Day 1 in Zephorizhia...

The train ride was great, about an 11 hour ride through the night. We had a private car with a small bed (cot) on each side and were able to get a little sleep. The sound of the train was wonderful (like my beloved box fan) and drowned out all the other "noises" nearby. I have missed my box fan on this trip.

We arrived in Zephorizhia around 8 and went to meet with the Inspector to get permission to visit the orphanage. After a few stops, we had our paperwork and were off to meet with the doctor at the orphanage to get the medical report. When we arrived, we were told the Dr. had gone home for the day because she had worked the night shift. But they allowed us to meet the little girl and we will meet with the doctor tomorrow. She is adorable and very shy. I gave her some crackers and we spent about 5 minutes with her before she had to join her group (age 2-3 year olds) for their snack time. At one point, one of the other girls dropped her candy bar and she ran over, picked it up and started eating it right away. Hunter thought this was great that she already knew the "5 second rule". We returned the candy to the caretaker, but it was funny that she knew a good chocolate bar when she saw one...even when it had fallen on the floor!

We will meet with the doctor in the morning and if all goes well, we'll go forward with the court process. Most of the work is done in this city to finalize the adoption, then there is a 10-day mandatory waiting period before we can take her to Kiev, register with the embassy for her US passport and fly home.

I was reading over the Ukraine translation of our dossier last night, because I am fascinated with the letters they use here. I noticed that the petition letter the NAC gave us had our name misspelled. They added an extra R, making it Lambert instead of Lambeth (this happens all the time in the US and I thought it was funny that Ukraine made the same mistake with their funky letters). I told our translator about it and they are getting the paper redone.

I am able to read more and more as we drive by signs and buildings. The picture on the left is of a dress shop called "LAURA". :) Sergei is a natural "teacher" and patient when I ask him over and over again what the letters are and the sounds they make. But I can sound out most words now (most words are written phonetically and are just like words in English). The tricky part is when the word I am sounding out ends up being nothing like a word in English...then I am lost!

We actually bought a coffee maker today!! The size of the coffee here is tiny and we end up ordering 2 or 3 just to equal the 16 oz cup of coffee we are used to. The cheapest maker they had was $40 and then we had to go back and buy a plastic filter b/c we could not find paper filters anywhere. But we think this is well worth it. We can have our super size American coffee in the morning and at night. It will pay for itself by Friday! :)

We are so excited about our journey here and very hopeful everything will go well tomorrow. Sorry to remain a little vague, but we want to meet with the doctor to over her medical report.
Then we will come straight to the internet cafe and give you an update with some pictures! :)

Blessings,

Love, Hunter and Lauri