After court started this morning, the judge decided that we needed another paper. We are driving back to Kyiv (5hrs on bad roads) to make this paper. We will have court tomorrow morning.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Ukraine for over 48 hours. Maybe because this is my first time sitting on a real bed since being here– or maybe because I feel like we’ve already been all over Ukraine.

We went directly from the airport to the train station. Fortunately, we had time to stop at Puzata Hata, a Ukrainian style cafeteria and we got to have dinner. I got my two favorite Ukrainian foods– cabbage salad and varenyky (Ukrainian dumplings, like pierogies).

Then, we headed across the street to the train station. This was a little side trip for some P143 business. We had an overnight train to a different region. It brought back memories of when we took the overnight train to meet Reed and Lena for the first time. However, this time, I was much more relaxed, not too surprising!

The train is just an adventure. I woke up around 5am and couldn’t go back to sleep. The sun was starting to rise, so I enjoyed watching the Ukrainian countryside go by.

Our day was spent in meetings, sharing about hosting with important officials, and the best part– a bit of time spent with kids! I love the opportunity to get to know the kids and give them a bit of attention. All of the kids we met are on the P143 photolisting. I hope to share a little bit more about them to advocate for them in the future. There are a set of brothers, ages 14 and 12, who I am particularly rooting for. If you might be interested in hosting these great brothers, please let me know.

After visiting with the kids, we took the overnight train back to Kyiv. This time, we shared a second class cabin with the facilitator who joined us on this trip. A second class cabin has two sets of bunks, so a total of four beds. We had this type of cabin when we returned to Kyiv from Donetsk, with Reed and Lena. Again, lots of memories.

When we arrived back in Kyiv, we had some time to kill before Oksana, our facilitator, would pick us up, so we hung out around the train station. It’s a gorgeous building, so I was eager to take photos.

We had enough time between Oksana picking us up and our driver arriving to take us to Lyuda’s region that we could nap and shower at Oksana’s house. It was so kind of her to let us do this!

On the way to Lyuda’s region, we stopped by N’s orphanage. We wanted to drop in and give her a hug, mostly just to let her know that we’re still thinking of her. Unfortunately, she was not at the school, as she was sick. We still got a tour of her orphanage, which is very nice. We also got to see her friend, S, who we met over summer hosting. S was shy, but walked around the orphanage with us.

After a quick lunch stop, we finished the 5 hour drive to Lyuda’s orphanage. We had many gifts for the children there, from their host families and/or soon-to-be adoptive families. I felt a little bit like Santa, with big boxes for them!

Lyuda was happy to see us. She is ready for court, even when our facilitator listed off the type of questions she will be asked, Lyuda just insisted that yes, she is ready. Good, so are we!

So, tomorrow will be court. About 2:30AM Eastern time. Please pray that it all goes smoothly.

We have a court date… We’ve actually known for about 10 days, but I have been holding out on you. March 17.

In my defense, I found out while at lunch with my coworkers. We all work remotely, so we only see each other in person about twice a year. As we were wrapping up lunch, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time and noticed that I had a message from Oksana, one of our facilitators, and just from the preview, it was clear we had a court date. The next notification on my phone told me that our servers were down. So, I announced, “we have a court date, but our servers are down!” Kind of chaotic for a few minutes as we got things resolved, but such is my life.

Next week we’ll head to Ukraine. In a period of about 8 days, we’ll spent 30+ hours in the car, 20+ flying (plus time hanging around airports), and 15+ hours on a train. Whoa.

This is our schedule:

Monday: Arrive, go straight from the airport to the train station. Get on overnight train.
Tuesday: Wake up in a city we’ve never been to before. Visit some kids at the orphanage for Project One Forty Three. Take overnight train back to Kyiv.
Wednesday: Arrive back in Kyiv. Meet up with facilitators to drive to the hotel we stayed at last time, located in the same town where we’ll have court. Sleep in a real bed–  well, a real Ukrainian bed.
Thursday: Court. Likely all day. When we finally are done, go back to Kyiv.
Friday: Paperwork in Kyiv. And hopefully a fun excursion of some kind.
Saturday: Fly home.

This trip is ambitious, even for us, the lovers of planning crazy trips that involve minimal sleep.

My biggest prayer request is that court goes smoothly. We’ve been warned that it will likely be a long, drawn out, interrogating type of experience. This was not the case with our other adoptions, where we had very brief court visits with adoption-friendly judges. In addition to this judge being hesitant with adoptions (putting it lightly), we have a couple of other things against us. For example, we are young… I am only old enough to adopt Lyuda by 17 days. We’ll see what ammunition the judge and the prosecutor will use against us.

 

According to my Fitbit, I’ve walked over 12 miles today.

We started off our morning taking the metro to meet Olya, one of our facilitators, to go to the notary and sign some documents. I’m surprised our facilitators have asked us to meet them via the metro, as in the past, with our other adoptions, we’ve always had drivers pick us up and take us where we need to do. That being said, I’m happy to take the metro, as it’s much cheaper and more adventurous.

This was a quick visit and we were done with paperwork! Our facilitator asked if we were going to go back to the apartment, and we said, no way! Beautiful day in Kyiv, we were up for adventure! She helped us purchase tickets to the St. Sophia Cathedral belfry. If you’re ever in Kyiv and are able to climb stairs, do this.

The stairs, from the top. I set my camera up, and Aaron took this picture, because heights are not my thing. At all. My legs were shaking big time, partly from all the stairs, but mostly from all the heights.

A three photo panorama from the top of St. Sophia’s belfry.

We could have purchased tickets to go inside the complex, but I had some other ideas of what I wanted to do today.

That gorgeous, ornate blue and white building with the gold dome is the one that we climbed.

After all this walking, I needed to give my legs a bit of a rest, so we decided to get lunch. I saw a pizza place by the metro stop, so we headed there. We have only eaten Ukrainian food for the last week, so this meal was the most typical of what we’d eat at home (not that we eat a ton of pizza at home).

I wanted to go to the Pechersk Lavra Monastery and the Motherland statue. I thought it might be fun to go a longer way, walking back through the area where we had been last week and down the huge hill to the metro.

St. Andrew’s church again, right next to the building where we were last week to get Lyuda’s referral.

A little street you can walk down where artists sell their work. I would love to bring home a landscape of Kyiv from this little street– I just have to figure out how to transport it!

The Andriyivskyy Descent is full of art and unique shops. It’s a fascinating area.

We walked by the lower station of the Funicular, which I shared about us taking last week.

From here, we hopped on the metro. However, I had been looking at the map on my phone, not the metro map, and got us a bit lost. Not no-clue-where-we-are lost, but oops, we need to get off and find the right station lost. A couple of transfers, and we got where we wanted to be.

This is the inside of one of the older metro stations, Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gates). All of the metro stations are very unique looking– this one is more traditional Ukrainian looking, compared to the stations which look more Soviet, or more modern.

We got off the metro at Arsenalna– this is the deepest metro station in the world, 346ft deep. For comparison, the belltower we climbed earlier in the day was about 250ft. You take two huge escalators to get down into Arsenalna station.

This is the Holodomor memorial. I never knew what the Holodomor was until I began to learn about Ukraine, and if you are ignorant like I was, please take a few minutes to learn about it.

One thing that I really wanted to do today was visit the Kiev Pechersk Lavra Monastery. It’s supposed to be one of the most interesting places in Kyiv. However, the tour prices were expensive and there wasn’t a ton of daylight left. We opted for the cheapest tickets to grant us access to the grounds, and just walk around a bit.

I hope we can come back when we have more time and do a proper tour.

The last thing left on my to-visit list was the Motherland statue. This is part of the World War II history complex.

These are Russian military vehicles, captured during the current war.

There are many of these larger-than-life statues. To the left, you can see the reddish-colored monuments with city names. These monuments to individual cities reminded me a lot of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. I’ll be totally honest– I had seen photos of the Motherland statue before, but never looked close enough to realize that it is a Soviet monument, not a Ukrainian nationalist monument.

The Motherland Statue bears the emblem of the Soviet Union on her shield.

Whew. That was a day– from there, we headed back to our apartment via the metro. For dinner, I attempted to get varenyky, but was unsuccessful. We did get a last little bit of Ukrainian food at Puzata Hata.

In just a few hours, we’ll head to the airport and start our journey home!

Our morning was spent packing– not too exciting. Oksana and our driver showed up just after noon to pick us up. We saw the horse again, as we made our final drive to the orphanage, so we stopped and took some photos.

Funny horse face.

Our visit wasn’t exciting. We played a game of Skip-bo, but mostly just talked.

Oksana had some things for other kids– a couple of kids who are being adopted and their soon-to-be adoptive parents asked us to bring things for them. Oksana’s mom had also sent a couple of things for specific kids who she knew when they were at her local orphanage.

Oksana is so good with the kids. She is so friendly and kind to all of them. It’s impossible not to be happier just being around her.

Lyuda and one of her friends.

We spent the rest of the day driving. We stopped in Chernihiv, a city and the capitol for the region, for dinner. We went to a dinner-style restaurant where we had pizza and milkshakes and I had broccoli! Broccoli! After eating 100% authentic Ukrainian food in our hotel restaurant for the last week, I was very excited for broccoli and a milkshake.

Now, we’re back in Kyiv. Tomorrow, we have to go to the notary, but that’s all that we have planned. There are a couple of tourist-y things I’d like to do. Chernobyl Museum or Pechersk Lavra Monastery? Varenyky or pizza? These are the big questions that we must answer tomorrow.

Many people have asked when we will be back for court, and we don’t know yet. We should know in the next couple of weeks. They expect it will be early March.