Sunny in Sevastopol - Wednesday, Feb.18th.

Last night we went over to our new best friend Kevin’s apartment. As you remember we met him and a couple of other English speaking people at the Potato House the night before. He made us nachos. Kelley had some wine. And everything was great. We asked him where he shopped because everything was just like home and he said at the American PX in Kiev. His apartment is only a couple of blocks from ours and is very nice, nicely furnished and much bigger than ours. We sat in a sun room overlooking the main street. Unfortunately he’s leaving Friday for about 10 days. We’ll see him again because we know we’ll still be here, and besides he lent us a couple of DVDs. He also said there are about 8 gringos (as he calls them) in town and they see each other on a regular basis. Tonight they will be at the Black Cat Bar. We looked for it today, but it didn’t see a picture of a black cat and we couldn’t read the signs, so we’re not sure where it is. We’re gonna miss him. When we left he made us a care package, tortilla chips, Pace Picante sauce, and microwave popcorn. We are really grateful.
Today was a casual day. No meetings, no appointments. So got to walk around a little bit, and see our neighborhood in the sunshine. But first we went to the market. As Pam and Len told us, “Don’t stock up; buy just enough for the day so you have something to do tomorrow.” Good advice. We have gone back to the same vendors a couple of times so they recognize us right away, (who wouldn’t). We have the cheese lady, the soap lady, and the pastry lady. We bought some beef, the first red meat we’ve had since we got here, so Kelley is going to make some soup with it. We were looking at what we thought was bacon but it was cured, and the woman selling it cut off two small pieces to try. We tried to say no, fearing food poisoning. But she kept trying to give it to us. So we ate it, then she offered a different cut and another. Which we also ate. We walked away from there fearing gastric calamity. So far, so good. Just outside the market we saw a vendor selling whole roasted chickens. So we bought one of those. Just like Krogers. We had some of that for lunch and for dinner tonight we grilled cheese with chicken.
At 4:00 we went visit Elona, she had seen the doctor and gotten a couple of shots. And as usual she was very happy to see us. We played UNO and practiced English a little, and talked about flying home. We explained that we will fly four times to get to our house, and she doesn’t seem to be worried about it. Although at this stage to her it’s not that real. Tomorrow we will talk some more.