So sayeth Natasha- when we asked if we could return the clothes we had bought for Katya- given we found they were too small.  So we started out at 2:30 with the thought of leaving at 3:00 to go see Katya with her new clothes...  when we finally walked out at 4:50....  maybe I should recount our adventure?!?

We walked into the store, laughing about the "We speak English" sign on the front door.  We stopped the first 2 or 3 store help we found and asked in Russian "Do you speak English?"- we received numerous "Nyets".  We finally went to the children's department and asked "Do you speak English?"- and received a "stop" hand sign in our face- then a motion to follow her.  We went into the toy section, where we were introduced to a young lady who spoke perfect English.  Easy- we thought!!  We explained to her the situation, and she said they would be happy to exchange the clothes and lead us to the clothing department.  She explained to the clerks what the issue was- and smiled, telling us they would take care of it.  The clerks found the next size up for one pair of jeans and the coat- the other pair of pants and two shirts were not available.  The clerk told us (in Russian) to find something else.  We were able to find the replacements in about 10 minutes.  Then the saga began.  The English speaking clerk returned to tell us that they needed to "credit" the pants and two shirts and then repurchase them.  For some reason, the clerk didn't seem to know how to do it- so she fetched another clerk to help her.  After about 10 minutes, they went to find a third clerk- who seemed to know what she was doing.  She pulled out a piece of paper that required massive amounts of information.  Pam pulled out her passport which seemed to confuse the clerks more- because the form didn't foresee the returnee to be anything but Ukrainian.  About 15 minutes later- we were able to fill in enough of the information for the process to take place.  The clerk ran our credit card- giving us the credit and charging for the new clothes... Easy!  "Thank you"- "Nyet- nyet moment!"  So we waited...and waited...and waited.... the clerks were dialing on the phone and finally sent a page across the floor- Floor Manager required.  About 20 minutes later, the floor manager arrived and signed the sheet- that ALL three clerks had already signed.  Then one clerk motioned for us to follow her- and she took off across the store.  We went through the departments and up the stairs, to the store manager, who also had to sign the form.  (Yes, that took about 10 minutes) Then we were motioned to follow her again.  We went down again, through the store to find ourselves at a cashier desk.  Then we waited again....and waited.  When our turn finally came- the cashier had to refill out the form again- then enter it into a computer- but like the form- the computer was not prepared to take a return from anyone without a Ukrainian ID.  She tried several times, but the computer just rejected it.  Finally our clerk said "Just make something up, they are American and won't be back again!"  I guess she did, because she finally gave me a sheet written completely in Cyrillic and told Pam to sign it... who knows what she agreed to!!  This process took another 20 or 30 minutes.  We laughed with the clerk who was apologizing profusely- I guess she never realized how hard it was to return something at her store!!  Pray that they fit- as we don't want to go through that again!

We stopped at the Adidas store on the way home to look at picking up a Liverpool hat for Jake- only to find Paul swooning over an AC Milan coat- he did come to his senses though when he realized his father would disown him if he wore something with AC Milan on it- and decided to look for something else!