Crazy Departure - Safe Arrival

Here I am sitting in our apartment. I want to document all that has happened in the last 24 hours so that I can remember! I am sure that in time it will all be a happy blur.
We started yesterday with craziness. I have not blogged anything for weeks, because trying to make sure that all of our responsibilities would be covered while we are away is a job in itself. Maybe I should start off with Friday afternoon, because that is when things started to get complicated. We had been able to withdrawal the required cash, but found many of the bills were in bad shape, we choose out the worst ones and went to a casino to try to trade them in. A friend had suggested that we do that in case we did not have enough "nice" ones. We were able to trade in $2000 each. Not as much as we would have liked, but we had to make it due. We were able to change some additional money with someone else, who had it available...(side note...if any adoptive parents are getting their cash to come over do it months in advance a little at a time if you do not have good bank contacts. Then you can keep the best bills and trade back the rest.) So we are hopeful that what we do have that seemed okay to us will not be rejected by anyone here.
The second frustration on Friday was trying to activate our international calling feature on our phones. When I took my sim card out to get the number off the back and tried to power my phone on again I got the bootloader error again! I had already called tech support for the same problem previously and they sent a replacement phone that was worse than the bootloader error. So I used a google search and had found a way to reset my phone and get it working the other week. This time, however, the trick did not work. As I was on the phone with Verizon as it was happening, she immediately got me to tech support and I explained the situation and my dilemma. Surprisingly, the tech person was so helpful and ordered me an upgraded phone to be delivered by Fed Ex with a guaranteed delivery by 10:30. So with much anxiety, I got as much done as I could Friday night to be ready for our noon departure. My parents arrived that evening and helped to get some last minute things done for us. I got my suitcases all packed and weighed in. One was 50.2 lbs and one was 48.6 lbs. I was hoping it was close enough to the 50 lb weight limit.
Saturday morning was extra crazy, because the kids had their soccer pictures scheduled before their 10am game. So we had to be at the soccer field early, then TJ and Bekka both had their games at 10. I watched a little of TJ's game, then over to Bekka's game and back to TJ's. When I came back to see Bekka, she was already done and so we caught the end of TJ's game.
In the meantime, my dear friend Claire, had agreed to stay at our house to wait to sign for the phone packages. So at half time she called to let me know that my phone packages had arrived! Yeah, God!! One worry lifted.
Next, I rushed home to get the rejected cash, took it to the atm to deposit so the checks I wrote to the friend who gave us the good cash would not bounce. Then turned around and rushed back home to load up the car. Also, while I was driving I had plugged in the new phone to charge up so that I could make sure that it was activated and working before we left for the airport. At home Darren loaded up the suitcases and I called to activate my international calling. This time it all went smoothly.
My parents were planning to take TJ to my sister's, so they were there to say good bye. We gave hugs and met our neighbor Tony who had agreed to drive our stick shift back from the airport. I hope he made it home okay with the car! We stopped in at Sam's club to pick up some protein bars for those days where there is no time to get food. While I ran in to the store, Darren finished taping address labels to the luggage. At the airport we stuffed protein bars to any space that we could find.
We got inside and had to check in at an electronic kiosk before they would let us get our boarding passes and luggage checked. Seemed like a waste of time to me, because it meant we stood in 2 lines instead of one...hmm...aren't there enough lines at the airport already? Well, we checked one suitcase each and then she asked to see our carry-ons...she wanted to weigh mine...uh oh...of course, it was over weigh, but they would check it for no extra charge. I had no where to go with the stuff inside to meet the weight requirement, so with a prayer we sent it off with the other luggage. I had a backpack as well, but put all my clothes in the one carry-on.
It was kind of nice to not have that extra weight to carry around, so I just trusted it would all work out.
We had arrived early enough to get some food before our flight. So we grabbed some sandwiches at Subway and then went through security. Other than forgetting to take my cell phone out of my pocket, security was not too bad this time. No pat downs or those crazy body image machines. We had a little time to wait and then we were boarding. Kind of odd, but they said that our flight time was too short and we would have to taxi to the run way and kill some time, because the airport in Dusseldorf would not let us land before 6am. Not sure why we could not have boarded later and waited in the airport, but maybe they wanted to get us to the run way so we did not lose our place in line.
Well, we got to sit in the bulkhead which gave us lots of leg room. But we were beside a little one who was not too keen on sleeping most of the night. So I did not get any real sleep, although I had taken a Benedryl to try to induce it! The flight was good and we arrived a few minutes after 6 am. As we only had to go up one flight of stairs we did not have to go through passport control at our first stop. However, we were not going to be boarding until 10:50 am...almost 5 hours later. Although it was uncomfortable, I did manage to fall asleep a few times during the wait.
This time we had to squeeze into a bus to get to our smaller aircraft. But the flight was not full, so even though Darren and I were not assigned to sit together, his row was empty, so I got to stay with him. Another smooth flight that brought us into Kiev.
We knew that our friends were arriving within an hour of us, so we were in no hurry to get through the very long passport control line. We were pretty much the last ones through of hundreds of people. I think it took over half an hour to get our stamp of approval to enter the country. While we were waiting, Darren was able to find wifi and use the "Sipdroid" application to make free calls to let our family know we had gotten here safely.
Next question: did all of our bags arrive with us??? We went over to the baggage area that was pretty empty so it was not hard to see the two large suitcases even from a distance. But my carry on was not in sight. I walked around to the back side of the conveyer belt and there it was laying on the floor! Yeah, thank you, God!!
We were not sure who would be picking us up, so we stacked our luggage, put it on the belt to be scanned, stacked it back on the cart and went through the arrival doors. I was looking for a sign with our name and nearly ran right into Alexey, our adoption facilitator's husband who was our driver when we went on the NHFC interview trip in February. It was so nice to see a familiar face. It was nice also that he felt confident that he would recognize us and did not need the sign.
We loaded our baggage into the car and went back to wait for the Yoders to come through. Their flight had landed and their lines were much shorter for the passport control. Within half an hour they came through and we recognized them right away and introduced Alexey. We got a little bit of money changed and loaded their luggage and were off to our apartments.
We took Abbey and Myron to their apartment first and then Alexey took us to our apartment. We both have wifi and are only a few blocks around the corner from each other. We got our stuff settled in, Darren posted on Facebook, and then we went to meet the Yoders for dinner. Alexey had given us a suggestion of a good inexpensive restaurant right by our apartment, so we ordered there and had some very tasty Ukrainian food. The restaurant was called Drova and had menus with English subtitles. (For other families coming to Kiev, it was just up the hill from the Opera house.)
After dinner we attempted to find a grocery store, but could not locate one that had yogurt and breakfast foods. We did get some laundry detergent as that was one of the things I was supposed to get on Saturday and missed. We also stopped at a little kiosk and got some bottled water. Then back to our apartment to blog and try to sleep.
So Spakoni Noche from Kiev! And God Bless!