December 20: Pisa

Yes, it really leans! I'm not sure that the pictures really do it justice.

One month and traveling--not expecting a white Christmas

December 19th: Fifteen hours, three changes of baby clothes, and a rental car later—we weren't quite dreaming of a white Christmas, but it looks like that is what we'll have. Three weeks ago Florence was a warm 60 degrees; last week when we checked the projected weather it was supposed to be in the fifties. Excited to get out of the cold temperatures in Kyiv, we all packed accordingly...

Rawly had been doing very well, first there was the 3:30am airport pick up, then we we stopped at Customs because they wanted a copy of his Birth Certificate in addition to his Passport, and finally our three hour flight to Treviso—just outside of Venice. From there we were to drive two more hours to our villa outside of Florence. Such was not the case. The weather had turned and the Treviso airport had closed due to snow. Milan was the next closest airport, but even after we had landed we had to wait on the plane another hour. Our car rental in Treviso had been canceled and couldn't be transferred and was going to end up costing an arm and a leg to have a different drop off location. Budget Rental, however, came to our rescue and gave us a better deal than we originally had. Ready to get out of the snow, we were all hoping that Florence would not be experiencing the same bone chilling temperatures. So far our time in Tuscany was looking to be much bleaker than we were wishing.

Finding Florence had been easy enough—finding our villa proved harder than the directions had boasted. Round and round in circles we drove trying to match the directions to landmarks, straining to see the limited road signs in the dark, and being pointed this way and that. At last we asked to use someone's phone and the owner of the villa met us at a gas station and led us along (to our credit, the directions didn't match.) It was an uncanny -13 C and almost that cold in our stonewalled apartment. Even with the heat turned up to 28 C and layers of clothing, we never warmed up that night. Mom's clock thermometer read 56 F. (Ken and I have been spoiled in Kyiv with the hot radiators in our apartment.)

The next day the sun was out, so although it was cold, at least we had real sunshine--something we haven't seen in Kyiv for quite some time!

Gigi is coming to town! (Grandma Pat's arrival in Kyiv)

December 17th, Rawly's four week birthday! What a great present to see his Gigi.

As much as we love how efficient public transportation is here—it's by no means quick. We have been very fortunate to use the Skousens' car during our time here in Kyiv. Wednesday night Ken went to put gas in the “Lada” so that we could leave quickly after Ken got out of school to go pick up my mom from the airport the next day. It wouldn't turn over. The battery was dead. Luckily we have a great maintenance staff who took care of the whole car issue so that as soon as Ken's last class was over, I met him down in the parking lot and we were off. Mom's flight arrived at 4:08pm, we made it to the airport around 4:30 searching for any sign of her. It was quite possible that she had missed her connecting flight in Munich. But we had no way to tell. Just when we were considering leaving, Ken got a call from mom—her luggage is what hadn't made the flight, so she had been filling out paper work and the likes to get it delivered the next day.

With bundled baby and grandma in tow, we trucked across the snowy parking lot and were at last on our way home. Or so we thought. Apparently men waving glow sticks at night means that you should pull over. Exiting the airport we were waved down by two guys, the final one standing in front of our car. He started yelling at us and eventually went to get someone who spoke more English than he. We considered just driving off, but they had blocked us in—the police force is often corrupt and just want to be bribed. The second guy also yelled at us also in Russian because we hadn't stopped the first time for him. Then he asked for our paperwork and made Ken get out to look at it. We think that he stopped us because our tags weren't up to date (which they were.) Realizing his error, we were freed! Or so we thought...as it turns out, snow mellows out the Kyivian drivers. Drivers who are usually aggressive and erratic became meek and hesitant; except for a few rouge vehicles, who actually cut across the median and drove down the opposite side against traffic—only to get to the bottleneck bridge and be denied access by most drivers. It took us almost three hours to get home (without traffic it takes ½ hour.) Our friend and apartment neighbor, Elysa, was wonderful and had made us spaghetti to take home so that we didn't have to bother with anything. After we were fed and Mom had settled in a bit, we headed back over to the Skousens' to celebrate Diego's birthday.

First Glimpses

We sure think that he's great! Some of these are from when Daddy gets to come home at lunch. We love life with Rawly and realize how blessed we are for these moments with our little guy... It's still all a little overwhelming. We can't wait until you all are able to meet him!

birth certificates and passport

In Ukraine all marriages and births have to be registered at a place called Zurgs (but the "g" sounds more like a "k" to me.) Before we could do anything with the US Embassy, we had to work out all of the Ukraianian details first. The hospital issued us a Notification of Birth which Ken took to Zurgs with a translator from school. If there's one thing that we've observed here is that customer service is more of whatever is convenient for the worker--the customer is not always right, so to speak. In this instance, there is no phone number that you can call to find out which paperwork you need to bring to the Zurgs' office, you have to go wait in line for your turn, then they'll let you know what you need. So taking the morning off from work (oh they're only open Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9am-1pm) with our Marriage License (luckily someone in the States had told us that we would need that) and our translated and notarized Passports Ken and Sasha went to the office. After waiting in a packed tiny entryway, Ken found out that we both needed to be there (so that we could have Kenneth as Rawly's middle name-George is Ken's given name and Ukrainians always use the father's name as the middle name) and our Marriage Certificate needed to be translated and notarized. It was Thursday. The translation wouldn't be ready until Friday afternoon. The next Tuesday, Ken, Katie, Elysa, Rawly and I piled in a mini school bus for Rawly's first trip. Elysa stayed with Rawls so we could wait in line. We had to wait awhile because there's only one guy who does these "specialized" documents. The process--once it started--went pretty smoothly.

Next stop: Quadrat--the mall for Passport photos. So much for keeping him away from people while he's building up his immune system. Unfortunately for us, he was zonked out and would not wake up for us--eyes have to be open for the photos. After 15 minutes of failure, I finally said we'd have to take him outside with his coat open and hat off. Sure enough, that did it! It was a bit tricky to get a shot, but it finally turned out.

As for the Consulate Services, they are also only open from 9-1 and you have to have an appointment. The soonest appointment was for 9 am on December 8--we needed to get his passport quickly because we are planning on leaving on the 19th of December for a week in Italy. Luckily we were able to get his Birth Abroad Certificate and Passport on the sixteenth and are ready for Christmas with Grandma Pat in Florence!