The Road Warriors

Monday, 14 May

Sunday and Monday pretty much ran together….It’s Monday evening in Kiev as I draft this, and Mark and I are both running on about an hour and a half of sleep since yesterday morning.

Around 11:00 on Sunday morning, the Maxwell clan stopped by to see us off, and Mark’s parents came about 11:15 to take us to the airport. After many pictures, the guys piled all the luggage into the car, and we were off! We arrived at the Fort Wayne airport a little more than an hour before our flight, checked our bags, and breezed through security.

We traveled with our friends Fred and Lisa, who have their SDA (Ukrainian adoption department) appointment at the same time as us, and it was wonderful to be able to travel with them! We sat near enough to chat on the 25 minute flight from Fort Wayne to Detroit, and our flight arrived early enough to spare a few minutes to have an Einstein Brothers bagel for lunch. Mark predicts that this will likely be the most expensive meal of our trip!

Our flight from Detroit to Amsterdam left at 4:00 in the afternoon, and Lisa, Fred, Mark and I occupied the center row of the A330. Northwest did right by us…these planes are equipped with the most awesome on-demand media system! Gone are the days of stretching to see the little TV monitor hanging from the ceiling in the aisle. Each seat had it’s own independently controlled monitor, with a good selection of music, a wide variety of movies, and even some games. Mark watched The Painted Vail, and I watched Pan’s Labrynth (because everyone needs to read subtitles when they’re dead tired…but I really enjoyed it). Of course we both tried to sleep, but were not successful.

The flight was a little over 7 hours, and we landed in Amsterdam early, with plenty of time to make our connection, particularly since we did not have to go through immigration. The KLM flight from Amsterdam to Kiev was uneventful; the only exceptional piece of it was that they really seemed intent on feeding us until we exploded. They served a fabulous breakfast with a huge portion of kiwi yogurt, bread and cheese, fruit smoothies, a granola bar, and then they passed around candy bars!

We landed in Kiev completely burned out. Fortunately, we had reserved VIP service to breeze us through immigration and customs, and Alex worked very efficiently to keep us moving and get us out of there, although he was very bold when asking for a tip! He did find Natasha and Igor, our translator and driver for the day from The Stork. They arranged to have a bag delivered for one of our friends, and then drove us across town to our Kiev apartment.

We drove around the outskirts of the city, and the countryside reminded us a lot of Indiana. Their trees are about a week behind ours, but most have leaves on now, and the day was sunny and warm. As we entered the city, we were both struck by the contrast between very nice new buildings and the older buildings…many look very run-down, with patched siding tile and exposed wiring. The apartment building that we are staying in is in better shape than many, but still has some elements that we wouldn’t expect to see in the US; it has an elevator, but it’s very tiny and it has seen better days, and most of the mailbox doors are bent and won’t lock anymore. I almost whacked my head on one as I walked though the hallway in a daze.

In Kiev, we are staying in a one-room apartment that seems to be typical to Ukraine. There is one main room, with a pull-out couch, and then an eat-in kitchen, a water-closet with the toilet, and a bath room, with the sink and tub/shower. We have a great view of a soccer stadium from our balcony, so I do hope they play a game while we’re here!

Zhana, our hostess, is staying with a neighbor, and comes in each day to make lunch and dinner for us. This evening, she brought her beautiful granddaughter along, who informed us proudly that she was four years old! For lunch, she made us pan-fried chicken with fried potatoes and a plate of sliced tomatoes, cucumber, radish, and green pepper. For dinner were fried pork thingies (kind of like flat carnitas, Sammy!) and homemade mashed potatoes and a salad. They were delicious, but I can tell that this trip is not going to help the diet!

Once we had dropped our bags, we walked around the neighborhood with Natasha to get our bearings, exchange some money, and try to get our cellphone working. We accomplished the first two items, but unlocking the T-Mobile cell phone we brought with us might take a couple extra steps. We did learn that there is not an internet café within walking distance of our apartment, so I’m writing this offline, and hope to upload it tomorrow when we can get connected. As soon as we got back to the apartment, we took a short nap, unpacked and reorganized our bags for the next leg of the trip (no longer worrying about the risk of losing a bag; now worried about *finding* things!).

Overall, we are very tired, but we are safe and happy. We are much closer to Masha now, and we will see her on Friday!