded.

You can't really see them, but this is the door I mentioned from the Faber's apartment (where we are now) that has 18 pins to bolt the door shut.  12 on the sides and 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom.

It really sounds and feels like bolting a bank vault when we lock this door!  It makes our doors at home seem very unsafe with the windows on them and the one puny little dead bolt!