January 20th-- tuesday-- I think

January 20th- Tuesday
Well, we made it Kyiv and got internet hooked up. The trip was long but pretty uneventful. Security in Seattle was a circus. We had to take our coats and shoes off, take out the laptop, DVD player, case of DVD’s and a Ziploc of hot chocolate packets so they could inspect them. Sometime during all that time one of the suitcases tipped over on Elijah and the telescoping handle caught him right on the bridge of the nose and the eye. I was sure he had broken his nose but he just has a little bruise on his nose and eye. Luckily there weren’t many people flying at that time so it was a circus but not frantic.
We were there early, planning time for getting lost on the bus there, so we ate breakfast of fish and chips at Ivars in the airport—delicious.
We flew KLM Royal Dutch Airlines/ Northwest on the first leg of the journey and we flew in style. Each seat had its own little TV on which you could watch your choice of about 30 movies, play some arcade type games, listen to music, look through some interactive maps (see where we were, how fast we were going, headwind and all that stuff), shop at the duty free shop or send emails. It even had a little card swiper in the handset for sending emails and shopping. I and Keith watched 3 movies and Elijah watched parts of three movies, played with his “choo choo rains,” walked around the cabin, read books and ate cookies. He had a little mini-meltdown when it was naptime the first time but slept for 3 hours and another 1.5 hours the second time.
The fed us soooooo much food and so many times that it felt like we just ate the whole time. It was all pretty good food, too.
We flew 5010 miles and were in the air for 9 ½ hours.
The second leg of our journey began with a repeat in miniature of the security circus. Elijah was so tired and everything was so new, he didn’t want to go through the metal detector so I went through first intending on encouraging him through, but I set the alarm off (still don’t know what did it) and had to be frisked. He had so many people trying to encourage him to go through that Keith had to practically push him through setting off the alarm with his watch. He then cowered in the corner until they were done with me. I thought they were going frisk him too but they didn’t even give him a second glance except to ooo and ahhh over him. Poor Keith had to deal with all the luggage while this was happening.
Anyway, we boarded the Ukrainian National Airlines airplane which was considerably smaller. On this flight everything was said in first, Ukrainian and then English. I told Keith that I almost had better chance of understanding the Ukrainian than the English-- she talked so fast and had a very strong accent. We got a meal and a snack on this flight too, but it was only 2 ½ hours. Most of which I spent trying to keep my eyes open, Elijah slept and I think Keith worried about what to do for customs.
After the plane landed on a snowy runway, we went down the stairs to the tarmac and boarded a VERY crowded bus to the terminal. I had to hold onto Keith to keep from falling over every time the bus stopped or turned. Some nice airport worker looked at our forms and told us what to fix and then sent us to the front of the line, cutting all these business men, I’m sure because we had Elijah. So it wouldn’t have really been that useful to pay for the VIP service as Elijah did away with our line-standing. Then we spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out what to declare on the customs form. Keith didn’t know whether to declare our cameras (2 video cameras and 2 still cameras—one set ours and one set that we purchased and brought over for Our facilitator) or our folder of DVDs we brought to watch. So he asked one nice gentleman—who, luckily spoke some English—and we got some funny looks. “You want to declare something?!?!?!?!” “You only have to declare if you have over 10,000 Euros (or equivalent in other currency, about 14,000 USD) per person. And you don’t have to declare any equipment unless it is professional.” So he sent us down the green line- nothing to declare. We were a day earlier than usual for our facilitator so he had arranged for a driver and translator to pick us up and take us to the apartment. The driver picked us up some bread, milk, cheese, bottled water, yogurt and cereal (mueseli). The translator, was very friendly and talkative. From the airport to the apartment (maybe a ½- ¾ of an hour) we covered the topics of Keith’s work, politics in America, politics in Ukraine, computers, photography—he’s an amateur photographer, the state of orphanages and the new foster care system, the presence of mind PAPs (prospective adoptive parents) need to be able to adopt successfully from Ukraine. We talked about how you need to be open to those children God has placed in your path and not such stuck on your own concepts. During this time he told a simple, yet profound story that I’m going to repeat. He was in a district of his town far away from his home visiting a girlfriend. He had stayed kind of late and knew he had to hurry to catch the last bus or pay the fees for a taxi. As he approached the bus stop a bus pulled up. He began running and prayed that it would it would wait for him, prayed pretty hard. When he got there the bus was still there and he discovered that it was the wrong bus. The moral is: be careful what you pray for, you may get it. He said he imagined God up there laughing at him learning that lesson.
So we drive to the apartment and I am wishing we could take our time and explore. You step into history when you arrive in Kyiv, you can just feel it. Everything is old, and charming. Our apartment is very close to Independence Square and the SDA (short for SDARPC—I think that is the acronym-- State Department for Adoptions and something about sports and children). At one end of the Square is St Sophia’s Cathedral and the other is St Michaels Cathedral. I think I read somewhere that St Sophia’s was built in the 1200’s. Hopefully we will find out more about all that and be able to take pictures today, when it gets to be a reasonable hour.
Our apartment (“not fancy but modest” according to the translator) is the 4th or 5th floor of a building (I kind of lost track climbing the stairs with a sleeping Elijah—they just seemed to go on forever LOL). The driver took our luggage in the microscopic elevator. Like Japan, a lot of the buildings in this area are very tall and skinny.
The apartment is old, spacious and perfect—complete with a very nice looking landlady. It has wood parquet (squeaky) floors. Very tall cove ceilings. Clothes washing machine like those they have in Japan that tie your clothes in knots. It have this cool towel rack or clothes drying rack that is piped to the hot water so it is heated. The windows are tall and covered by a sheer curtain and then heavier curtains. There is even a cute little balcony from which you can see Independence Square.
Last night after The translator and The driver left we unpacked our SDA clothes (funny how they are SDA clothes and not Sunday clothes), ate some bread and cheese, tried to watch something on TV (it was all in Ukrainian or Russian), and decided to go to sleep – it was 5:30 pm local time. We spent the whole night being awake every 2-3 hours. Finally about 12:00 Elijah wanted to go outside for a walk, so we gave everyone some bread and cheese and then went back to bed. We then all slept until 4:30 and decided to get up. Hopefully we will do better tonight.
Today, when Our facilitator gets here, we are expecting to be shown some sights (Independence Square, SDA and others). Hopefully, we will also be able to meet the Epperly’s, another family that is here using Our facilitator as a facilitator. They flew in yesterday after we did and have their appointment same day we do only at 11:00 (ours is at 2:00). I found them searching blogs for what information I could glean. They seem to be a very nice couple.