Mike and Annie in Transcarpathia: Piecaken II

Had a border-crossing adventure today. Our friends, also NY'ers, had their truck (NY plates and all) shipped over to Ukraine earlier this year. Because it has foreign plates/registration, it must leave the country every 60 days to stay legal. Our friends are in NY for the summer, so they asked Mike if he would drive it over the border for them. They had special documents made up and notarized from the American Embassy in Budapest that stated Mike had permission to do this.
So... we decided to bring the truck over to Hungary today to fulfill its 60 day requirements. No problems getting across- took maybe 1 1/2 hours to get through the Ukraine border/customs and then the Hungarian border/customs.
Once in Hungary, we then drove maybe 10 minutes more to TESCO.
http://www.tesco.com/
"TESCO: everything you can find in the supermarket and much more". Yes, their slogan is quite correct.
Trip home: once again- no prob getting through Hungarian border, but a bit of an issue getting through Ukraine's border. Remember those temporary-residency permits that we got just a couple of months ago? Apparently, having these permits makes us temporary Ukrainian citizens. Ukrainian citizens cannot drive foreign vehicles over the border (unless they are your own). So technically, Mike was not allowed to drive the truck back into Ukraine. Why did they let us leave the country with the truck in the first place? God only knows. Seriously, only He does.
We did get home though. Thanks to God and Solomiya. Yes, having a baby with you generally works in your favor. Mike said that as 3 custom officials were discussing this case with him, one of them said- Look, they have a baby, let them go through- (Solomiya and I had gotten out of the truck because it was too dang hot and she was quite fed up with being hot, tired and hot and she was letting everyone know).
Thank God, customs allowed us to pass through. They said that if Mike has to drive the truck over the border again, to only give the customs agents his passport- not the residency permit- and they will allow him through with no problems. Hmmm...

Had an awesome thunderstorm this evening and it was followed by a drop in temperature (maybe about 20 degrees- every window is open) and a kickass rainbow. Many rainbow pictures will follow, I warn you. It's not that I have never seen one before, but it kept getting brighter and brighter, so I kept taking pictures.