Monday, October 24th

Hello again and my apologies for my absence for a few days. The wifi in my room got so slow I could hardly send an email and it took until this afternoon to get it fixed.  Of course the solution was to bring in a 22 year old nerd who diagnosed the whole hotel system and fixed the problem within an hour.  I was thrilled with his skills and had to fight him to get him to accept 100 Rivenas ($4) as a token of my appreciation.

Two days ago, and Phyllis alluded to this, we returned to the town of Shogorad for a specific purpose.  To see if we could find some thermal underwear for me.  The previous night I went looking at a mall near the hotel.  While Ukraine is a poor country there are plenty of people able to spend way too much on so-called designer goods.   At the Adidas store, a 20 year old clerk smiled when she informed me that the thermal underwear I was looking at costs $150.  Needless to say, I left without the $150 Adidas thermal underwear.

In Shogorad there was a sort of a variety store that had just closed when we arrived.  Alex inquired of someone there who called the store owner who agreed to come back.  The helpful woman who made the phone call, when told we were looking for thermal underwear for me exclaimed "Is it so cold?"  The locals acted like 35 degrees was no problem at all.  Anyway the store owner appeared and in five minutes the grand sum of $17.50 changed hands and I became the proud owner of some very nice high-tech thermal underwear.  A picture of me modeling the new underwear will be conspicuously absent from this blog.

This evening we dined at Marani for the third time.  The waiter said we are like his family.  The food is wonderful and we have trouble exceeding $40 for the three of us including tip.  See pictures below.

The desert shown above is called "Opium".  While we were assured that it contains no illicit ingredients, it is nonetheless very addictive and we all recommend it for your visit to Ukraine.

The next photo is of a sign outside of our hotel.  Just in case you thought that obnoxious lawyers were an American phenomenon, check out this guy.  According to the sign he can do anything.  Is there someone like that in your town?

He looks a little like Putin to me so he probably loses some business for that alone.

Last year I took a lot of photos at railroad crossings looking for a train to show to a friend of more than 50 years who is a railroad buff.  I never saw a train last year.  Sadly, my friend died this past February and now I see one train in my return to Ukraine.

It's after 9am on Tuesday and we're checking out to travel to another town for more geneaology research.