December 5 – The Lost Day

I know that we had the day of December 5, but it seems like a lot of it is missing since we “lost” 8 hours during the trip. We arrived in Frankfurt a half an hour behind schedule. After a little breakfast and more waiting, we proceeded to the boarding area, where Gail’s shoes set off the metal detector, and Steve was asked to open the carry-on bag with the computer printer in it. That only delayed things for a minute or so then we settled in to wait for boarding. True to form, we had another delay. The plane was delayed in it’s arrival to Frankfurt. While we waited in the boarding area, we overheard a woman mention the word adoption to someone else. We also noticed that she also had a laminated card for learning Russian letters, words and phrases, just like the one Steve had left in the seatback pocket on the last flight. We began talking with her, and she was flying to Ukraine to meet her daughter and new teenage granddaughter who was being adopted. Her daughter has been in Ukraine since November 11. They were in another region of Ukraine, so we won’t see them in Odessa.

After arriving in Kiev, we were driven to our apartment and shown the locations of the restaurant and grocery store. We also got a sim card and some minutes for our cell phone, so we can once again communicate with the outside world. We went shopping for a few food items and fixed a light supper. Gail went to bed and Steve made some phone calls to let our mothers, children and a few others that we had arrived safely. Now I need to figure out how to get the phone to tell me how much credit I have left on the phone after those calls. Our friend, Michelle, was going to try to post to our blog so everyone would know that we had arrived safely, since it will be Saturday before we get a chance to do that. By now it is about 2 pm central time and 10 pm Ukraine time and time to get some sleep.