Dec 5: Picking up the Visa

12/5/07: Visa Day!
The only adoption business for the day was to pick up the visa at 2:00, so we had the morning to ourselves. We slept in a little later as we were all exhausted. Zack walked down and bought some water and coffee at the little stand just outside of our apartment, and then we had breakfast. We watched Finding Nemo on the computer. Then we all got cleaned up and dressed. We played for a while. We had a light lunch.I tried to get William to lie down for a few minutes before Sveta and Leonid came to pick us up. He did, but didn’t really sleep.

We got bundled up and went down to load into Leonid’s van once more. There was also a father and daughter in the van, going to the embassy to pick up her visa as well. We made chit-chat while Leonid drove.

Once again, arriving at the embassy we got the celeb treatment, by-passing the line and making our way into the embassy building. We reported to the window and gave the last bit of information, and were instructed to pay for the visa which we did. We then waited in the small waiting room. I noticed another lady and her daughter, and recognized as the ones we’d seen at the medical clinic the day before. Turns out, she’d been in Kyiv for 3 months due to a number of delays. We all compared our stories, and finally the man called us up to the window. He did the visa interview and handed us “the envelope”: you fellow adopters know the one. You can’t open it or it’s no good. You must take it with you and deliver it to the immigration officer in the U.S. We were so happy to finally have it!

We returned to the van and made our way back to the apartment. We said our good-byes to Leonid as this was the last time we’d seen him. Then we went inside. We talked to family on Skype. The landlady came by to help us with the washing machine since we’d been having problems with it.

Then we walked downstairs and had dinner at Uno Pizza. Once again, William didn’t seem very interested. We were learning that he did a lot better when we ate at the apartment, away from all the excitement of the city! He ate about half of a piece of pizza, and then we all shared a piece of chocolate cake.

We went back to the aparment, changed into our pajamas, and watched some TV and a movie. William play a little bit and showed off his “muscles” for us. He was really starting to loosen up around us! Then we put our boy to bed (again with songs and a back rub) and talked to some people on Skype.

We talked to my dad, who informed us that when he went to check on the house, he discovered that our refrigerator (3 years old) had died on us. So much for all the money we’d saved the past month by being extra frugal on our trip! He was kind enough to get all the food out of it for us and clean things up a bit.


Click here to read our Dec 5, 2007 blog post.

Click here to read our Dec 4, 2007 blog post.