Misadventures in traveling
Our plane was supposed to leave Columbia at 2:30 bound for Dulles in Washington D.C. We had a semi-tight schedule, but still had a long enough layover that if we left, say 45 minutes late, we had enough time. We didn't leave 45 minutes late, though we left 1 1/2 hours late. And then, we found out the plane was too heave so some luggage was removed. Was it ours, we wondered?

We made it to Washington just as our plane bound for Frankfurt was taking off. We booked it to the nearest gate leaving for Frankfurt, but they said they were full, and we had to go to customer service. We went to customer service at the other end of the concourse (shoulders starting to hurt), and they wanted to know why we weren't on the plane (you know, the one that just turned us away). Evidently the airline transferred us to that flight when they realized we weren't going to make our original flight. One little problem: NO ONE TOLD US!!! The nice Iranian customer service man(he was happy to be in US) rebooked us for the next day and told us to be back at the airport by 2:00 p.m. So, after approximately 5 hours sitting in Dulles airport, we obtained vouchers to the nearest Hyatt (thanks to Tony and Henry, as the airline didn't want to help us out) and off we went. We got there, and there wasn't enough room. So off we went to another Hyatt. (Actually, it was pretty nice). We get back to the airport the next day at 1:00, load up on free food with our food vouchers and hang out.

The flight to Germany was typical of long flights: boring, uneventful (that's a good thing) and extremely tiring. Poor Gus was sitting directly in front of the movie screen, so he had a massive headache by the time we got there. Frankfurt was cool. We boarded the next flight only 30 minutes late and made our way to Kiev. (Food was horrible!!!)

Once we got to Kiev we went through passport control. Henry said act dumb. I was so tired there was no acting to it. We went to collect our bags. Uh oh, 2 bags got left in Columbia. Oh well. We should have them by mid-week. Next: customs. As we were waiting to file a claim for lost luggage, one of the customs officials walked by and recognized Henry. Customs? What's that? He wisked us through doors without even going through customs, and there were Mark and Natalie. Thank you God.

Only 5 hours of driving, and we make it to Vinnitsa. The church is AMAZING! Priscilla and I are roomies. We're staying with Natalie's aunt and uncle. We left with her last night along with Anna, because Tony was expected to stay for a meeting. We took baths, ate a little and crashed. Seven hours of sleep after being up for 32. Who cares if the bed was a little lumpy. It was the most comfortable thing in the world last night.

Our sweet and anxious to please hostess misunderstood Natalie about which church to go to, so she walked us to the big, main Maxivocha Church instead of the smaller church Natalie's dad is pastor of. Then we walked back to the other church when we finally got her to realize "Nyet Maximovicha." We were only 30 minutes late. Natalie was worried. But all is okay now.

I do realize I may have to volunteer to rewrite the orientation manual for future trips. But more on that later.

Until the next time I can get to an internet cafe...