Wednesday

Interesting morning this morning... lost the camera sometime yesterday and ran out of the local money (grevna). We had asked Tonya to ask one of the girls who works here at the hotel to help us go exchange money and buy a new camera. She smiling agreed and took us out this morning. We thought we were walking to a bank like we had exchanged money so many times before... not this time. We walked into a park like square in the small town and approached an old man that was visibly holding a very large wad of grevna. Our girl talked to him and I pulled out 3 $100 bills and he pulled out his calculator and gave me 2,394 grevna. All out in the open, seemed very shady but accepted. Went and purchased the new camera. Although food and lodging is very cheap here, the electronics are much higher than what we can get in the US and spent 1200 grevna ($150) on a no thrills digital camera. Our only means of translating is calling Tonya, try to explain to her what we want and then we hand the phone to the local person, and Tonya explains to her what we want. It is hard to explain how difficult, uncomfortable and frustrating it is to be in a country or city where no one speaks English.

Now we are off to the camp to hang with the kids and help them celebrate their Independence Day. A little different than the US Independence Day... so far no parades or barbecues or open celebrations. Maybe tonight we'll see some fireworks...