Today was mostly a sleep late and explore day. We didn't have money on our phones so we had a few issues in the morning, mostly with our boys calling us and wanting us to call back but we couldn't. We met the wife of a friend of ours early in the day- Native to Kiev she gave us the directions to add money to our phone and walked us to a Kiosk. She also gave us directions to the mall and street vendors.
We went to the mall for lunch and window shopping. Half the family settled for McDonald's the rest of us tried the pizza. One of the slices had mayo on it for the sauce, the ones with marinara you had to use a microscope to find it.
We located the street vendors after we left the mall. Very much like going to Mexico or swap meet, most of the vendors sold the same stuff with minor variance. It was fun. Richard and the boys all bought fur hats, they opted for the sheepskin ones which were slightly more money but more comfortable. We were told the scratchy ones were soldiers hats while the sheepskin was only for officers.
Our boys have not stopped calling us since we arrived, for confidentiality reasons we can not use the boys names on the blog- I will instead for the purpose of this blog I will use their English names in age order- Joseph, Alex and Kevin. Alex called the most today- I think at least once between each of his school classes. Kevin also called and while Joseph didn't call we still spoke with him twice.
While walking around the street vendors I acutely missed Alex, I couldn't help but think how much more fun it would have been with him. When we purchase the phone cards we also bought some for the boys phones too. We had the woman at the kiosk speak with Alex so that he could write down the number so he could call. He also spent time today texting us but in Ukrainian.
We walked up to the top of one of the large churches for a wonderful view of the city and then went to a Irish Pub for dinner. The food was mostly American and we received a very strange look from the waitress when we asked if the cheese burger had meat on it. We have not encountered much of what we would call "good" service, we don't receive bad service just not what we would think of as attentive.
Tomorrow we meet with a woman and her new son as she travels back to Kiev to head home this week.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
We arrived
Sixteen shots two hours:
The day before we left we ran errands getting ready for our excursion. We started our first getting shots for our trip our family filled the little waiting room right on up there was a total of 16 shots between the seven of us. then they showed us a travel video explaining to us all the different dangers about traveling abroad including the dangers of leaving bags unattended apparently they will be blown up.
Then we stayed up until about 4am packing and getting ready. We left the house about two hours later to meet our 8:40 flight to JFK we got through baggage check and security to the terminal just as the final boarding call was being called.Roughly five hours later we arrived at JFK then continued on to find our connecting flight that was leaving a short hour and a half later. We had to take the air bus to our terminal and then get new boarding passes, go through security again,find our gate, eat our quickly aquired McDonalds dinner (minus the drinks that had to be tossed at security) and then board our flight to Ukraine. About 3 hours into the flight I (Randi) lost my glasses and started to look for them. I accidentally taped the woman behind me, the woman actually turned around and slapped me. The flight was pretty uneventful with the exception of the very loud drunk 2 seats ahead of my dad.
The day before we left we ran errands getting ready for our excursion. We started our first getting shots for our trip our family filled the little waiting room right on up there was a total of 16 shots between the seven of us. then they showed us a travel video explaining to us all the different dangers about traveling abroad including the dangers of leaving bags unattended apparently they will be blown up.
Then we stayed up until about 4am packing and getting ready. We left the house about two hours later to meet our 8:40 flight to JFK we got through baggage check and security to the terminal just as the final boarding call was being called.Roughly five hours later we arrived at JFK then continued on to find our connecting flight that was leaving a short hour and a half later. We had to take the air bus to our terminal and then get new boarding passes, go through security again,find our gate, eat our quickly aquired McDonalds dinner (minus the drinks that had to be tossed at security) and then board our flight to Ukraine. About 3 hours into the flight I (Randi) lost my glasses and started to look for them. I accidentally taped the woman behind me, the woman actually turned around and slapped me. The flight was pretty uneventful with the exception of the very loud drunk 2 seats ahead of my dad.
Fortunately we paid for VIP service at the Kiev airport, this saved us 2-3 hours with pass port check in and a quick trip throughcustoms. From the airport we travled to in 2 cars to our lovely 2 bedroom,2 loft apartment, got unpacked and went in search of food. We found a resturant recomended by prior travelers called "The double cup" coffee place. Four of us ordered cheese burgers
which ended up being deep fried cheese between two buns. We left the cafe in search of water and groceries. Getting water turned out to be and adventure in that we wanted to by "flat" water and had to somehow get the very plesent Ukrainian woman to understand what it was we were looking for.
which ended up being deep fried cheese between two buns. We left the cafe in search of water and groceries. Getting water turned out to be and adventure in that we wanted to by "flat" water and had to somehow get the very plesent Ukrainian woman to understand what it was we were looking for.Back at our apartment we crashed for the night, all of us going on major sleep loss. All of us are here, all are safe, and all are tired.
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