Kyiv at Last!

We have arrived safely in Kyiv! We had an overnight layover in London, which was wonderful for breaking up the trip and gave us some time to combat jet lag. We then traveled to Warsaw, which looks like Germany from the air (lots of white stucco houses with red tile roofs). We would have preferred to overnight in Poland to allow us to see some of that country. The flight into Kyiv as on LOT Poland – they are still serving food and on a flight that was less than an hour! Unfortunately, they did not have any Ukrainian Customs forms on board, so they directed us to a kiosk in the center of the Customs area in the Kyiv Borispol Airport.

Helpful hint for Americans coming over … while completing our forms at the counter and using our dark blue passports for the required passport number entry, we were “accosted” by a helpful customs agent in uniform. He offered to help us quickly through Customs – the line was about 6 people long – for only $40 US each. We told him we were fine, but he was persistent. I retreated to the restroom hoping he would disappear while I was gone, but no luck. He then alluded to us having difficulties, okay maybe it was a threat, if we did not use his services. We promptly agreed and were whisked right past immigration, he took our passports and had them stamped, and found us a luggage cart (we were the only ones on the entire flight who had a luggage cart). Ukraine now allows cash up to the equivalent of 10,000 EURO. We had nothing to declare and could have walked through the empty “ Green Line” but he lead us through with a flourish. The whole time he was insisting we were here for adoption, we had written "Pleasure" on our form and kept responding that "No, we were here to visit a good friend who was meeting us".

Thank goodness we had our Facilitator right outside of Customs with a large sign – otherwise Mr. Crocodile would have gotten a friend to materialize and drive us to downtown. If you are flying in and your air carrier does not have the forms to complete, then write your passport number down on a separate piece of paper and keep your dark blue (American) passports hidden until when you are called. Proceed quickly into the Customs area and grab a blank form at the round kiosk straight ahead and proceed quickly to the line down the stairs where you can fill it out safely in the crowd. Hopefully this will keep a few of you from being culled out of the pack!

Our Facilitator and Driver helped us to the Apartment Agency and we picked up the key. We are staying just down the hill from the infamous TGI Fridays, right near Mandarin Plaza (high end boutique stores, with a great grocery store called The Gourmand in the basement). Our apartment is in a beautiful turn-of-the-century building from Kyiv’s sugar boom days. We have a bedroom, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchen plus internet, a tv, and hot running water in the bathroom (but not the kitchen – it isn’t plumbed for it). The apartment was quiet last night except for the neighbors, who are related to rabbits, and the trash men who came to dump the trash (sounded more like the vodka-bottle recycling men) at 1:45 in the morning. Doing dishes in the bathroom sink is different, but makes me appreciate my kitchen all the more! We overlook a courtyard with huge willow trees and a cluster of pigeons that congregate on one woman’s windowsill. I saw her feeding them early this morning – just a hand reaching out and wondered if she was birdnapping one? Our Facilitator assured us that unlike the French, Ukrainian’s do not have pigeon on the menu (at least not that she knows).

After lunch at Fridays, we headed to a great department store called Jacob’s. John found a great pair of shoes that look more European than what he was wearing. We encountered the hole-in-the floor toilets at the department store, including a cashier with a register in the doorway charging 1 grivna for using the facilities. I had to walk to the other end of the store to find John to get a grivna. Now I carry a bunch in my purse! After checking out all five floors, we then headed to the grocery store and stocked up on foodstuffs! Milk is called MOLOKO – packaged the same as something called KAFIR – be careful what you buy! The only thing we didn’t see was peanut butter – thanks to Wendy we brought some! One of the cool things we saw was live fish in huge tanks in the seafood area. I was told I could not take a photo or we would have shared this. The first tank was catfish of some sort – all at least 12” long, the other three tanks held fish even larger. I’m sure the children love shopping over here if you get to see such big fish!

We headed home for dinner. Our appointment with the SDA is at 9:00 in the morning. Hopefully everything will go well. We called Mariya today to let her know we are in Kyiv and should be able to visit her, and meet Michael, by the end of the week. She said she was sad from missing us. She wanted to know if Duncan was with us and if Babushka came – we told her no. The Orphanage does not allow outside children in and we were told it was better if we left him at home. Someday we will all be back for a heritage trip!