Wednesday - arrived in Paris at 6am and went to the hotel. Myrna and I took a 2hr nap since we got almost zero sleep on the plane! From there we went and bought metro tickets and headed into the city! Stopped in Montmartre, had lunch at "my" café and then went on a hunt for Moulin Rouge. I have zero sense of direction but we followed my instincts anyway and after asking a couple of people we actually found it! From there we went to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and ended at the Arc de Triomphe followed by dinner at a café on the Champs-Elysées.
Thursday - flew to Kiev, had a meeting with a guy about Upward and then flew to Odessa. Oh, on our way to Kiev, I sat next to a Ukrainian guy who is fluent in Russian, French and Polish. I had a French newspaper so he knew I spoke French and halfway through the 3hr flight, he began to talk to me. Now, I didn't understand everything he said b/c my brain started hurting after a bit. Plus, we were close to the engines so I couldn't hear him really well anyway. The gist of it is that he is 60yrs old, has a wife, 3 children and a granddaughter. He's been flying back and forth to Africa for the past 10yrs for work, which is how he knows French. At some point he started talking about the Iraq war and the fires in California and all kinds of stuff. Sadly I didn't ever fully know what he was talking about so I mainly just listened! I felt so bad but he was so nice!!
Friday - MY BIRTHDAY! :) We slept in a bit, headed downtown and met a friend for lunch. We wandered in and out of a few stores and then headed to a football match. This was my first pro soccer game to go to and it was exciting! It was two Ukrainian cities playing and so of course we were pulling for Odessa. Sasha and Regina even bought me an Odessa scarf so that I could be a real fan. Odessa won 4-0. There were 2 red cards given to the other team and at least 2 yellow cards to a couple of different players too! After we scored at one point, the cheering section got really crazy and lit a couple of red flares and while we were watching them we started seeing yellow and blue chairs flying in the air! We think a fight started in the midst of it all... it was nuts!
Saturday - a guy came to Odessa from Lubni (?) to see Sasha and Regina's Upward soccer games so we spent the morning with him and Sasha told him about Upward and his experience. That afternoon we headed to the gym for their last games of the season. It's been raining like crazy so they haven't been able to play on the fields for a few weeks. The games were a blast and the kids have had so much fun.
Sunday - we went to church this morning and after the typical 3 sermons came home for homemade pizza. A missionary that used to live here was in town so he and his daughter joined us for the afternoon. Now we're about to leave to fly to Kiev and we'll fly back to the states tomorrow.
Pictures will come when I get home! In the meantime, thanks for your prayers... for the churches and Upward leagues in Ukraine and our travelling safety!
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