ManBlog

I’ve heard the outcry for more ManBlog, so here it is. I’ll try to cover the practical stuff that men need to think about while on an adoption journey in Ukraine. Mainly, I’m talking about food, electronics, money, and entertainment.

Food – as I’ve said before, the food is not bad here. It’s not great either. My main goal is to not be hungry. I’ve given up on having great tasting food. Everything here seems to be very bland, at least what I’ve been brave enough to try. I’ve had a lot of pizza, which tends to be fairly good. When it’s not pizza, you will find a lot of chicken or pork cutlets that have something like cheese and mushrooms all cooked together, usually lightly battered and fried. They have lots of potatoes. I’ve had mashed potatoes, whole potatoes, potatoes au grautin, french fried potatoes, and just about any other type of potato. I’ve found that the desserts are usually some sort of cake that I find to be too dry. We usually have some sort of bread for breakfast that I’ve been warming up and spreading peanut butter on. Peanut butter makes everything better. I got tired of washing dishes, so I bought a bunch of plastic plates, cups, forks, and spoons. This is the flimsiest plastic ware I have ever seen. The spoon broke into pieces when I tried to spoon out some peanut butter. Also, the bread tends to be very dry here. We finally had some soft bread at a restaurant the other night. I took home two pieces that I used to make a real PB&J the next day. My strategy is to have a late breakfast, a huge lunch, and then to wait as long as possible to have a homemade dinner that is usually PB&J so that I don’t get hungry before bedtime.

Electronics – I learned before coming here that there are two types of converters. One type is for things that heat up like hair dryers and curling irons. The other is for all other items. I got one of each from Radio Shack, but have not used the one for hair dryers yet. The computer doesn’t need a converter. You can usually find markings on things if they can handle 220 volts. I used the converter for my electric razor and it worked fine. We also used it to charge the camera battery and cell phone battery. Julie has been using a hair dryer and flat iron that we bought here because we have heard that the US ones won’t work well or still may get ruined even with a converter. They are cheap here and you don’t have to take up extra room in your suitcase. By the way, if you can’t pack light enough to carry on your luggage on your flight, you will definitely have too much luggage to go on the train. People wear the same thing every day here, so you don’t need to pack much.

Internet is a challenge here. We get a faint wireless signal from our apartment. Sometimes we are able to connect to it, which gives us about 15 minutes of very slow Internet. If you have pictures to send, it would help if you either make them smaller first, or put them on a website and send the link. We sometimes go to Brandon and Katie’s to bum their Internet, but we don’t want to wear out our welcome, so we try to do that just every 2 or 3 days. The Internet Café is a pain because it is hard to upload pictures or pre-written blogs. We have not found a Wifi connection at a restaurant. Once I go home, Julie will have easy Internet when she moves in with Brandon and Katie, so she will be able to call and be called using the Vonage V-Phone.

I went into the electronics/appliance section at their local Target-like store. It was very interesting. They had a ton of washing machines, but no dryers to sell at all. All their appliances were tiny. They had dishwashers that were about the size of a microwave. They also had a video game set up with a steering wheel and a chair. Of course, I sat down to try it out. I got in big trouble from security. Apparently, it is a crazy idea to actually play the game that they have set out. Grant and I do this all the time at Best Buy or Target, but it’s not allowed here.

Money – Even though I called my bank before coming here, they put a hold on my account after my first ATM withdrawal. I was able to withdraw about $400. I finally was able to call the bank and straighten everything out. I was able to get another $400 out yesterday. Everything is done with cash here. In Kiev, US dollars were fairly widely accepted, but not here. And if you use US cash, they only want brand new bills. I carry a lot of US cash on me in a money pouch that is connected to my belt. I hope to be able to not dip into it by using Hryvna that I pull out of the ATM. The US cash is emergency fundage. I have not felt unsafe here at all.

Entertainment - We’ve been watching a lot of DVDs on the computer. Some of our DVD’s that we burned at home are not playing on the computer, which is frustrating, but the store bought DVD’s work fine. We made it through the first season of 24 and are almost through the first seasons of Lost and The Office. Oksana is now hooked on Lost. We made her watch Napoleon Dynamite, but I don’t think she liked it.

Weird Ukraine stuff – we’ve noticed a lot of superstitions here that seem odd to us. They are paranoid about being cold. They bundle up their children to a ridiculous level. I was outside with Veeka today with no jacket on, and she had about 4 layers plus a coat, hat, and scarf. They think it is unhealthy to drink a cold beverage in the winter, or it will make you sick. They won’t let Veeka walk on a hard surface without shoes on, because it is too cold. Another weird superstition is that you can’t whistle while inside. I never realized how much I whistle, and these people think I am very rude. They say that if you whistle inside, you will lose all your money, which seems to be happening to me. Babies can’t be placed on their bottoms for several weeks, but must be laid flat. Raw onions and garlic keep you from getting sick. Veeka has them almost every day, which didn’t bother us until today when we ran out of gum to give her.

Time for another episode of Lost. Surely we will find out what the Polar Bear thing is. Gotta go.