Nothing

Another useless day. Nadya said she would know by 10 am if our tax code was ready. At 11:30 we found out that it wasn't but she was told to check again at 3. We sat around hopeful but no luck. Now we try again tomorrow. I don't feel like wallowing in self pity right now (to be honest we've done that all day :). You can guess what this means for our chances of getting home this weekend. Still not impossible but nearly.

Yesterday we went in search of a Matroyshka doll for Larry's mom. The place to go is right by the SDA and St. Andrews Church, which we got pictures of when we first arrived here. Vendors line the street on the other side of the church selling all kinds of Ukranian souveniers. We were excited to see a wedding party coming out of the church, then after they left we noticed tourists going inside. This is one of the only churches that we had not gone in yet so we were excited to check it out. We were surprised to see not only that a baptism was in progress but also that you could take pictures!
If you look close you can see the bride and groom at the bottom of the steps:

Inside the church built in 1747:

Throughout all of the churches here they have various places set up where people come to light candles and pray:

The baptism:

We thought the baptism was very interesting. I got some video but let me give you a disclaimer before you watch it. The video starts with the priest doing something to the baby (their backs are to us so you can't see but I think he was putting oil on the baby) then in the shot comes a friend or family member of the parents baptizing their baby. Here's where the disclaimer comes in. You may be shocked to see that she is in an Orthodox Church where Orthodox women are still required to wear a head covering (as you can see on the mother and another lady in the background) but this woman is wearing a completely see through dress with a black thong! Now, we've seen a lot these last 5 weeks and this is actually not uncommon on the streets but in CHURCH at a BAPTISM?!?! Anyway, I digress. After the shock of that you see the priest chanting something in what I think is Latin and then sprinkling holy water on everyone and then the parents celebrating. These are just a few short clips, but actually the whole baptism was rather long. It was 90+ degrees outside and there was no AC in the church. Still, it was very neat to witness.

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And just for fun we thought we'd show you what happens to your clothes when you wash and air dry them here. They are like cardboard!

All of my white clothes are also now a lovely shade of white/gray. There will be some clothes that will be going in the trash before I leave here. I pray that tomorrow I will be writing with some good news!