Sue - Day 2 - Saturday, October 17

Sue – Saturday, October 17, 2009

Day 2 – Finishing the traveling to Kiev.

We arrived in London Heathrow airport around 7:00 am, and had to wait for a gate, since we were 15 minutes early. There had been no breakfast on the plane, just a yogurt and croissant a couple hours before landing, enough to make you feel good. Dinner was right after we took off, so almost 8 hours earlier. You certainly don’t starve on the long intercontinental flights, if you’re not picky. I thought everything was just fine.

We counted up the hours until we landed in Kiev, got our bags and contacts, and drove to the apartment where we will be staying… about 6 hours… hmmmm “I guess we better eat now, because there will not be another opportunity for some time”. Found a little British Pub type restaurant that served a marvelous breakfast plate, complete with fried eggs and bangers. I had Scottish Salmon with scrambled eggs; a tradition of sorts here. How fun to have our “Tea for Two” pot of tea!

The flight from London to Kiev was about 3 ½ hours. We were not on British Airways, a partner of American Airlines. We used AA points for our round trips, about 180,000 points total for the two of us.
If our plans change, and get bumped back, we may have to use more points or $$$ to get a different flight home.

After a slight mix-up with our VIP escort service, we met our translator and our driver, loaded up the van with our luggage, and took the somewhat long drive to the supermarket. Shopping was wonderful!! I could have a great time trying the many, many types of fish and dried fish, if we had more days here! We bought cabbage (HUGE!), some rice, fish, beef, cheese, bread, veggies, milk, kefir (a salted cultured milk-product, like liquid yogurt), eggs, butter; enough food for three days – and everything very similar to the products at home, only the packaging is not in English. This market, however, puts any of my local markets to shame with the variety and choice of so many things!

When we unpacked all the groceries back at the apartment, we could really feel the pain! It was 7:30pm Sat night, Kiev time, 5:30am San Jose time; we’ve been up for over 24 hours. I started dinner, and found it very disorienting with a strange kitchen, very little sleep, and different time zone. I made the fish, rice, and broccoli, keeping it as simple as possible. Jeff had passed out while I made dinner, and we both crashed by 9:30 or so.

We are very grateful that the Lord has seen fit to bring us this far. There have been no mishaps, no problems, and the flights have even come in early. We feel very blessed… very blessed indeed!

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. (Proverbs 16:3)”