Day Tripper

The changing weather with the beginning of fall has been playing havoc with Tanya's "barometer" blood vessels in her head. She has not been sleeping well. She ran out of meds a couple weeks ago and has not been able to get them here in Zhovte Vodi. Today we went to Krivii Rih with Andrei to see if we could get them there or if we would have wait until we went to Dnipropetrovsk. After visiting about 10 pharmacies, she was finally able to buy what she needed.


Since there are no "prescription only" drugs, drug stores stock whatever they want. There are little drug kiosks and mini stores everywhere. Everything is Over-the-Counter*. Doctors write prescriptions so you know what to buy but it is for you, not for the druggist. If you want real medications, they are very hard to find sometimes. When I had Bronchitis, trying to find a 10 day supply of the same antibiotic in Zhovte Vodi was an exercise in frustration. One "druggist" said unless I had a fever I didn't need antibiotics. Doh!


While we were there we decided to look for running shoes for both of us for winter wearing. We found what we wanted in a store called Sportmaster which had all kinds of sports shoes. But didn't stock spare shoelaces or shoehorns, in fact no accessories at all. We found those next door at a shoe store called Intertop which didn't sell sports shoes but sold shoelaces for sports shoes.


Then we went to McDonald's for lunch. It was 3:30 and the pancakes (with REAL maple syrup, thanks, Judy!) at 9:30 had worn a little thin. There is a sandwich at McDonalds here called Big Tasty, much like a fancy Quarter Pounder. Not sure if it is sold in Canada or not. In Ukrainian it is spelled Bolshoi Teisti which does not make me think of a hamburger at all.

We ate outside and watched the kids on the playground equipment. In the absence of adults to annoy them, kids make up their own rules. There was a large red tunnel slide, with a set of steps up to an enclosure and another set of steps inside the enclosure to the entrance to the slide. A four year old boy joined the group and immediately started climbing up the outside of the equipment to reach the top. Much more of a challenge. Soon all the kids were climbing the outside, ignoring the ladder, over the top of the enclosure and down the chute. This kid was a born leader.

* I have a program inside me running 24/7 scanning for possible double entendres. Sorry.
Does Viagra work?
Oh, Yes!
Can you get it over the counter?
If I take two.