Day 2

As you can imagine, our flight to JFK was okay but the flight to Kiev was very, very, very long. At least we landed early. Stepping out of the plane was interesting. We climbed down the stairs and walked through several covered corridors. We followed the crowd to the customs desk, filled out a form, and showed our passports. Ukraine likes to keep track of where visitors travel and we were given a document that was stamped and will be stamped again when we leave. We were surprised on how easy getting through customs, grabbing our luggage, and walking through the security area. Within a few minutes, we met Uri, Yulia Shust’s husband, and were in his car riding to the main part of Kiev. We soon learned that Ukrainians drive on the right side of the street; which made our path through Kiev almost seem like we were in a different city within the States – except for the Russian signs everywhere. Oddly enough, there is a North Carolina BBQ restaurant, a TGIF’s, and StarBucks. I’m waiting to see a WalMart pop-up.

Uri tells us that Kiev is 1,500 years old but Ukraine has only been independent for 17 years. He explains that some of the populous want to rejoin Russian, some want to “join” the USA, others say Europe. Driving through Kiev is almost no different than driving through Los Angeles or San Francisco. You have a lot of traffic and people cutting in from every which way. More and more places of business are catering to English speaking customers; which makes our lives easier. In fact, most stores have currency exchange services. The dollar ratio to hrivnia (pronounced as “griv-nee-ah”) is about 1:8. The Euro does even better against the hrivnia.

Uri checked us into our very spacious flat. We even have a large bath tub! But atlas, no dryer. So when we figure out how to use the washer, we will be hanging our clothes to dry. We also have a large flat screen TV, cable, and internet. As you would expect, the shows are in Ukrainian or Russian and our DVD’s region code won’t work in the DVD player. Shucks. But from 8 stories up (about halfway up the building), we have a good view of the neighborhood. Uri also took us to a local market and helped us pick up some local currency, bread, meat, cheese… real basic stuff. It cracked me up to see Twix bars and Coke bottles. I’m told that in some places, cashiers use the abacus.

Yulia is our facilitator and is responsible for us while in Ukraine. We even had to sign a power-of-attorney stating that. She arranges where we will be staying in Kiev, working with the SDA (State Department of Adoptions), getting to the orphanage city, and finalizing our travel back to the USA. Our first task is meeting with the SDA on the 24th. For now, we are concentrating on being prepared to meet with the SDA at noon (5am ET) and being rested as the jet lag is hard on us. After meeting with the SDA, will should know where we are traveling to or if we are staying right where we are. Hopefully, we will be riding on a train overnight – another new experience.