More of the Same...

David's still in the hospital; it's after 10:00 p.m. and I'm tired.  David's feeling much better and really thought that the doctor would let him leave the hospital today.  Crazy.  He had major surgery just 3 days ago, and he thought he could just go ahead and leave because he felt like it.  Silly boy.  He's bored stiff!  He's getting his appetite back, and the hospital only brings food once a day (lunch).  Other good news:  realizing that the doctors at this hospital must really love their work and want to help people, because they are certainly competent enough to work elsewhere, yet choose to work at this public hospital where the pay is crappy.

We went back to the orphanage today to play with Kolya for about an hour.  (They call this orphanage a "boarding school."  The kids live and go to school there.)  I didn't want to stay longer today because snow was forecast for the evening, we have to go to the orphanage in the morning (9:00 a.m.) tomorrow because the translator has some papers to file across the street from there at 9, and I wanted to get Tyler into bed at a decent hour tonight.  Tyler's not sleeping very well, and we're all feeling the stress of this trip.  I'm tired most of the time, myself.  Between traveling, jet lag, and surgery, it's been a very long 10 days.  Yes, that's all -- it's only been 10 days, but feels like a month, honestly.  The weather is supposed to warm up to around 30 this weekend, then get back down to the upper teens and 20s again next week.

Tyler and Kolya are really enjoying having each other around.  It's fun to watch how they just sort of picked up where they left off when Kolya left us in August.  They wrestle, kick around the frisbee, play with transformers, draw pictures, and play football together.  In the middle of it all, Kolya will just stop and walk over to me for hugs.  He is the sweetest thing! 

Yesterday, I had an emailed letter to deliver from a friend who hosted another boy (Sasha) from the same orphanage.  I asked if I could deliver it first-hand, and was told that I could.  Kolya walked us over to the building where they both live/go to school, and I was able to deliver the letter and the hugs to Sasha.  Pretty cool. [Pic: Sasha, Tyler, and Kolya]

It snowed pretty hard on our way back from the orphanage.  The hospital is on the way back, so at least that much is convenient, although the orphanage is in another town from where we're staying.  We're staying in the larger town just because it's nicer here, with more stores, services, and apartments.  We have a pretty nice 2 bedroom apartment near the downtown area, so we can actually walk to the grocery store if we want.  It's $37.50 USD per day.  (The translator stays with us in the apartment, which is fine, but would have been nice to realize before we got here, just so we would have known.  She's very sweet and very helpful.)  There's a pretty good Italian food place just about a block or 2 away that we walked to a couple of nights ago.  Good pizza.  We take cabs everywhere else.  It's about $12 for a one-way trip to the orphanage.  It was $33 to have the driver for the afternoon.  It's around $6 for a ride to the hospital.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but it really adds up when you have to make these trips more than once every day.  For instance, today:  had the cab come and get us this morning and take the translator to an internet cafe, then take Tyler and me to the supermarket and on to the hospital. [$7.50]  Then we had the driver come get us at the hospital and take us to the orphanage, wait for us, take us back to the the hospital, wait for us, then bring us back to the apartment. [$33]  So, that's around $40 a day for transportation.  Around $78 per day for transportation and lodging, no food, water, toilet paper, laundry detergent, or internet service included.  Oh, and then there's the hospital room (which is cheap, but is still another expense...).

Enough for tonight.  I'm terribly tired, just want to get this stuff written now while it's still fresh in my mind.