Day 4 – Some apartments and the health clinic

The day overall was very similar to yesterday. Additional items on the agenda were visiting some more apartments with the agent and taking Georgia to Northway clinic to get OK-TO-GO card for the kindergarten.

The day started out great – the coffee machine at the Coffee Inn is working! There are hoards of tourists in the city mostly senior citizens from Poland and Germany. I wonder if we look local to them.

We ran into a woman with a child we saw in the youth park yesterday and walked there together. She is Russian and came with her husband and two children from Germany in September for three years. Her two year old will be going to the same place as Georgia in the fall.
There were lots of kindergarten children on the playground today and so we ventured further and walked along the canal up to the first drunk. I want to get a cell phone.

In the afternoon we saw three apartments. None of them were as good as ours though they did have some pluses. The first one, owned by a businessman with a barely legal girlfriend, was spotless with the beautiful leather furniture and a huge flat screen TV. The second one had a dinner table. The owners of the third told us that they have disposed of all the problematic neighbors and we would get the entire apartment block to ourselves.

Then we went to the Northway clinic near Alicia to get the card for Georgia. It is a private office with tri-lingual staff. The office is very nice and the receptionists were very polite. There was even a little children’s area with Lego. There were minimal forms to fill out. Nothing seemed to have resembled the typical Soviet clinic except (initially) the doctor.

After receptionist directed us to the office we knocked on the door, opened it a bit and asked if we could come in. Another family was sitting next to the woman in white robes. The white woman said “Isn’t it obvious that I am busy, sit outside.” OK.

Then the family left and she came out to call us. I asked if I should bring the stroller. She said “Isn’t it obvious that the stroller should not be brought to the place where immunizations and made and blood drawn.” Aha, perhaps I should leave my shoes outside too? I did the best effort at mirror and match including the intonation and said “No, it is not obvious. I don’t go to this clinic a lot.” Her attitude changed dramatically.

She asked some general questions, explained what she will do to Georgia (look at the tongue, listen to the lungs and heart, take weight and height measurements), and even gave Georgia a toy to play with while she was writing out the card. The doctor was so nice now it was scary. I was waiting for her de-Sovietized veneer to crack at any point and the real face come back through but we were lucky. The whole thing lasted less than ten minutes and cost 25LT.

We now had the card that marks the transition into the new life for Georgia and us too. But Alicia told us that she got a call from the kindergarten telling her that they are installing new window and have closed the place down for a week. It is a good reprieve as we have more places around to explore together. Nice of them to call especially given that we have not even gone there yet.

Dan seems to have gotten all set with work – he slides around the living room sofas in his headphones and is almost constantly in the conversation. He works 8am-5pm with a lunch together in the middle and then when we come back from Alicia till 12 or 1.