We're here!

After a looooong trip, with lots of stops, and zero leg room, we finally arrived. After the tight security in Spokane, Denver, Washington DC and Munich, the atmosphere in this Eastern European airport was a bit more like a busy market. We were met by our facilitator, who is very nice, with a nice, roomy car, and he drives very fast, as does everyone here. He deposited us to our apartment building, where the receptionist speaks excellent english, and was also very nice, although I think she started getting annoyed with me, when I couldn't get the internet running. Finally, I got it up and quit bugging her.

After 28 hrs of traveling, we were really scummy, and it was a relief to take a shower, although it's more a bathtub with a handheld shower head. Neither of us slept the night before we left, so we were falling asleep every time we sat down, which is a bit unnerving when you're trying to keep track of your stuff, especially wallets and passports. It also means you have a chronic nasty taste in your mouth, and I kept going to the restroom to brush my teeth. Very little liquid is served, or food, so we arrived hungry and dehydrated. We tried to get out before dark to get some food or water, but didn't have any luck. We finally decided to try again in the morning.

                              

Here are the rewards of our search.  We finally found a grocery store, and a vegetable/meat market.  We made several trips, because we bought mineral water instead of regular water, and unsalted butter instead of salted.  We never did figure out which was the salted butter.  We also bought a can of corn with a pop-off lid because we couldn't find a can opener for sale to open the one with a normal lid.

Here is the view from our balcony.  Our balcony is very old, as is our building, but the location is good.  This side of the view is actually very pretty.  The other side is a crumbling building, with some graffiti, so it's not as pretty. 

Here is the butter, which is really butter, but doesn't really taste like butter.

Here is David with a tray of fresh fruit and vegetables from the market.  I think we may have overpaid, as we didn't haggle, but we don't have the hang of things yet.  We're just happy to eat.

You may wonder why David is sitting on the bed with a plate of food, but the "apartment" is not as big as it appears in the pictures on their website.  It is really a studio.  It also is not as modern as it appears in the pictures, either.  I'm happy, though, because we don't need much.

This is our washing machine, which is precious.  It's knee-high to a grasshopper.  It's big enough to wash one day's clothes for 2 people, so good enough!  We had a job figuring out how to turn it on, and we're still not sure what all the controls mean, as they are pictures, which must be self-explanatory, but apparently not for us!