A Big Jar Of Nescafe Boodlaska!!

Here I am, spending my last few minutes in the Kharkiv apartment, on my computer of course!!! Our bags and boxes are all packed and we're set to go. The minivan (a huge Mercedes bus, really, that holds 16 passengers, but has no luggage area) arrived on time and we were on the road by 7:30 a.m. Well, we definitely needed almost every inch of space with 4 GIGANTIC cases, one medium case, four small cases, 2 brief cases, various boxes and bags, and Belle!!

Just as we were leaving I had a bad scare. I had grabbed a paper towel to clean up something and Ed told me to be careful because there was blood on it. I looked at him and saw blood pouring out of the top of his head!! He had spent four months being extremely careful not to hit his head on the windows (which opened inward), and on the very last day, as he stood up after lifting one of the large boxes, he hit the very sharp corner of the window, which went into to the top of his head like a knife. I was really worried that he would need stitches, but fortunately we stemmed the red tide by putting a lot of pressure on it for about an hour.

So we did it - we managed to move all our crap to Kyiv!! We got to 7 Kostyolnya (the pink building) on Saturday September 23 at about 1:30, just when I had told Tetyana (our landlady) we would be there. Ed still had to go over to the Renaissance Foundation offices to pick up the rest of our crap, which had been stored there for the past 4 months (3 large cartons and 2 huge suitcases), so after unloading just a couple of bags he began the process of trying to get the driver to take him there. I had told the driver at the outset that first we were going to 7 Kostyolnya and then to 46 Artema (about a 15 minute drive, at most) and then back to Kostyolnya. Now he was giving Ed a really hard time - he wouldn't go until he was paid, and Ed (very wisely) wouldn't pay until he took him there and back. We were paying by the kilometer (doubled since we had to pay for the guy to go back to Kharkiv too), so he just wanted to get back and not spend another hour going about 3 kilometers. Tetyana (who doesn't speak much English - her English is about the same as my Ukrainian) somehow conveyed that she thought she ought to go with Ed while I waited at the apartment for the arrival of the internet "master" - that's what they call workers here! Good thing she did too - we forgot that this was Saturday and that the minivan would have to go by St Michael's, where there are about 50 weddings every Saturday - the traffic was at a complete standstill. Absolutely no movement. But Tetyana knew the back ways, which of course the driver, from Kharkiv, did not know - and neither did Ed. So they got there, finally, and Ed loaded up all the new bags and boxes, and they drove back to the apartment. It took about an hour to unload all those bags and get them in the tiny elevator and up to the third floor - the elevator could really only hold one bag and one person at a time. So I just kept unpacking while the bags kept rolling in. By about 6 p.m. we were pretty much done.

Everything was put away in their temporary places until we figure out our routines and what needs to be kept out of the "bedroom" closets (which are inaccessible when the bed is down) and have to be kept in the hall closet where one normally keeps coats. I intend to buy a really nice looking coat rack so that we can keep the coats we use on a daily basis on that and keep some of our day to day clothes in the coat closet.

Ed was really beat - he had not only taken all the bags down and into the van in Kharkiv, he had loaded the bags from Artema St and then unloaded everything at our new apartment. Not to mention the bonk on his head that morning. And then he went out to the market while I was unpacking to pick up some bottled water, juice, milk and chocolate! All the necessities!! He had a couple of gin and tonics (he hasn't been drinking at all since we left the States) - I had brought a lime with us, as well as the gin and tonic - and fell fast asleep on the reading nook/bed built-in that's in the kitchen area (that's right, the kitchen area - I know it sounds weird, but it actually works, and looks nice!). I was still waiting for the internet "master" and he finally arrived at about 8 p.m. At first he wasn't going to do the work because although Tetyana had paid for the first month plus the modem rental, there was a 1 Hryvna fee for something or other that she had somehow neglected to pay. I called her and she convinced him that he should proceed and that I would pay the 1 Hryvna, which I did, and happily too - remember that's 20 cents!

By 9 p.m. I was all set - internet connected and working! Very fast, and with 5 gigabytes per month before paying extra I am assured by everyone I know that I will never have to pay more than the $17 per month that this package costs (we get a 15% discount because we have the cable "premium" TV package too). So for a total of $35.50 we get essentially unlimited high speed internet and the best TV package available, with about 30 English language stations. I can't tell you if they're any good, because after the first night here the TV cable can't "find" any stations!! The TV master is coming on Thursday, after we leave for the States. It'll probably be fixed by the time we get back.

Ed and I both collapsed onto our new queen size bed. Belle jumped up, got in her usual horizontal position and took up three quarters of the bed, leaving a tiny space for me and Ed on the edges!! By this time my back was so stiff and tired that every time I moved in bed I let out an involuntary moan - then I threw my knee out slightly trying to get Belle to move and make room for me and Ed!

I had a restless night, but Ed slept pretty well because this mattress is, for him, so much better than the one we had in Kharkiv. Apparently the mattress on his side of the bed was really horrible, and his hips would get bruised on the wood platform underneath the foam slab that served as a mattress. Mine wasn't as bad and I did okay. I found the bed in the new apartment a little small, and I was beginning to worry that it wouldn't work. It was also a real pain not having bedside tables. I keep a lot of "just in case" stuff in my night table drawer, and it turns out I needed a lot of those things that night - naproxyn and nexium, just to mention two!! I had a chair from the kitchen next to my side of the bed, but it didn't work very well. Also, it was very crowded on Ed's side - the arm chair barely fit there with the bed down, and there was hardly any room for him to squeeze through if he had to get up in the middle of the night - a frequent occurrence for both of us. My computer was balanced precariously on a chair in the former balcony/office nook, and I was generally very anxious about how things would work out.

I staggered out of bed the next morning, immediately popped a naproxyn and nexium in my mouth, and went into the kitchen to fix breakfast and feed Belle. But first I turned on the computer so that we could listen to All Things Considered. I didn't have a teapot (ours had broken when I was washing it for the trip to Kyiv) so we had to settle for tea bags. But I had brought along three boxes of Nestle Fitness, so we managed to have a fairly normal breakfast, although we were forced to actually sit at the dining table to eat it - something we never do (we always have our breakfast on a tray on our bed at Sherman Canal, and in Kharkiv we sat on the sofa in the living room and used the coffee table - the kitchen table was my "desk")!!

I was able to get a few more essentials that first full day - a tea pot, a couple of nice big cups for us to have our morning tea, the softest toilet paper available, dish washing detergent and clothes washing detergent - that sort of stuff. There's a market within a 5 or 10 minute walk from our apartment, right on Kreshchatik (the main drag in Kyiv), that carries a pretty good supply of these sorts of things. Ed left for Kharkiv to try and tie up the loose ends before we leave for the States, so Belle and I were on our own Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday, until Ed returned on the late train. I had gotten his train tickets for him, and I got him two tickets for both legs, but it turns out that the powers that be sold BOTH of his seats for the return trip TWICE - so Ed ended up with no seat. But it worked out fine because he spent the entire time in the Club Car with Roman, from the Renaissance Foundation, who had also been in Kharkiv to attend the press conference there. And he ended up meeting the most interesting guy from South Africa (near Cape Town) who was in Kharkiv helping Jews emigrate to Israel. He was a pastor in South Africa, and then later a diplomat, posted to Israel, and that's how he got involved in this work. We're planning on looking him up when we go to South Africa - hopefully in February - to visit Michael and Jeremy in Montague.

I spent almost all my time in Kyiv without Ed looking for the furniture we needed. I went to a place with Tetyana to look at office chairs and desks, and I have to say I hated everything there. So I went by myself to the large department store in Kyiv - STUM - nothing at all. Then I went to one of the huge underground shopping centers - Metrograd - and found a furniture section with some interesting things. I found a place where they design and make the furniture, and there was a very nice girl there who was one of the designers and she agreed to come over to the apartment on Tuesday night to see if she could design a desk, coffee table and night tables for me. She was really great - arrived right on time at 9:15 p.m. after the store closed. She spent a lot of time with me, taking measurements and doing rough sketches of a desk, file cabinet, end tables and a coffee table.

The next morning I went to the store to look at the designs and pick the finish. I can't tell you how many trips back and forth to Metrograd this ended up requiring. There's so much wood in this apartment, and it's quite nice wood - I didn't want to put anything crappy and cheap looking in the main room. But unfortunately, Alona (the designer) only had choices that were kind of cheap looking. The desk and file cabinet (with drawers) will be fine, because they will be white to match the window ledge in the former balcony, which is now enclosed and part of the apartment but a little set back (you can just see it behind the second armchair in the photo), so it doesn't have that fake wood look. But the coffee table and end table (I've decided we only need one - Ed doesn't really need a bedside table since we have a ledge behind the bed where we can keep our glasses and night lights -and it will be a bedside table at night, and an end table next to one of the arm chairs during the day) really should look good and match all the wood of the door frames and closets. Alona had a sample of such wood, but, unfortunately, for some reason, it was impossible to make the furniture with that particular product. So, in the end, I just ordered the desk to be custom made to fit into the enclosed balcony and a small "tomba" - the file-cabinet piece, with three drawers and one bigger drawer for files.

So the second stage of our adventure begins soon. We left for the States on Wednesday, September 27, in the afternoon, leaving Belle in the care of Lilya, a sweet girl who works at the Gintama Hotel where Ed and I have stayed while we've been looking at apartments. I'm nervous about leaving her, but it's better than taking her on an airplane for 18 hours. And Tetyana loves Belle, and has even offered to take her the next time we travel! She misses her dog, a cocker spaniel named Madonna, who went to America with her daughter when she left to live there with her husband and baby. Tetyana is really nice - I'm very fond of her. I asked her if there was anything I could bring her from America, and she said "A jar of Nescafe, Budlaska"!!! Apparently U.S. Nescafe is different than Ukrainian Nescafe, and she just loves Taster's Choice Nescafe in the red jar with caffeine. I'll be sure and bring her as many jars as I can fit in our luggage - there won't be much room since 6 months of prescription drugs, many, many books in English, big Uggs for both of us, a laptop computer and computer case for Ed, among other things, are waiting for us in Scott & Joan's guest room so that we can take them back to Ukraine. But I'll be sure and get at least one big jar!