The Hospital in Kiev

I made it to Kiev! But before we could do much, they wanted so to get x-rays and our blood tested before we started work with the public. We rode every dirty bus and metro to the sketchy part of town (oh, wait, that's ALL of Kiev..) and walked into a hospital that was so dark inside, dreary, and dirty. The nurses were dressed in 1950's attire running around yelling at each other in Russian. Men and women are in the hallways waiting to see the doctor in only their underwear and when it's their turn, they walk through the medal doors into the doctors dark office. Well, we finally made it to our hall to wait for our x-ray when i turned to my friend and said, "I smell dead bodies."  Seriously, two min later, they wheeled a dead body down the hall.. I about DIED.  The body was wrapped up and had a piece of fabric over it's face, so luckily I couldn't see the eyes :) People were coughing around us and I became a germaphobe and thought for sure I would contract TB or Aids before I left the Hospital. FINALLY it was our turn to get an x-ray and my friend, Ellen, and I went into the room marked with radiation signs and a huge medal door together. The woman nurse, who spoke very little English, told us to take off our clothes completely, stand against the wall and press our breasts into the bulls-eye medal sheet that stood a few feet from the wall, and put our arms behind our backs. I really didn't know what the HECK to think at this point. It didn't even look like an X-Ray machine!  I just started laughing and did what she said because nothing else could be done. I held my breath for 1 min while they took an x-ray of my completely naked body against the wall. Ellen and I thought we were being sold into the sex slave trade at this point, but shortly after putting our clothes back on, they let us leave :) We felt traumatized by the dead body, being naked, Aids, TB and seeing such a dirty sad hospital.
Here's to hoping things look up from now on :)