Tuesday, October 25th

We checked out of the Hotel France in Vinnitsa and drove 80 miles (we'll actually Alex did the driving) to the State Archives in the town of Khelmnitsky where Alex had reserved some records for us to search.  Phyllis spelled our Gradmother's name in Cyrillic so I could actually help.  It was cold in the Archives such that no one took off their coats.   The Archivist, out of an obvious abundance of caution copied the picture pages of our passports and handed the copies together with a scissors and some glue to Alex.  He was to cut out the copies of our pictures and glue them to a form we filled out.  I fully expect to be awakened in the middle of the night by the Ukranian Secret Police because someone broke a rule.

Thankfully, at 1PM they closed for lunch and we headed outside where it seemed warmer, to goto for  next hotel, the Arena Hotel.  In the States this would be such a high end Yuppie hotel, here it was $52 per room night.  Behold!

Alex and Phyllis returned to the Archives for the afternoon.  I stayed in this nice warm hotel room.  Alex found another good restaurant and tomorrow we're off to the next town.  I checked the weather in Israel.  It should be 75 degrees when I arrive Saturday.  This photo was taken at 8pm outside the hotel.  That's 4 degrees centigrade.  About 38 degrees for Americans.

I'll be trying out this fancy bed now....until tomorrow...