Stories by Matthias Part I

This is Matthias talking and I wanted to share some exciting stories that have happened since we have been here in Ukraine. If we travel back to the beginning of our trip all the way to September 10th which was the day that we left, I will begin there.

We awoke that day at about 7am EST and started to make final preparations for our trip. I, as always, went to the coffee pot and started a pot that I would most likely drink about three fourths of(I usually make about 8 cups). I then proceeded to the computer to make sure that I had all of our bills and everything up to date so that we wouldn’t have to worry about any of that while in Ukraine. I also made sure that we had the right times for our flights. Lindsay’s mom arrived at about 8 and most graciously offered to make us omelets which are always sooo good. They were filled with peppers and onions and some kind of meat and oozing with cheese. We finished breakfast around 8:30 or so and made one final check of all the bags. We were going to be gone for 6 to 7 weeks so we wanted to double and triple check that we had everything. We left our apartment at about 9:15 and headed to the airport for our 11:00 flight to Newark.

On arrival to the airport we said our final goodbyes to Lindsay’s mom and headed to the baggage check in. A lady met us there and started to help us checking in all of our bags. For some reason they told us the travel agency that booked our flights put all of the tickets in Emerald’s name. It took them a little while to sort it all out, but they finally did and we got our boarding passes and were ready to go. We headed to our terminal and readied ourselves for what would be a long journey to Ukraine.

We arrived at our terminal at about 10 and tried to busy Emerald as we waited for our flight. We tried to make a barrier that Emerald could not get through, but that never works. She is the master of getting away, so we would have to chase her down until we boarded our flight. Thankfully, they let people with children board the flight first so we got on the plane as soon as we could. The flight was very short--only about an hour and a half--and we were landing in Newark. Emerald did fine on this flight and we were done with the first flight of the trip.

We had about a 4 hour layover in Newark so we decided to do a little exploring of the airport. We had brought a baby leash with us that Lindsay’s grandma had bought us and tried that out with Emerald, but that didn’t work at all. When we tried to go somewhere she would just sit down or start throwing a fit so we had to either just carry her or chase her down as we walked through the airport. Thankfully we had brought a couple of baby slings that we used quite a bit in the airport and still use them a lot now. We browsed shops and as always Lindsay wanted to buy something in the stores but I reminded her that we had about 7 weeks to buy stuff and we didn’t need to start buying stuff while we were still in America.

We decided that we needed a little food so we ate at Chili’s in the airport before we headed back to the terminal to board our flight to Germany.We were getting ready for the long hall, the flight that would test Emerald and how well she could sit still. The flight was supposed to be about 8 hours long and it was through the night, thankfully. We were off over the Atlantic and into a world where we didn’t know the language…only that we were going to rescue a boy that would soon be our son. The beginning of the flight was okay, they served us a meal that was decent. I think it was some kind of pasta with cheese and some veggies and a roll. It was pretty good for being airplane food. Once done with dinner we decided to try and get some sleep. Lindsay nursed Emerald and she fell asleep fairly well and we both nodded in and out of sleep. The flight seemed to go by fairly quick except for the last hour or so. Emerald woke up and was very upset which I am sure all of the people around us enjoyed. I think that it may have been the air pressure in her ears. Once we made it about 15 minutes from landing she calmed down and all seemed to be alright.

We arrived in Germany at about 6 am EST I think and didn’t have to go far to our next terminal. It was  just above where we landed so we headed to the terminal to try and get some sleep before our next flight. We had no luck in doing so, but got a chance to meet another lady who was also heading to Ukraine to adopt. She was bringing back three siblings with her. She was very sweet to Emerald and a joy to talk to. It is pretty cool to meet people who have the same heart as you do. It just makes you feel like you are not alone in all of this.

From there we boarded our final flight to Kiev. It was a fairly short flight also and we made it to Ukraine in about 2 hours. We called our contact Vanya and let him know that we were about to land. He said that he would meet us at baggage claim and we would go from there once we got our luggage. Unfortunately, our luggage was lost somewhere on the flights so we had to wait in the missing luggage line to make a claim for our luggage. That took about an hour and then we were off to our apartment in Kiev. We rode in a taxi from the airport to our apartment that we would stay in for about 2 days and then head down to Sevastopol where Emory lives.

Once we arrived at our apartment in Kiev the first priority was finding Lindsay some new shoes and getting something to eat. Lindsay had bought a pair of shoes a couple of days before we left that she had worn for the flight. They were not good shoes at all even thought they were very “cute” according to her.They gave her giant blisters on her heels and on her pinky and big toes. No fun if you have to walk a lot of places and in Ukraine you have to walk a lot of places. So we immediately set out to find some shoes and a nice meal. We found some food to eat and then tried to find some shoes but had no luck. We decided that we had had enough excitement for two days straight and wanted to head back to the apartment and try and get some rest before our appointment at the SDA the next day.
More to come… I am not used to writing so much but hope you like it. I will try and post an exciting story about my backpack going missing next time.