Travel TO Ukraine - April 10th and 11th, 2010

Saturday morning at the airport:

We have 8 people, 17 checked bags, and 6 walkers (plus our personal backpacks). Of course we're extremely nervous about our bags being overweight... those pounds can add up to A LOT of money. However, United was extremely lenient on us. They let our bags slide if they were 55 lbs. or less, and after some re-arranging of contents, they were all 55 or less. They didn't even charge us for the 17th bag, which should have been $150. We only had to pay the typical fees (1st one free, 2nd one an extra $50). God at work!!

This nice man helped load our baggage outside the airport, take it in, and weigh it at the counter.

This picture makes me laugh!


Amanda and Kym checking us in at the aiport.

Here's where a slight glitch comes in.... After checking our baggage and getting our tickets, we realize that the tickets say we board at 12:35 pm. We were supposed to board at 10:35 am originally. OOPS! United changed the schedules and apparently didn't let our travel agent know. The 12:35 flight would make us miss connections that in the end would cause us to miss our ONE FLIGHT PER WEEK to Donetsk. That wasn't going to work, so back to the ticket desk Kym and Amanda went.

The re-routing was not a short, easy task. We had few options, with 1 of them including a 15-hour train ride from Kiev to the region we stay. This was BY FAR not my first choice, as I am not a fan of Ukraine trains. Kym sent me a text from the ticket desk that said to stop drinking right now. (I refuse to potty on Ukraine trains.) Hahaha!!! After a couple of hours, it was determined that we were booked on several flights with the last flight being a "domestic" flight from Keiv to Donetsk, AND... they couldn't give us paper tickets for that flight. Of course we were wondering if we would actually end up getting on that last flight without tickets... AND we were wondering just how "domestic" it was... Would we be on a flight with cows, pigs, and chickens??? Ha! We ended up on the flight, and it was as big a plane as any of the others we took.

So the final flight schedule TO Ukraine was:

XNA to Chicago

Chicago to Frankfurt

Frankfurt to Kiev

Kiev to Donetsk

(more on Kiev in a few pictures...)

Weren't we quite the group with our walkers? They drew a lot of attention. When we were sitting at Chili's in the Chicago airport, a woman (referring to the walkers) said, "What is this all about?"


Sometimes we doubled up on the walkers to give each other breaks.


When we were boarding one plane, a pilot said, "You all look like you are going to do something special with all those CARTS." Hahaha!!


Kati lugging 2 through the airport.

This picture cracks me up! Gate-checked walkers (aka "carts").

We were quite a sight everywhere we went!


The Kiev airport..... Because of our crazy flight schedules, we ended up with an 8 to 9 hour layover in Kiev. We were so tired, that we slept on benches and even on top of the luggage - OH YES, we had all 17 bags, 6 walkers, and backpacks with us as there was no place to leave them. We couldn't even wait in our terminal. We had to wait in the main airport area, which made for some excellent people-watching I might say. How do these Ukrainian women wear such high, high heals??? There was a man who circled our group probably 3 times, staring - outright staring, not trying to hide it - and muttering to himself. Amy took her earphones out because she thought he was talking to us, but he wasn't. At that time, all of us must admit, it was nice to have Gregg with us. Gregg did not sleep at all at the airport. He kept a good watch over us ladies.


Upon arriving in Donetsk, we were so happy to see Olga, Alex, Vladimir, and Vova!! When we arrived at the airport in Donetsk, Kym and Amanda took off to find the luggage. Gregg and Abby followed, but got detained before they could catch Kym and Amanda. Apparently they went the wrong way, and an airport person jumped between Gregg and Abby and began pointing and yelling at them. Olga saw it, stepped in with her assertive self, and got the situation under control. None of us really know what exactly happened. Ha!

Thankfully all of the luggage fit (just barely) in the vehicles the team had waiting for us, and we started the trek by car to the hotel in Kramatorsk. At one point on the drive, there was an awful smell. Vova just looked at us and said, "It is normal. It is Ukrainian."

By the time we got to the hotel, we had about 3 hours before we had to get up to start the day at our favorite orphanage. Before we went to bed, we unpacked the suitcases (which had a room all to themselves) and rearranged to get ready for the morning. We were so happy to have reached our destination and were excitedly anticipating the full week ahead!

Another funny story: Immediately upon arriving in Kiev, a man ushered us down the stairs (a man who appeared to be in charge). He then got very close to Kym's face and asked what she/we needed. We were trying to fill out forms for customs and didn't have enough pens. Kym said, "just pens - we just need pens." The man proceeded to say, "Maybe you need help.... for a little money." He was very persistent, but Kym ended the conversation by saying, "This is my FIFTH time in Ukraine!"

Next up: first morning at our "home" orphanage!