Thanks to everyone for all of the comments and e-mails of love and support. We are getting more confident in our ability to get around and have ventured out more on our own now while the translater/facilitator runs erands for our adoption paperwork. If I had a car I know I could drive to the orphanage by myself. The challenge would be fighting against the aggresive drivers here. I will not have to worry about it since my license is no good here and I don't have a vehicle. The taxi droped us off at the internet club toady and we will walk back to the flat. We plan to stop at a couple shops on the way back. Most of the people we encounter are nice and we feel safe even in the rougher areas of town. That does not mean that we are nieve or that we are not paying close attention to what is going on around us. It is very obvious to them that we ar American. The shoes are the biggest give away. Most all people here seem to wear dress shoes. We have only seen a couple of people with tennis shoes and they were running. If we could speak, read or understand a little more Russian it would be very easy to for us to get around by ourselves. We are learning more everyday. The meeting with Maxim today went well. He already knows to look in mama's bag for a banana and his juice. He plays peek-a-boo with us which they say "cukoo" (like the clock). I apologize if I miss spell anything but the spell check feature will not work over here. We went to the grocery yesturday without the interpretor. To use a cart you have to unlock it with a 50 cent piece which we did not have. We were sent to the information desk and although noone spoke english they had been through the drill before so all I had to do was give them a small bill and they made the change for me. The grocery was layed out similar to an American grocery and had a very wide selection of foods. The perishables were fresher and they don't shop for long periods like we do (usually only 3 days worth) so they don't have preservatives on them. You can actually buy good tasting vegetables (tomatoes) from the grocery. The hardest part is that they don'd have presliced and packaged lunch meet. Since I could not speak Russian I avoided the deli counter because I did not want to draw extra attention to us. We were getting starred at anyway since we had a full cart. We ended up buying a package of uncut ham and some salomi. The cheese was easy since it was already sliced and packaged. We bought 3 liters of what we thought was regular milk but it turns out that it was fermented milk. When we got the groceries back to the flat our translator was thinking wow these Americans like fermented milk. Later she realized what we had done and warned us before we drank it. She likes it so we told here she will have to drink a lot. It has helthful bacteria in it that is good for digestion. I don't thing we will be trying it. Another challenge was picking out condements. They are labeled and packaged differently so it os difficult to distinguish between kethup, maranade, or any other sauce. We ended up selecting what looked like a mustard sauce for the chicken. Turns out it was curry mustard and it was real good on the chicken we fixed last night for supper. We also had some rice and mixed vegetables. Our flat is very nice and much nicer than we were expecting. It is clean and has many of the amenities that we are used to. It is a one bedroom with a kitchen, living room and bathroom. We looked a t a different flat that was ten dollars cheaper per night but it was of significant less quality and features. The one we are in is only $60 per night. Pretty reasonable compared to what you would pay at home. The bathroom has a normal toilet, and even a garden

tub. The kitchen has a stove and oven, refrigerator, microwave and is stocked with dishes and utensils. The living room has a couch with a fold out bed (where the interpreter sleeps). Bye the way her name is Olga and she is very nice and has been very helpful. She has a good since of humor so we have been able to joke around with each other. She is about our age so that makes it easier for us to relate. The living room even has a stereo slash DVD player. Both the living room and Master bedroom have TV's with cable. Of course there are only a couple channels that are in english, one of which is the BBC. We will post some pictures of the flat maybe next time. I have not taken pictures of it yet. Needless to say it is much nicer than we had prepared for and we are very pleased with our good fortune. The first picture is of Iris standing next to the NAC entrance on Kiev before we went in for the referal meeting. The next one is us in Detroit. The one after that was taken in the airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The statue in the back ground was called "Two fat black snowmen sitting". We had to take a picture. You can only see one of them from this angle, they are sitting back to back. I know every one is anxious for us to post pictures but we want to wait until after court. We don't want to risk someone from here finding it and getting mad at us. They seem to frown upon it and we want to wait until after court next week. We need to get going for now or we will be late getting back to the flat in time for the taxi to take us for our afternoon meeting at the orphanage. We love everyone.