Travel Day!

Day 1- Travel Day!

Left the house kinda early for our flight, but we had several stops to make along the way.  Kristin spent the night and took the day off work to drive us to the airport. Tim's sister, Donna, who is a flight attendant met up with us at the airport and gave us a bag full of goodies and sat and chatted with us until the flight. Tim mistakenly packed the 2 large peanut butter containers (for our friends in Ukraine) in his carryon and it got confiscated! Bummer!  I know they were looking forward to being stocked up! I breezed through security. Tim, on the other hand was searched and frisked and whatever else they do. I guess he is a scary lookin' dude! :) Our first flight took us Dulles.  Tiny plane that dropped us off on the tarmac.  We had a really long walk to our next gate. So happy that I bought me some good walking shoes.  Also glad that we purchased new carryon baggage with the spinner wheels-so much easier to navigate through the crowded terminals with them. On our flight from Dulles to Frankfurt, Germany, we were not sitting together.  A nice young boy switched with us.  We didn't realize that we were sitting in Economy Plus, which actually gave us a teensy bit more room.  This was my first international flight.  I slept a little bit off and on and so did Tim. When we arrived in Frankfurt, it was morning there (middle of the night to us). We had about a 2 hour layover there.  We didn't realize that we would have to go through security again.  We both have thermoses with water and tea in them.  Thankfully they just poured out the liquid and gave us back our thermoses.  Tim, however, got pulled into a room and searched again. (Note to self:  pretend like I don't know him when we are traveling.) :) Finally we were on our way to Kiev on a Lufthansa flight.  That was the most uncomfortable flight ever.  We were in the back room across the aisle from a puking mom with 2 kids. Arriving in Kiev, we were a little confused.  They had once again taken our carryon luggage, so we had no  idea where to pick it up. Plus..all the signs were in Russian! Thankfully everyone that we talked to spoke English and were very helpful.  We walked through the doors to the waiting people and right away spotted our friends!  What a welcome sight! Taxi ride from the airport to their apartment was about 1 1/2 hours.  I was surprised at how modern the road from the airport was and many of the cars are new.  As we got closer to the city we saw the high rise apartment buildings that are everywhere.  Most people live in this housing that the government provided for them.  From far away they look fine.  Up close, they look like they could fall down! Elsie and Dave are excellent hosts and have a lovely apartment.  We are so thankful for their hospitality to us.