Koruna Hotel Resort Ivano-Frankivsk

... snacks we got for the kids in her group, then took a picture with everyone. We said our official goodbyes to the orphanage at 6:30 and headed home to eat dinner!<br><br>Roselana helped us out a lot last night. She helped get Talia used to the house and talked to her about us. After dinner we played for a little bit with Talia and colored. She looked tired around 8:30 and said she wanted to sleep so we got her pj's on and got ready ...

... that evening we will leave Svalyava and travel on the overnight train back to Kiev! We will arrive in Kiev then the next morning. From there we will still have to go to the US Embassy and also arrange our flight home. We are crossing our fingers that our travel agent, Willa, from Creative Vacations, will be able to find us a good deal on our flight back!<br><br>Zhenia updated us on the swine flu scare in Ukraine today. He said ...

... a change in the routine, but not quite sure if we are ready for Talia's response! Oh well, guess we will go with it!<br><br>We are pretty much done with trying to Skype here. It is too hard because the connection is horrible and we spend half the time asking, "What?" Or turning the sound up or down. Once we get back to Kiev we should have a better situation to Skype in. <br><br>After we are finished with the internet here today we are heading over to ...

... morning's visit was incident free once again! We just sat and calmly drew and colored with the crayons and stickers, and did some puzzles. Talia seems to be doing better and better now! She especially likes to be picked up and lifted high to the ceiling and count to four in no particular order. We're still catching quite a few looks at the orphanage for not having masks I think, but Roslana said it wasn't necessary as long as we're feeling well. And its not ...

... wanted her coat and hat off, which was fine, but then she sat on the floor and pouted. She wouldn't let us touch her or come near her. As we were trying to get her to come back downstairs with us some caretaker came up the steps. She chose that moment to make sure and tell us that we needed to wear masks and showed us how to put them on. I told her we weren't sick and she proceeded to show us her mask and how to wear it. So I held out ...

... it - so she started crying. Then we put a different hat on her and she seemed OK. Then, since we werent sure of her new area and what kind of play areas it had, or what the caretakers were telling us - we decided we'd just walk through the halls. We got about 20 feet out and Talia decided she was done with that and went back to the door to her room and started pouting. We tried to lure her away with one of the orphanage cats ...

... by Hungary and Austria until 1945. Then it became part of Ukraine. That is why their language or dialect here is slightly different from Kiev, the capital city. <br><br>This morning we went to the orphanage at 10am to play with Talia. We played in the ball pit and practiced colors. We also gave her an apple and her daily vitamin. When we tried to leave today she got really pouty and looked like she was going to cry. One of her caretakers talked with ...

... aided us in finding the proper bus station for transport to Kamyanets-Podilsky (all without English) and, exhausted after carrying our packs all day, we finally checked into the nicest place in town (the 7 Days Hotel) around 5:30. The ride through the Ukrainian countryside was beautiful, stark, and enlightening. Once considered the bread basket of Europe, Ukraine now imports much of its food, and though the land remains fertile, it's not difficult to see why. We passed field after ...

... would recommend doing some reading about the Ukrainian elections if you all haven't yet. They're very interesting, but I can't talk about them because it's political and PCVs can get in a lot of trouble if we mess with politics. At any rate, last weekend was full of outdoors activities and I must say there's an incredible feeling involved with standing at the highest point in a country. It's a really windy, proud, and humbling thing. I absolutely recommend doing it if you have the chance.

... bathrooms, running water, and hot water from 8-10 in the evening, and that the orginal hotel was full and could not fit us. What choice did we have but pay the extra? Otherwise we wouldn't have anywhere to sleep. So we all paid up, and retired to our rooms. We walked in to the hotel that seemed to be screaming "Condemn me, please!" Our room had two beds and a bathroom as promised. There were no sheets, that was an extra 8 hrivnas per person; we paid that too. Our pillows had dark ...