Our Sunday Tour with Peter...

So we were driven to Lutugino this morning (with Susan who is adopting 15 year old Olga/Alex) to see Vladik. We weren't exactly sure we would be able to see him because it is Sunday and the orphanage is pretty much shut down on Sundays. They don't go to class, they stay in their rooms and watch movies (Vladik told us) and they eat and they nap and they go outside to play for a bit. When we first got there no kids were playing outside so we walked down to Cafe 999 to get a coffee. About 20 minutes later we walked back to the orphanage (mind you, with the wind, it is like -10 degrees Farenheit outside!) and see the kids out playing. But feeling like we weren't exactly welcome in the gates today we stood outside the fence and watched the kids play about 40 yards away. We kept looking for Vladik and didn't see him but we did get quite a few stares from some of the older kids and the couple caretakers that were out there. So after standing there for at least 15 minutes, while wondering if feeling would ever return to my toes, we saw Vladik as he was going back into his building . He smiled and we waved and then he went in. About 2 minutes later (yes, we were still waiting hoping that maybe he would get to come back out and actually talk to us) he popped his head out his 2nd story bedroom window and waved at us again. But only for a few seconds, we assume he probably got scolded. So after Susan was done visiting with Alex (the older kids have quite a bit more freedom on Sundays) we drove back to Luhansk and dropped Susan off. We asked Peter, our driver who speaks VERY little English and often forgets that we don't speak Russian, to take us around Luhansk to take some pictures. We asked him to take us to some churches and monuments. It was bitter cold but an amazing day nonetheless! This first video is just driving through Luhansk. The second video is us pulling up to our first tourist destination, a breathtakingly beautiful church!

Actually this is from last night, us goofing around trying to fill our time!

Beautiful church!

But there are tons of beautiful churches around here (although this is the biggest one we have seen I think).

I was trying to pretend that is was 70 degrees and I was lounging in the sun...

This was the second stop on our Fabulous Tour with Peter. After he took us to the church we said "monument?" which we knew happened to be a word Peter knew. It was then that Peter said no monument and then a bunch of stuff in Russian. Apparently it was something like "no monument now, I have something better. I am the tour guide let me do my job." And this is where we showed up. We called our translator on the phone and he helped interpret what Peter was trying to tell us. He said this is a holy place and many years ago a priest turn this big piece of wood (tree trunk) into stone, it was a miracle, and now you come and place your hand on the tree/stone and your wishes/prayers will be granted.

This is the wood he turned into stone apparently. It had an ornate iron fence around it and even a roof over it. So it must be very important.

This is the small old church near the wood/stone.

So this is our third stop on our tour! And this was actually a monument, not that we know what it was a monument too. It was atop a big hill and you could see very far and most of Luhansk from it. But being on top of a big hill it was VERY windy.

It was so cool, and also so COLD.

We went back to the car and told Peter that we were cold and we wanted him to take us to City Cafe to go eat. We told him no more pictures please, we were very cold. But Peter had other plans...

This was our 4th and unexpected stop on the tour. It was clear that Peter was not only literally in the drivers seat but figuratively as well. This was some sort of plane/helicopter museum. It was closed today (probably because it was too freaking cold to be outside wandering through an open field of aircraft) but that didn't stop Peter from driving us around all sides of it to stop, get out, and take more pictures.

Peter said this plane was a MIG. I wouldn't know a MIG is it introduced itself so we took his word for it...

Finally Peter let us know that our tour was over. He took us to the mall (not like Town Center though...) where we went in and warmed up and walked down the street for lunch and then back to our apartment. I am so happy we did some sightseeing today and I do still have all my fingers and toes...