Amusement Park

June 28th

Today we decided to try and find the amusement park that the Lawrence's took Ruslan to. We started out going towards the orphanage because we heard that it was just down the street next to the orphanage. We tried to ask Katya if she knew where the "park" was and told her it was the one that the Lawrence's had taken Ruslan to, but she said that it was down main street and then to the left (and I was sure that this was not the way) and then she asked if we could stop at the orphanage and take Ruslan with us. What a sweetheart! We told her that Nadia wouldn't let us take Ruslan (which was probably the truth) and we ignored Katya's directions and walked down the street next to the orphanage, hoping that we would eventually run into it - it's not like we had anything better to do and walking around would kill time faster than sitting in a hot apartment. After we had walked for a bit, Katya stopped and asked a lady for directions to the park. I didn't understand the lady's directions but she made a motion of straight, then left, then right with her hand. Katya didn't seem too sure of her directions and stopped to ask another lady for directions. The she proclaimed that she knew where it was! So we walked and walked and walked. My mom and I were beginning to think that we were not going in the right direction but Katya kept making a "straight ahead" motion with her hand accompanied by a whistle and then giggling (she loved making the whistling sound!). So we just kept walking, had to veer left a little, then right, then cross the street and we actually made it there! It was right across from the electronics store (Alex - you will know where this is).

It was a park with some very old amusement park rides. There were very few people there and when we first got there, Katya didn't seem too interested in the rides and immediately took us to a water fountain. Although you couldn't actually get in the fountain, Katya managed to get both wet and dirty :) while my mom and I ate the most disgusting ice cream cones (the cone tasted like wet paper) and watched. Once Katya was dirty and wet enough to her satisfaction, she decided that she wanted to ride some of the rides. For 10 gryvnas (about $1.25), Katya and I got to ride the swings (we were the only two people on the ride). You sat in the swing and it spun you around. It did not look well maintained and I was actually pretty scared riding it because it kept making these noises that suggested that at any moment the swing would detach from the ride and I would go flying and become impaled on the pointy bars on the top of the nearby metal fence. However, we made it off alive and without incidence. Then Katya rode this very mild roller coaster that went around in a circle a couple of times and then we rode the bumper car boats, which was actually the funnest ride in my opinion. Katya's favorite ride was the tilt-a-whirl -which I went on against my better judgment - and didn't feel so swell afterwards. We rode the Ferris Wheel, which actually was pretty cool because we got a high-up view of the city. There is not much in the city to look at, really, but I could see the church that Katya took us to, the Billa Cafe that we had lunch at one afternoon, a large factory, some pretty tall buildings off to the left and right of main street (that don't look worth visiting) and I noticed that the surround area was actually houses. Up to this point, my mom didn't think there were any houses in this town, but apparently there are! I wish I had taken the camera because I could have gotten some pretty cool pictures - oh well! We tried to ride the train because I thought they would let Tony sit on my lap and ride it. I had taken him out of his car seat and we were waiting to get on the ride and the lady informed us that he couldn't ride. He could, however, ride the ride next to it that would require him to sit on his own and would have definately been more dangerous than the train. Oh brother! Needless to say, Tony didn't get to go on any rides and this made him mad (actually, what made him mad was that he had to go back into his car seat!). We should have come here when Allie was with us because her and Katya would have had fun together. NOTE: Katya was watching as I was typing this and saw her name. I told her that I was writing about our trip to the park. She wanted me to make sure that everybody knew that she loved papa :)

On the way back we stopped at a toy store. We are in search of a deck of cards, since we let Alex and Allie take the one deck that we had and we are going crazy with watching Hannah Montana in Russian and the soap opera that seems to ALWAYS be on TV. We have one matching card game that Katya likes to play and yesterday we played "Stinky Skunk" (our version of "Old Maid") and Katya was delighted with it! She didn't care about getting any matches, but instead would just laugh and laugh when she could trick grandma into picking the "Stinky Skunk" from her. We did not find playing cards at the toy store, but I did find a 1,000 piece puzzle and we will see if we can find a big enough flat surface in the apartment to put it together.

Alex and Allie made it home alive. The battery to the Tahoe was dead when Alex tried to start it but he hasn't had any problems since the neighbor "jump started" it for him. He made it to Red Robin and he says that the A/C in the house was set to 75 and was too cold for him so he turned it up to 79 (poor thing!). What I wouldn't give for air conditioning!