Bitaemo Kyiv!!

Got up in morning after a pretty good sleep. Found out that Donna’s pack got left in Vancouver. Got all ready to leave Frankfurt on the plane and everything, when low and behold, the plane was not working. So, everything and everyone from that plane had to transferred to another plane. This was the second delay we had traveling with Lufthansa. So the lesson is: Maybe the German trains run on time, but so far both our flights on a German airline left an hour late.

Going through Ukrainian customs was a breeze and the 75 pairs of shoes made it through with no hassle. Leonid, our drive, was there to meet us at the airport, and as soon as he spotted Murray in the crowd and connected him his name as “Long”, he chuckled! It was close to 1 hour to drive to our apartment. Traffic is quite horrendous in the streets of Kyiv, although we have experienced more hair-raising drives in our travels through the Philippines, and other parts of SE Asia.

Our apartment is in downtown Kyiv, with a combined living/bedroom, small kitchen, bathroom with a washer/dryer combo. There is a huge grocery store next door where we stocked up on food, and Murray wanted to try out other Ukrainian beers beside the Slavutych he’s used to getting at Folkfest. The weather is sunny and warm. We are spending the evening relaxing in our apartment, still somewhat tired from the jet lag.

Driving through the streets in Kyiv, many sights looks familiar to Donna who was here in 1987 (St. Sophia Sobor; St. Andrew’s Church, Dynamo Stadium), although the place has changed dramatically with many, many more new, luxurious cars on the streets, more colour for signs, people dressed very nicely, and more Soviet style propaganda replaced by Ukrainian nationalism---blue & yellow flags (take note of the banner on our blog), signs proclaiming “I’m Ukrainian”, or “For Ukraine”, etc.

After all the effort we’ve put into this adoption process for the past three years, we can hardly believe that we are finally in Ukraine!