The wedding trip

It's been a week since the wedding. Let's see if I can get at least some of the pictures up today....

Last Thursday we left on a marshrutka (van-bus) for Zaporozhya, with our family and three other people headed to Lena's wedding. In Zaporozhya every else got on their train, and then we boarded another. For some reason, tickets are scarce this summer, so we couldn't all go on the same train or by the same route, even though Will worked hard to try and buy all the tickets together.

Bogdan's first time on a train

He was so happy!

And they were CRAZY

Just before we had to wake everyone

for an early-morning arrival in Kiev. All mornings were early, and all nights were late on this trip. By the way, that's Raia's foot by Asya, and the edge of Bogdan's bed on the table. Six people in one coupe gets crowded, even when they're little. Oh, and the car we were in was actually air conditioned and cool, which was a direct answer to prayer! AC on trains is almost unbelievable; I guess it's a special Ukrainian summer phenomenon? However, so far we've only seen that AC means that it's even stuffier, because the windows won't open at all. This time it worked!

We had several hours to wait in Kiev, so we ate at "The Restaurant" (i.e. McDonald's), ran laps around the children's waiting room in the train station, and then finally got on our next train. We had to trade around to get places together, since our tickets were all over, and it was pretty funny when the conductor brought on older man to us and told us that he would probably trade with us... if we could make him understand. She was a little frustrated, and said that he didn't speak Russian at all. Will said that it was no problem, and then spent hours speaking English with him.

That evening we got off the moving oven, er--that is, off the train--and made our way to the church, to join in on...

Decorating

Late meal

They were almost done decorating by the time we got there, but then we all ate together. Afterwards, we went to our host's home and collapsed into beds.

More later....