Sunday - July 9

We arrived in Kyiv today! The flight from Frankfurt was much more comfortable – the fact that the flight was shorter (only about two to two and a half hours) probably made us feel better in general … but there seemed to be more room, and we were in the back of the plane, so Abbie was more free to make a little noise.

Upon arrival in Kyiv, getting through passport control and customs was easier than we had expected … but traveling to Eastern Europe often brings about the unexpected. We made it through with such ease, in part because we were accompanied by a Lufthansa agent who helped us prepare the paperwork reflecting that all of the luggage we had checked on board, had failed to arrive in Ukraine with us! This problem was made worse by the fact that we had included one of our carry-on bags with the checked luggage … the one containing our three changes of clothes in case our luggage was lost along the way. As it was going to be a direct flight, we couldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t make the trip with us. After waiting hopefully for about 45 minutes, the reality that our luggage wouldn’t be coming through on the luggage carousel began to set in, and we found that about 14 other passengers had experienced the same sad fate. We had the distinction of being the only English-speakers to have this problem, so we found ourselves at the end of the line filling out the paperwork.

We were met at the airport by Chris Lovingood, one of Scott’s friends, and a missionary who has been in Ukraine almost continuously since Scott’s departure in 1994. He had hired a “taxi” to take us into the city … and we are not sure that the private car hired would have had enough room to take both us, and all of our luggage! So … although we will be inconvenienced by this unexpected turn of events, at least we didn’t look like the “ugly Americans” who needed two taxis to get all of their things to the apartment for only a six-week stay.

We dropped our stuff off at the apartment we will be renting, and then went to meet Chris’ wife, and have some dinner. We enjoyed some great conversations, and got caught up on a lot of what has been happening in Kyiv over the past few years. The restaurant that we had dinner in was really nicely done, we commented on how, although the menu would undoubtedly need some alterations to fit in, it would not have looked out of place in the mall at Mission Viejo. Much has changed since Scott last lived here!