Sunshine Again!

I figured it out today, I've been here about 32 days and I've seen the sun three times.  There's still lots of snow on the ground and some slush and lots of ice, but at least the sun was shining.

I took another two hour walk this morning.  I didn't really plan on it, but I had to go to the store to exchange some money (that's about 3 miles all by itself).  Since it was so nice out, I decided to take my camera with me and get some pictures of statues and some of the homes and buildings that I like.  Unfortunately, they are in the opposite direction from the store.  I knew that the clerk takes lunch from about 1:30 until 2:30 each day, so I went there first.  I didn't want to be late and out of grivna.  Then I walked back toward the hotel and kept going past the Lucky Blues, where I would normally turn left.  I kept walking up the main street, past the street you turn up to go to the courthouse and walked one more block to the street that leads to the internat.  I turned left there and took several photographs of a statue in a park of a woman and also the theater building right across the street.  Then I continued walking down that street until just past the street the driver usually takes from the hotel.  There is another small park just as you make the turn on the right hand side.  There is a statue of some guy who lived in the 1800s.  I don't know what his name is because his name sign has fallen off.  I also took a picture of two small snowmen someone made on either side of the statue.  They're the only two snowmen I've seen in the weeks of snow here.  Then I just went back up the street and turned toward the hotel.  I was going to take a picture of the rich guy's house, but there were several people standing nearby and I didn't want to look suspicious.  Again, total distance about 6-7 miles and just under two hours.

I got back to the hotel just in time to shower and change clothes for the orphanage.  While I was on my walk, someone driving up from behind began tooting their horn, so I turned out of curiosity.  It was my favorite driver (who takes me to the internat most days)!  He's really nice, and he seems to know everyone in town, but I don't know his name.  He sits in the car and waits for me; several kids get in the car each day just to talk to him.  He's kind of like a father figure for them.  Just today, as we were leaving he told me they were all really good kids there.  That's somewhat of an unusual statement, as I've been told that many people here believe there is something wrong with the kids at the internat.  Too bad, they don't know what they're missing.

Today we tried to play one of the video games on my computer.  It's some blow it up blast mine thingy where you try to get this little yellow square dude from one side of the screen to the other by blasting him around things.  You only get one shot, and he screams the whole time he is airborne.  We still have not successfully gotten him where he needs to go.  Then we spent some time watching videos of Yarek and some of the other kids trying to break dance and then some videos from TX of Yarek riding a bike.  Yesterday I got the exquisite pleasure of watching the boys play soccer in the snow.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Soccer in the snow.  It's quite interesting.  No one goes inside dry.

News from the home front - Bill tells me Goofy is trying to be Mr A-One Dominant Dog in the house.  Everyone else is okay with that (the dogs, that is).  The problem is Goofy doesn't seem to get the signal that the other dogs are clearly giving off of, "It's okay, be the alpha dog!  I don't care, just leave me alone!"  Seems Mr. Goofball needs a couple of weeks at Man's Best Friend.  I asked Bill to call them and find out how much it costs.  We'll see.  I'm guessing it's at least a grand, but my sanity is worth more than that.

Gotta go lurk in blogland now and check on prices for tickets home.

Natalie

TX