Day 11 – Traffic you say?

Today was a bright sunny day. The first we’ve seen so far. And from what I saw via weatherchannel.com, it’s also the last we’ll see! Oh well, it’s not like I’m here to enjoy the great outdoors. There is a purpose to this trip and many activities need to take place indoors.

We were able to see V twice today, our scheduled 10:00 a.m. visit and our 3:00 p.m. visit. For our 10:00 visit, we were shown way back into the orphanage again. Sorry I did not snap pictures on the walk David, assumed I wasn’t supposed to. We were shown into the infirmary. I asked V why he wasn’t at school and he gave me a quick cough, indicating he was sick. We told him via the translator that he didn’t look sick. Dad told him that he will get him some medicine to which we got a big ‘No dad!” and a giggle. I did confirm with him that he is done with school. Still don’t understand why but our interpreter is no longer with us to have that conversation. Here is a pictures of one of the rooms in the infirmary.

We were able to coordinate a phone call this afternoon with V’s best friend who was adopted in September by a wonderful family in California. V was SO excited when my cell phone rang. He was speaking a mile a minute! Unfortunately, the boys got cut off. He called back but all too soon they were cut off again. I told V that once he gets home, he can call his friend any time he likes; my guess is this friend will be in his Fave5 via T-Mobile!

We had extra time with V this afternoon as our driver was continuing the paper chase on behalf of our coordinator. That gave us about an extra 45 minutes. We received a copy of who knows what from the driver as we got into the car. I could recognize our names and address in Russian in the upper right hand corner. My Russian must be getting better you say? NOT! The only reason I could tell it was our names was because there were 2 lines with the same Russian letters and then the next 2 words were different, last name I assume! And I could recognize our address right below it only because our zip code was there. There was an official looking stamp with a hand written date and something else filled in up in the left corner. We stopped at the inspector’s (social worker’s) office on the way back to the flat so they obviously needed a copy as well. Did I mention you have absolutely NO idea what they are saying?  Oh yeah, that was yesterday!

So back to parking and traffic...Interesting deal here. Not quite as interesting as China. Perhaps that's because it's still too cold here for motorcylces, scooters and bicycles.  Interesting none the less.

Parking is allowed anywhere. In any direction. At any time. Sidewalks, snow banks, traffic lanes, they are all acceptable at any time. Mind you, these are pictures I took from the flat in about 5 minutes (sorry 'bout the trees but I wasn't going down on the sidewalk to take pictures!). No searching needed what so ever to prove my points.

There is a parking lot area on the other side of the snow bank to the right. But I guess this is fine too!

This works as well.  Mind you, this is not a one way street

The parking lot I mentioned where the white car is parked. There is an open spot to the right of the white car. But I guess this is fine too!

Once the other car vacated his piece of sidewalk, this guy decided to pull up. I thought with the deally bop on the top, he must be a taxi. Nope. He smoked a cigarette, got out, walked into the store, did his business, came out, talked on the cell and then left again.

Now remember, this is on one small corner in 5 minutes or less! 

Driving is always an experience here. People walk where ever when ever. The middle of the road is quite common. Drivers simply wait until they have enough road to fit the car to go around them. You can drive around them to either their right or their left, again where ever you have enough road (plus sidewalk if required) to drive around them. Lanes? Purely guidelines. Use of the entire road for your driving pleasure is available at most times. If there is another car coming at you, your driver may follow the guidelines or he may not. It kind of depends on which pothole is in front of him and whether or not he thinks he needs the piece of road that other driver is headed towards. Today we saw a pothole that I swear could swallow a car. It was that huge! Pedestrian crossing at corners and stop lights is about the same. You just drive around them any way you can.

Stoplights are different here. The concept is of course universal but slightly different rules. You go on green of course. But you don’t have yellow. You go straight to red. The other guy is where it gets tricky! They have a red when you have a green, nothing unusual there. But then they have both a yellow and a red for a bit. Then it will turn green for them. They all start moving when the yellow comes on of course. I haven’t figured out yet if the guy who has the green turns red when the yellow comes on or if it’s still green for him...I trust my driver to get me to and from in one piece. So far so good! 

I took a few quick pictures today of some of the cars on the road. You have everything from small cars to SUV’s (lots of SUV’s in Kiev) to trucks to buses to street car type public transportation. There are only a few new automobiles anywhere. Most are 70’s or 80’s.

Sorry about the tree.  Seems that by the time I could get the camera focused, they were already into the tree.  And again, I didn't want to go stand on the side walk and take pictures!

The other interesting thing that happens is that when you are driving, there are police men stopped and standing outside their car in various places.  Usually 2 men.  No women.  They are wearing an orange vest with reflective tape much like construction workers and have a large white thick baton in their hands.  If they point to your car, you simply pull over where ever you are, get out your passport and other papers and show it/them to the officers.  If all is in order, you get back in your car, pull into traffic and off you go.  I have no idea what happens if things are not in order.  Thank goodness we didn't go down that route!  I would have liked to take a picture but Robert said in no uncertain terms "No!"

One last thing on cars/parking/traffic.  This happens to be the van at the orphanage, there is a spot light on the top. Not sure why? Robert is totally enthralled with this vehicle! Again, not sure why?

Sorry this post is late today. I was very tired for some reason and went to bed at 7:30 p.m. Something woke me just after midnight and I laid there thinking about the blog so I thought I best get up. And then I was half way through loading the pictures when my internet connection went haywire. It's finally back up.  Hope you enjoyed the photos!