I tossed and turned all night. I was just a little too excited to fall asleep too deeply. I got caught up on a little computer work before dressing and going downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. I was happy to see Karen Funk sitting with Dave & Phyllis Onufrichuk. They motioned me over to join them, which I did. The waiter came over and said something in Ukrainian; two words I could recognize were “omelet” and “sausage”. I nodded my head both times thinking I was ordering “eggs & sausage” for breakfast. But after he had walked away, Karen leaned over and informed me that they had discovered yesterday that it was one or the other. Turned out that I ordered the sausage. Combined with the rest of the small plate of deli meat, cheese, pickles, tomatoes, yogurt and juice, it was a pretty well rounded breakfast. I ate pretty quickly since the rest of the group had already finished and were just finishing their coffee. The discussion came up about exchanging some money somewhere and I told them I discovered an ATM machine just next door to the hotel, across the street from the street market.
So after we all had finished our breakfast we took a stroll up the street to where the ATMs were. Karen pointed out that they had eaten at the Pizza place by the machines just the night before. After each of us pulled out our necessary funds and were walking back to the hotel, we discussed what was on the agenda for the day. I knew that they had made previous arrangements with a translator and driver to take them around the surrounding areas, but I wasn’t sure if or how much room they might have since the cars here generally were so small. But as we reached the parking lot of the hotel, there was a lady standing there (Lydia) waiting to pick them up. Apparently, they had expected Lydia’s daughter to be joining them, so without trying to seem too forward or impose myself, I asked if they didn’t mind for me to tag along with them for the day since they were one person short and Lydia happen to be driving a nice VW bus.
They all said “sure”, so I made a mad dash back up to my room to grab my backpack and camera and rush back down to the parking lot so I wouldn’t hold them up too long. I was less than 10 minutes there and back, only to discover that both Phyllis had decided to get some things out of her room as well. So while we waited in the parking lot, Lydia started asking a few questions about who I was, how we were all related and some of the sir names of family that I was hoping to locate during my trip. I whipped my book out of my backpack and was able to show her some of the pictures of my ancestors and many of the names I had previous located out of the local phone book here in Chernivtsi. Just about then, Phyllis came walking back up to the car so we all loaded in and were on our way.
Our first stop was to the Administration Archives building here in Chernivtsi where Karen was hoping to uncover a lot of family secrets there. Phyllis mentioned that she wanted to find a dry cleaner in town to drop of some laundry since they had already been traveling around Europe for so long. So after a short drive of about two or three blocks, we arrived at the Archive building, just up the street from the Hotel Cheremosh and turned out the dry cleaners were right next door to that.
We all made the climb up three or four flights of stairs to where the Archive office was located in tiny little room. There were old, dusty books piled on top of each other all over the two desk were a single lady sat minding the place. Lydia and Karen entered the room first as Lydia explained to the woman what is was that Karen was looking for and hoping to find. There were only a few chairs and it was a pretty tight fit for all five of us to crowd into such a small place, so I remained standing near the doorway and let them do their thing. Karen gave the woman a list of names and from what villages that she was hoping to find. The lady told her that all of the books weren’t there and were probably in storage. But she would located the correct books and go through them and hopefully have all that Karen requested ready for her by Friday. Lydia then approached me and asked if I also had a list of names I was interested in looking for, but since I wasn’t sure of the cost involved, I declined any searches on my behalf at that time. I figured since it was SO close to the hotel, I could always walk back here tomorrow and put in additional request if I found it necessary. But I mostly wanted to simply tour the place and see if it would be possible to find some long lost relative.
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