Trip Report-Part 4

So we did some laundry - after figuring out the German controls - and hung the clothes out to dry on the porch. They were mostly dry by Saturday morning - there was also a cool "S" shaped pipe in the bathroom that had warm steam running through it - I guess to keep towels warm?- but it also worked for drying clothes. Saturday is a bit blurry, but I know we went shopping, found jackets for Andrew and I, went to dinner and then went back to repack all of our stuff. We were allowed to leave some of our stuff in the Kyiv flat since we were going to be back in 2 days, so we were only going to bring the necessities with us to XXX. We met up with G, took the metro to the train station in the center of the city, bought a Kyiv cake (there are tons of stands selling Kyiv cakes at the train station, so don't worry about getting one ahead of time) and went inside the train station. We were early, so we got some food from the little cafe inside the station, took some photos of the beautiful mosiacs on the ceiling of the station and waited. They called our train and we boarded it with no issues. We had tickets for the general sleeper section of the train - not our own compartment. It wasn't bad though. Very neat actually. They have little compartments without doors with benches and tables - the benches can be used as beds and there are also 2 beds above that fold down. There are rolled up futon-like mattresses on shelves above the beds. The train-lady comesaround with bed sheets, you pay her 6 grivnas and get your sheets, a towel, and a blanket. You put together your own bed and store any of your luggage in a compartment under the benches - so no one can get to your stuff while you are sleeping. The only bad thing was the LOUD announcements at every station they stop at - ALL night. Other than that we slept good and arrived in XXX at 6am Sunday morning. After we got off the train, I wanted to take a photo of the train station sign above the building- it was all lit up and really neat. I guess this was a problem as we got yelled at by some ex-KGB officer LOL. Our driver, Andreiy, was waiting out front for us - it was still dark and this sweet older man was sitting out here ready to go! His car was like many other Ukrainian cars - a solid metal, bright green, Russian made car. The inside was falling apart, but you could tell it was well cared for - mismatched seat covers, pillows etc. Andreiy was by far my favorite "character" from the whole trip. He reminded me SOO much of my Polish grandfather. He spoke NO English, but was really good at hand signals and getting concepts across.Andreiy's carAndreiy and Andrew!We drove 1.5 hours up to XXX village where Cinderella's sister, Belle, lived. We had never met her before, nor did we have any info on her other than the address of her internat. We waited outside the gates while G went in to get permission for us to visit. The director was not there, nor were any of the "decision makers", but eventually the caretakers agreed to let us meet Belle and give her the gifts we brought. We wait in the concrete-floored dirty "lobby" of the internat until they found Belle- it was amazing how much she looked like Cinderella! They brought us to a little room to visit - G explained who we were, about us hoping to adopt Cinderella and how we found her. We had G ask her if she wanted to be adopted too and she said yes and shyly smiled. We then got the WHOLE story about they family and how they ended up in the internats. I won't go into it here for their privacy, but their father died and he was a good man and his sister - their aunt- comes and visits the girls and had spoken about adopting them, but had never followed through on it - probably they want to but can't afford it and don't have room in their flat for two more people. So we left there after thanking the caregivers and hugging B goodbye and started the drive back to XXX. We stopped along the way in a city called Znam'yanka - this is the city where B said they were born and lived and that their aunt and uncle lived here. So we wanted to get some photos for C and for their lifebooks. Its a small city, "famous" for its train station. We also stopped a few times for Andreiy to show us the local agriculture...I guess he used to be a gardener in the Soviet times and worked at a nearby botanical garden that has since been abandoned. He also had a fervent hated of some weed he called "Ambrosia" that ruined the soil for the good plants. He definitly liked to tell stories haha. We also got some good photos of the rolling hills and little villages and the Ukrainian black soil.