Ukraine

Wednesday night, we dropped off the kids at a friend's house in Waterloo, then returned home to pack and prepare a few things for the conference until midnight.

We took off the next day at 9am from Brussels airport. We flew to Budapest, Hungary then to Kiev, Ukraine; it was approximately a 4hr trip. We got in Kiev at 4 pm and it was already dark and a bit rainy and cold too. We stayed at the 5-star (there's no way we could ever afford anything like this) Hyatt Regency, it was beautiful. Soon after we got to the hotel, Juri and his boss met up with the other lawyers and left to a great restaurant, while me and the boss's wife stayed (She's in our ward, so I already know her). We decided to go freshen up in our rooms and meet at the hotel's restaurant. We spent the night eating and talking, getting to know each other better, and enjoy each other's company. We finished at 10pm then went back to our rooms. I decided to take a nice LONG shower and then I hoped in the tub too because I never get to bathe at home, I don't have time. It was soooooo nice, I felt guilty though for using so much water. Shortly after, Juri came 'home' from his dinner exhausted.

On friday, we had to wake up 'early' (no sleeping in, 6:30am) to have breakfast and then Juri had to leave with the group of lawyers at 8:30-9am. The breakfast was great, I pigged out pretty good. Astrid (the boss's wife) and I met up for 10am to go on a tour with senior missionaries and a local member taxi driver. We visited several places, mostly beautiful churches like St Sophia, St Andrews..., the 'spouss' (not sure about the spelling), which is like a flea market with souvenir stands, ate at a local fast food with quite a few traditional meals, the statue of the guy who brought Christianity in Ukraine, a Viking boat, and the "Rodina" - a huge Statue. We then went back to the hotel and waited for the husbands and lawyers to come back from the conference and go to a fancy restaurant to celebrate the end of the conference. It was a lot of fun. It was a bit intimidating for me because they're all so smart and educated (lawyers- 20+ of them) and I just change diapers the whole day, potty train, wipe throw ups and so on... I felt smart for a second, listening to their smart conversations. It was fun being surrounded by international people. They were from Tel Aviv (Israel), Istanbul (Turkey), Prague (Czech Republic), Bratislava (Slovakia), Moscow (Russia), Rome (Italy), London (England), Kiev (Ukraine), Lisbon (Portugal), Berlin (Germany), and Paris (France)...

The company was great, the food was great, the service was interesting; the waitresses had dresses that lift the boobs up and show the cleavage pretty good (I tried doing it at 'home', but it was difficult with and almost inexistent bosom). It was so nice to be with adults and have non-interrupted adult conversations. I felt like a person, a woman, again. I got to dress up and put make up on!

We went home late, but a few of them went clubbing (the next morning, I heard that they drank a whole lot of “Russian water”…if you know what I mean…, and that now they have a headache).

On Saturday, we woke up to a snowy landscape outside, it was beautiful, which turned into rain while we were having breakfast. We then waited for everybody to gather up in the lobby at 10am, then we all left for a real tour of Kiev. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy. Moreover, the guide stopped the bus and made us walk in the rain to visit a Church, which was really pretty by the way, then made us walk close to the flea market. Juri and I had our shoes and socks and pants soaked; thus we decided to walk back to the hotel. We stopped by at the flea market to get some souvenirs for us and our friend babysitting. We got her a painted egg, and for us, a wooden Christmas tree, a Matroshka (wooden doll) and a 'Father Frost', a beautiful piece (I'll post pictures of them in a different post).

The guy was awesome, he offered us discounts and drove us back to the hotel. I then realized that they packed the wrong Matroshka (pink), he went back with Juri to get the purple one that I wanted. He again dropped off Juri at the hotel; I realized once again that he took the wrong one (dark purple). Juri really wanted us to get the RIGHT light purple doll, so he called him, and he came back to drop off the RIGHT one this time. Talking about customer service!!!! He was great, even though the business was not doing all that great. He said that we might be his only customers for the day. If you ever go to Kiev, let me know and I'll give you his contact info if you need souvenirs.

At 1:30pm, the bus came back with soaked lawyers, then we all headed for the airport. We left snowy Kiev at around 4pm, went to Budapest again where we experienced a nice snow storm (I was freezing), then on to Brussels. Another ward member friend picked us up, dropped us off at home; we got the car then we went to pick up the kids. They were very excited and had a blast. They didn't cry at all and had fun playing with our friend's 4 older kids (14-8 years old - 3boys, 1 girl). We got home at around 10pm, put the kids to sleep, then we crashed.

On Sunday, we woke up to a snowy Brussels and we had to get ready to go to Stake Conference from 10-12pm. It snowed pretty heavily that day. After naptime, we wanted to drop off something to a friend's house kind of far from our house. We had to drive like turtles. It was interesting to see Belgians driving sooooo slowwww because usually everybody flies on the highway.

We really had a lot of fun, even if Juri mostly worked during the trip. It was nice to just be the both of us, taking a break from the kids. I felt so light. We should do that more often.

The good news is that those conferences are usually twice a year, so the next one is in April-May and it will be in Istanbul, Turkey. I would LOVE to go there. I guess I just need to find babysitters again.