First Impressions

18Oct2008

We are here!!!!

We don’t have any internet connectivity at our apartment so we'll be posting these from an Internet cafe. I’m not sure how I’m going to get photos into the blog, but I’ll do what I can to get you access to them.

Can you believe we were late for our flight. We arrived at JFK 3 hours early because we had to check out of our room by 1pm. We were working on our Russian in the food court and decided to get to the gate about 50 minutes before takeoff. We were thinking that boarding would be about Ѕ hours before takeoff but we were wrong. When we got to the gate, it was nearly deserted and they rushed us onto the plane. We finally got off the ground 45 minutes late, but not due to us leaving the gate early. The flight itinerary said it was a 10.5 hour flight and the pilot said it was only an 8 hour flight. We got to Kiev 1 hour early so no worries. FYI, we flew Delta.

Customs note for those waiting to travel: The limit for undeclared cash is now 10,000 Euros, not US dollars.

Anatoliy (our facilitator) and Irina (translator) met us at the airport and brought us to our apartment. There’s a convention in town so many of the apartments were already occupied. We’re in a studio apartment but we have a kitchen, washing machine and microwave. The price was quite reasonable for being several blocks from Independence square (Moose, google earth it).

We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting the layout of downtown Kiev. Anatoliy stopped by the SDA and found out our appointment is at 10am on Monday (YEAH!!!!). (For family, Monday morning is an ideal time for the appointment because new children become available). We had breakfast at a cafeteria style Ukraine restaurant. Yum-Yum. I can tell borscht is going to be a regular with me because I really like the stuff. Even Virginia enjoyed the borscht which she didn’t like at our hometown Moscow Deli. Then again, this was much better (not just accounting for the location). OK, I went on too much about the food, but it’s nearly always about the food.

Irina and us then spent a few hours walking to Independence Square, the underground mall and showed us a few sights. We walked in a large circle to do a little shopping. I brought a heavy jacket which is too warm for Kiev right now so I needed to pick up a lightweight jacket. It seems my lack of a jacket on a rather cool, overcast day was making our hosts a bit cold. Good news for us is that Irina will be with us throughout the journey. Both she and Anatoliy are very hospitable and we’re glad we have them both.

Since I didn’t think to bring my camera on our shopping trip, I’ll be a shutterbug tomorrow. We’re going to meet another couple that we’ve been in contact with as they process out. We’ll make more observations of Kiev when we have some pictures to go with it. This is already a bit long since we can’t even post it till tomorrow (Sunday) so I’ll sign off for now. Just imagine that this was just a quick update. Wait till I actually have something important to say…