Kiev

Well, I never thought I'd be using an internet cafe in Ukraine, or as they say in Ukraine...an штеуктуе сфау. Here's the story behind getting there.

On Saturday night, in Warsaw, Simon, Dave and I went to go scope out a place that was recommened by one of the guidebooks to hang out at. We were meeting a college student named Peter that night and wanted to find a cool place to take him. We checked it out, deemed it worthy and came back there with Peter later on that night.

We informed Peter that we would be travelling to Kiev by train on Sunday night. When he heard this he was interestingly shocked and surprised. This led to our whole team wondering why a local would be curious as to why we were taking a train to Ukraine. He then informed us of the following information.

1) The Embassy of Ukraine has reported several instances of passengers being gassed while sleeping and then, of course, being robbed. The interesting thing is that in order to get into a locked room you have to have a key. Only the train personnel has the keys and therefore they are in on it too.

2) We would almost certainly have problems at the border of Poland and Ukraine. Most likely they would force us to give them money. Ordinarily, if it was going to take a few bucks to get into a country I would comply but if you remember correctly, the Embassy of Ukraine has already taken enough of my money and I wasn't about to give them any more.

3) They charge for sheets (that's just cheap).

Our new found information had brought our group to an intersting state in which we were all prepared to stand up for our rights as U.S. and U.K. citizens and beat the crap out of anyone trying to mess with our stuff. In fact, we even had a battle cry..."Don't take any crap!"

After denying our egos we gave the trip to the Lord and had an incredibly smooth train ride.

Then came Kiev.

By the grace of God, the people who were suppossed to meet us at the train station showed up even though neither one of us had a clue what the other looked like. Our goal was to find the apartment that we were staying at an check in. Ha! First of all, time means nothing to Ukraininan businessmen and neither does the price or original apartment that we booked. It literally took 4 hours, 1 argument w/ the owner of the place, and 1 Ukraininan butt chewing by a drunk old guy to get settled in. Fortunately, the girl who was responsible for taking us to the place was really nice and actually turned out to be Presbyterian.

So, with that said we are settled in and ready to see what the Lord has in store for us. Please keep us in your prayers.