Lazy rainy Friday, no visit today, hotel life

Our driver Román was a no-show this morning for our daily trip to the orphanage, and Marina couldn't reach him on cellphone which is very unusual, so we hope he's OK. We probably won't do the afternoon visit either, since we seem to spend more time in rush hour traffic than at the one hour afternoon visit, so it's really not worth it. It's been raining all morning (and probably will all day) so I'm sure traffic is worse than usual. That makes it a great day to just stay inside and read or snooze, which is exactly what we plan to do.

When I talked to Marina, she was at the SDA office in Kiev submitting some paperwork. They are working quickly to "get us approved" and get a court date for us. She knows we are anxious to hear when that will be, and we'll pass it along when we get word. Please pray that will be soon, it's our next major milestone. The hotel bill is starting to add up, although I don't think we're going to move to an apartment or other cheaper place at this point while in Donetsk...we really like it here.

JoEllen had been lobbying for the last year for us to take a weekend trip to Vegas or Branson or somewhere as our "last hurrah" as a couple with no kids. I kept putting it off, thinking that the money would be better used on this trip. We didn't even really go anywhere special for our 17th anniversary last month, other than to eat out at a couple of nice places. I told her that as a result of that sacrifice, if the opportunity arose on this trip to either cheap out or kick it up a notch, we'd splurge on some aspect of this trip.

So, that's kinda what continuing to stay here at the Atlas Hotel is, it's our "splurge" for the trip. The free breakfast buffet and free WiFi everywhere are major luxuries, and make us feel really like we're on a vacation rather than roughing it like we did at the apartment in Kiev. We wash a few of our own clothes by hand, but we agreed that for pants and shirts we'd use their laundry service here at the hotel. It's not hugely expensive, and they have our stuff back to us in a matter of hours all clean and dry (jeans take forever to dry by clothesline we found). The dinners here are pretty nice too, our usual tab is about $26 with tip which is dirt cheap considering the level of food. They have a bank in the building, so changing money isn't a factor, although we don't even need to carry cash since everything is billed to our room (Visa) anyways. If our room gets to feeling a little cramped, we hang out down in the cushy chairs in the lobby or the lounge, and we can get drinks delivered to us in the lounge and just sit there and surf the Internet or quietly read a book and sip our Cokes or bottled water.

The big feature about living in a hotel is that we have the entire hotel to roam around in and don't have to venture outside to the big scary foreign world. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but in the apartment, when you walked out your apartment door you were entering no man's land where nobody spoke English, and you had to carry cash on you everywhere, which was a bit scary. You had no food or drink in the apartment except what you schlepped up 6 flights of stairs to your fridge from the local store, a major outing in itself. Here you just take the elevator down a floor or two to order whatever you want, and the food is hot and the drinks are cold, and NO DOING THE DISHES! :)

One huge feature of free 24/7 WiFi is the ability to download shows at any time for entertainment. So we've been keeping up on our favorite TV shows which have new episodes now like Burn Notice, The Closer, and Primeval. Before we left, Jo also bought the entire first season of Dr. Who on iTunes, and we just got through the last of those last night, time to download Season Two! I've also been able to keep up with the Chiefs by downloading a 12-minute highlight video of each game, which means I can watch the Chiefs lose in a fraction of the time it used to take! :) The other huge feature of 24/7 WiFi is the cozy feeling of connectedness we have to friends, family, and civilization as we know it back home. Being gone this far from home and for this long, that is a HUGE morale issue. At the apartment we really felt isolated, alone and anxious, not like here with free WiFi. We really appreciate any emails or blog comments we receive, I can't really express how much we look forward to those as a feeling of connection to back home. Without them I really think we'd go nuts. So thanks again to everyone who comments or emails, you are making a difference!

Oh well, I'm done babbling for now, I have some reading and napping to catch up on. :)

Later!

Papa John