We were almost busted, but we made it to Ukraine!

We made it to Kiev!!  But not without some challenges, or should I say opportunities... 

First stop Philly, all is fine.  Boarded our flight to Frankfurt.  As we boarded the plane both Charlie and I were very excited to see the amount of leg room between the seats, that is up until we got to coach.  Ouch!  Charlie's knees where in his chest for 7 whole hours.  Me, I was able to sleep for most of it, poor Charlie even after taking one of his chill pills remained bright eyed, well not really, when I finally woke he was in a semi zombie state... we arrived on time, headed to our connecting flight only to learn that the flight had been cancelled.  You may have heard on the news, lots of snow in Europe.  After 6 hours standing/sitting (me standing/sitting, Charlie found a cot and let his chill pill do it's thing) in the customer service line we were booked on a flight out the next day on another airline.  Fortunatley Lufthansia set us up in a very nice hotel in Frankfurt, best part, Cammie and Loren Marti were headed back to the states and wound up getting stuck in Frankfurt in the same hotel, a wonderful surprise ending to a very long day.  I'd spoken with Cammie and Loren a number of times by phone and Skype, but this was our first face to face, a wonderful unexpected gift...

Yesterday morning we got up bright and early and headed back to the airport to catch our 11:20 flight, which we found out when we checked in was now a 12:30 flight.  By the time we got to the gate it had changed to a 2:30 flight.  Once on the airplane it turned into a 3:30 flight.  We finally arrived in Kiev at 5:30pm only to find out our luggage had not come with us...  as we sat and attempted to explain and fill out paperwork in the lost and found office (people speak Ukrainian here! we don't! at the time a bit stressful, of course in hind site funny) we wondered if our driver was still waiting for us, oh did I mention that Sunday we realized that the cell phone we were carrying had no international service, a huge surprise to us, because we thought we had made arrangements for it, and wireless internet was pretty much useless, so the last we had been in contact with our facilitator, Konstantin was Sunday evening by email.  Well we finally made it out of the airport and our driver WAS waiting for us, Praise God!!  By that time I believe if he hadn't been there Ukrainian security would have had to haul the crazy American woman away, I may have never been heard from again...
We think Lena may have ESP, we had no sooner gotten in the car and handed our Ukrainian cell phone when Lena called it, she was delighted to hear we had finally made it!  We were too!!

After a much needed good nights sleep, and the great news that our luggage was found early this morning and retrieved (another story in itself) we found we had regained our positive outlook on life... Today we spent the day exploring some of Kiev, it's beautiful!  The weather is just fine, about 30 degrees, fine with a coat, actually with the amount of walking we did, it got pretty warm.  The apartment we are staying in is small but very nice.  And we have internet again!  So nice to be back in touch!

Our SDA appointment is tomorrow morning at 9:00am.  We'll let you know how it goes...  

Lena is on the phone with Charlie this very minute, think it's her 6th or 7th phone call to us today, yep she's excited, but then so are we, when Charlie just answered she said, "Is this Charles William Sanner?" and laughed, she's quite a character... :]  

Thanks for your continued prayers!!!  

Charlie sleeps off his chill pill while I wait...

heading out to board our flight to Kiev, finally!

Independance Square in Kiev

me in front of a few of the many statues throughtout the city.

a look up the street we stayed on, our apartment was over the red sign.