Wow, it really happened. The morning was so uneventful with even some tough news to take, but then at the last moment, everything fell into place. I knew it would be a while before we knew if the passports were ready, so I did not call Ksenia in the morning. I did have a secret hope that we might still be able to get to Kiev that evening, but was not sure it could happen. I called Ksenia around lunch time and she told me that even if we did get the passports that afternoon it was likely too late to be able to have the paperwork ready for the Embassy by the next day and since Friday was a holiday the Embassy would be closed and it may take until Monday for us to get finished and be able to leave on Tuesday. But the good news was that we could go to the bank and withdraw Sergei's money at noon on Wednesday.
After I hung up the phone with her, I cried. I tried to explain to the boys that it may not be until next week that we could go home and I tried to hold it together for their sake, but I did not do too well. I know that it was just a few days longer than we had anticipated, but it just seemed like a huge frustration to be stuck in Kiev from Wednesday until Tuesday with only a few hours of necessary paperwork keeping us from coming home.
Yarik had already packed his stuff and was ready to go. I tried to get my things organized, because I knew once it was time, we would have to hurry. The other thing we had to do that day was officially sign Yarik out of his trade school. Originally, Ksenia thought she could just bring the paperwork for me to sign at the apartment, but the social worker wanted us to come in person.
Just after 2:30pm, Ksenia called back. She said, "Get packed, you go to Kiev tonight." I was in shock a bit. She said that everything was worked out and they got our paperwork rushed to Kiev to get an appointment for the next morning. We had to go to the school, get the paperwork signed, she had to pick up the boys passports at 5pm once Yarik's clearance arrived from Kiev. We would meet the landlord to get our deposit back and then Ksenia would come back to pick us up and put us on the bus that would leave at 6pm, for a five our ride to Kiev.
It took quite a while to get the right people in the room at Yarik's school to sign the paperwork. We had time, but there was still stuff I needed to do at the apartment before the landlord arrived. I tried to be patient. We finally got all the papers in order and drove the inspector back to her office. Ksenia got us back to our apartment and Yarik and I went in to finish getting things ready to leave. I heated up some left over borscht that I had made a few days ago and tried to clean out everything from the refrigerator and cupboards. Fortunately, Vitali had come over after he was done with school and I loaded him up with things we did not want to take with us. He took the bags of things we didn't need and went to his sisters. He said he would be back to say good-bye before we left. I was a little worried, because it was getting close to 6, and I knew Ksenia would be back to pick us up soon. The landlord came with our deposit money. I had asked him for a receipt, but he forgot it. We called Ksenia and she spoke to him and made arrangements for us to meet him down the block after she picked us up.
In the meantime, we ate dinner, cleaned up the kitchen and finished packing everything into our suitcases. Katya and Luba came by to say their good-byes. We had everything ready when Ksenia came to pick us up. It took a while for Sergei to get his shoes on and to get our suitcases loaded into the elevator. But we made it down to her car and gave final hugs to the girls. Vitali had not made it back to the apartment. But Yarik called him and let him know we were on our way to the bus.
We parked on the street where the landlord said he would meet us. I had to give him the key and get our receipt. He took far too long and was making me nervous. I did not want to miss our bus, or get stuck with bad seats if we had to get on last. Finally he came and I handed over the key and he gave me the receipt. Then we drove to the bus which was not far, just down the street from McDonalds. Vitali was there waiting for us. He had a gift from his sister for me. We loaded our suitcases into the storage area in the back. I was grateful that we did not have to keep them up front with us. We gave Vitali hugs and said our good-byes to him and Ksenia. We were not sure if we would try to come back on Friday to go the bank, since we could not go Wednesday as planned. So we thought we might see Ksenia one more time. Ksenia gave us the paperwork for Nastya. She had not been able to pick up the passports, because even though she had Yarik's police clearances, the head of the office was not there, and no one else had the authority to give them to her. So Lord, willing, she would get them in the morning, fax copies to the Embassy and medical clinic and we could at least get started with what we needed in Kiev.
We boarded the bus and Yarik choose the back row. The bus was not full, so we had all five seats across the back for the three of us. It was already dark, so the boys fell asleep quickly. As we continued on and some people got off the bus, the seats in front of us opened up as well. Yarik went to the two open seats to stretch out a bit. I moved over and let Sergei stretch out and sleep on my leg. It was a pretty bumpy ride, but by far not the most uncomfortable. I could not really sleep, even though I tried. Sergei kept wondering what time it was and how much longer until we got to Kiev. He seemed pretty excited to get to Kiev.
After what seemed like forever, we started seeing signs of city. Then we saw the big sign of Welcome to Kiev. By then Sergei had woken up and was taking in the scenery. He pointed things out for me to look at right and left. I was glad that he hadn't gotten travel sick. As we got nearer to the bus station, I heard from Alex who would be picking us up. I told him that we were in Kiev, but I did not know how much longer to the bus station. He asked me to call when we pulled in. Once I saw the station I recognized it from past arrivals. I called him and he said that he also saw us pulling in. It was around 11pm. He took us to the apartment and met the landlady who had a key for us. We were staying in the same apartment that our NHFC team had stayed in the first few days in Kiev back in February. It was good to have a little familiarity. We also were across the hall from Abbey Yoder and her new son who would be flying to Pennsylvania the next day. I was hoping to see her before we left for our Embassy appointment.
It took us a little while to settle in. The boys scavenged some food that was left behind by previous tenants. I just wanted to get to sleep. We had to be ready for Nastya to pick us up by 8:30am, so we all needed to get some sleep! They did settle and fell asleep pretty quickly. Ready for a big day the next morning!!
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