We woke early as usual to be able to bike before too much sun and traffic. Our roommate woke up too and told us that last night the local TV crew of Rivne had called. Apparently our friend Andrew we met the day before had told them about us. They wanted to talk to us but we were already asleep. They had asked when we were leaving for Novorahd but probably did not anticipate that we would leave Rivne by 6 am.

Anyway, chances were that they could catch us on the road. And they did!!

Concentrated on my biking I didn’t realize some guy was filming us and a TV crew of 3 people with microphone and all were ready to interview us while our roommate was becoming our translator for the day! Unbelievable!

With her help we communicated our aim for our trip and first impressions of Ukraine and its citizens. That was so much fun, yet somewhat surreal!

It took us at least 2 hours of biking to realize what had just happened!

Some hours later, we finally arrived to our destination. I thought we biked much faster than last time. It feels I am actually getting stronger. This feels so nice and so different from the first time I biked with bags and a broken hand. Yet I remain, cautious, it has only been 5 weeks since I broke my scaphoide. So with the help of our contact Dana a bus was organized to pick me up in Novorhad to take me to Korosten, the town where we were going to visit the first center. But for the time being, we had to find a place to stay. Apparently there were only 2 hotels in town, and the nice one was booked. So we were left with no choice but the old downtown hotel.

Booking a room was a hard task with the use of sign language. We were both given a questionnaire to fill out. We were surprise by the many questions asked. The lady actually called whoever to verify our passports!! That made me feel uneasy and curious to know what kind of clientele was actually staying in this hotel. They seemed to look normal but I was relieved to leave the place the following day.