First Week Back in Ukraine
Productive, with Setbacks, Van Electrical
It’s been a week since I returned to Ukraine after living in Poland for over two years since the start of the full-scale invasion. I have been back many times for short trips, a week here, ten days there, but now we are back to stay.
Uzhgorod is not Kyiv. It is not even L’viv. They have one Epicenter (home improvement store) and no Metro (Costco), and given our current project, those are the two places I go to on a regular basis. Oh, right, the van!
The van is at the mechanic’s, hopefully getting all the minor issues resolved, and should be back in our hands early this week. They changed the oil, checked and topped off the rest of the fluids, fixed the pressure hose for the air cushion suspension, and did some minor welding in the cargo area where the floor was detached from the frame.
I haven’t been wasting time, though, and this is where the lack of shopping choices is getting to me. I had to order a 12v RV water pump online, and it was delivered in 48 hours (thanks, Nova Poschta), but it uses 9mm hoses, which Epicenter doesn’t stock fittings for, leading to more online orders for tiny brass fittings that cost less than the shipping. I also started working on the 12v electrical system, which, again, required online orders and those haven’t shown up yet. I want to doubly protect our $1300 power station setup with fuse boxes on both power supplies, and there is no local “AutoZone” that I’ve been able to find so far…
