Thursday night

There was a movie in the '70's called If it's Tuesday, This must be Belgium making fun of the kind of tours where they see 7 cities in 10 days.  I feel like I'm in that movie.  I had a wonderful time in Donetsk and left there with Roman by bus to go to Mariupol, 120km from Donetsk.  We arrived and were met by Alexandr (Sasha) the leader of the LGBT group there.  He took us to their office and the group gathered.  By the time we finished there were at least a dozen guys in attendance.  Roman gave a wonderful explanation of scripture in Russian to guys who had no idea there was another way of looking at things. After the meeting that lasted a couple of hours, Sasha, Roman and I went to a little Jewish restaurant and had a simple, filling and delicious dinner (hummus, cabbage salad, soup) and coffee without milk (kosher).  Then we took a bus to the apartment that Sasha had arranged for us.  It was a really nice apartment that cost us 100 UAH for the night (about $12).  On Wednesday, Roman and I explored the city.  Mariupol in on the Azov Sea (which is 15 meters at its deepest) which should make it a beautiful city but it is surrounded by coal-burning factories belching foul-smelling smoke everywhere.  We headed out for the sea but stopped a bit short and ate and drank at an outside restaurant (it was in the 90's and quite humid).  We started to walk to the sea but ran out of time and took a bus (a wrong bus) on which Roman fell asleep.  It didn't matter because it was the wrong bus to start with.  We got to the right place and the right bus and it had taken us two hours on a sweltering bus, leaving us just enough time to pack up, pay the owner of the apartment, and grab a taxi to the train station for the 15 hour overnight train to Kiev.  We shared a compartment with two women, one of whom snored like a lumberjack.  We arrived in Kiev at about 9 this morning.  We took the metro back to my apartment, showered, hand washed some clothes and hung them out and dozed a bit.  Then we went in search of a church goods store to buy crosses for the two guys in Donetsk we had baptized on Sunday.  We found the shop but it was closed till five.  We went back and got the crosses and then met Rostek at McDonald's for a cappuccino.   We came back to the apartment, drank a couple of bottles of Moldovan Chardonnay and now I am preparing for bed.  Roman and I will go to a conference early in the morning at which we both have presentations.  I also have to moderate a session for LGBT Christians.  I will return to Kiev tomorrow night and have nothing on my schedule for a few weeks when I will return to Donetsk for a wedding.  One month from this date I will fly home to NY.  Here's a link for some pics of Mariupol: https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/Mariupol?authkey=Gv1sRgCMaT2rXBxZDGkgE