We made it!!

After about 24 hours of travel we finally arrived in Kiev yesterday afternoon. The flights were awesome - big high five to Lufthansa airlines!! We had an extra seat on the big flight and the seats in economy were super comfy. The food was good too. We had a 4 hour layover in Dusseldorf, Germany and being the adventurers that we are, we decided to get our passports stamped and leave the airport for a quick taxi ride to the city. It was beautiful and we enjoyed a very yummy breakfast at a quaint little German coffee shop. We made it back with plenty of time to spare. When we arrived in Kiev, it was very crowded and not the cleanest conditions at the airport. Our facilitator, N, had run into traffic and was late but I had forgot to print her phone number so we couldn't call without getting to internet. It was a little nerve-wrackng for about 30 minutes as we tried to protect our luggage and looked for N. We couldn't find internet at the airport and were about to try again, when she came. It wasn't all that long and just part of the adventure :) We really like her a lot and she is very on top of things. For example, our appointment is today at 4:00, so yesterday we went to the SDA and she requested that they have our referral letter ready to go so that we could go on to our region right after the appointment. So they typed it up (since we already know who the girls are) and will sign it after our appointment. That will save us at least a whole day - maybe more due to the weekend coming up. Then she took us to several internet stores and helped negotiate this wireless internet card that I am now using in our apartment.

Oh, that brings me to the apartment. It is cute and quaint and roomy. I was singing the praises of it until this morning when I got up (after 10 lovely hours of sleep) to make coffee in the coffee maker that I brought. I connected it to the converter and turned it on. The lights flashed, I heard a clicking noise, and that was that. It blew a fuse in the converter. So, we replaced the fuse and tried again. Same thing. Those who know my love of coffee can imagine the panic I was now in. I mean just the fact that I brought a small coffee maker from the US gives you an idea... I thought I had it made with my coffee pot and converters.

So and I decided to take a shower. Bad idea. First there was no hot water b/c we didn't know to plug in the water heater last night. After freezing and jumping back out, I waited a bit for the water to heat. Then there was NO water at all!! Eventually it came back on, but there was no time to wait for heating, so I shivered through an incredibly cold shower. At least I was awake :) Who needs coffee when you have cold showers?!? Zach put his Aggie engineering to work and proceeded to boil water to pour through the coffee pot and I had my coffee after all. Day saved :) Yea Zach!!

So now we sit and wait for N to arrive and take us to lunch and to the appointment. I'm really not that nervous but I'm sure I will be once we are there.

A little about Kiev ~ It is beautiful!!! It is clean and the architecture is amazing. Independence Square is so impressive with gorgeous old buildings and cobblestone roads. Beautiful domes on buildings and lots of granite and rock arches. The streets are clean and nice and there is an abundance of nice restaurants and shopping. Besides the difficulties of this morning, we are certainly not roughing it!! Of course outside the main areas it is very rundown and the apartment buildings look to be in very bad condition with broken windows, ect. The two public bathrooms I have attempted to enter are more dirty than I can put into words here. People told me, but really nothing quite prepared me for that experience!

I will try to post pictures soon, but so far we have been pretty busy!