Bringing Elona Home

Okay, I have to tell you - right now Elona is pretending to have an office and is pretending to stamp documents with a deodorant container. She is listening to music on a disc player and organizing and re-organizing papers and objects on her ‘desk’. This is so funny to Roger and me. All three of us have seen a lot of documents stamped over the last two months. Elona was amazed that the Notary had five stamps, and each was bigger than the last.

Anyway. We have Elona’s Visa. George picked up us at the apartment and we hurried to the ‘Metro’. Kiev’s subway must be 10 stories underground, is very crowded and very noisy, which makes it seem like it is going really fast. A short Metro ride, a short bus ride, (practically running in between) we arrived at the U.S. Consulate 20 minutes early. I have to make a correction; our meeting yesterday was also at the Consulate, not the Embassy. We are the only people in the waiting room, which is very clean and new, not at all like any other waiting room we have been in since arriving in Ukraine.

Right at 2:00 we are called up to the window. The very nice American Consulate asked Elona a few questions; we raise our right hands and swore that all the document information is true. Sign the forms. We are finished. 20 minutes later the Visa is ready and we are out the door. I cannot describe how happy this makes us.

Now we are just killing time until the flight tomorrow morning.
For dinner we went to ‘Papa John’s’ (not the same, here Papa John is black). Elona ate 4 large pieces of pizza and a salad. Roger and I are thinking we will not be able to afford to feed her.

That is all from the Ukraine. Tomorrow we will return to our wonderful country and our friends and family. Thank you for joining us on our amazing journey. We will write again when we are home for few days to let you know how Elona’s first days in America go.

Roger, Kelley and Elona.

Photos are the view from our apartment.