The Jewells are in Ukraine!!

After almost 16 hours on 3 different flights totaling over 5,000 miles, Steve, Sunny and Summer have made it to Ukraine! We started our journey on Thursday, September 30 when we flew out of Columbia Metropolitan Airport at 2:30 pm. The first highlight of the trip was sitting next to Summer on her first flight ever and watching her face as the plane lifted off the runway. She just kept saying, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh" while squeezing the arms of her window seat. As she watched in astonishment as the earth moved away, we suddenly entered a cloud and she did not like thinking that she was actually IN a cloud. But, all that melted away when we broke through the ceiling of the cloud to see the sun burst forth lighting up the top of the infinite cotton puff cloud now below us. Summer was in utter astonishment that she was above a cloud!! When we landed in Washington, D.C. for our connecting flight, the somewhat bouncy landing had her declaring that she liked taking off but NOT landing. We then flew on from Washington to Frankfurt, Germany and then on to Kiev, Ukraine. By the end of the trip, Summer was a "seasoned" flyer barely commenting on take offs or landings and instead much more interested in when we would be arriving in Ukraine.

None of us really slept on any of the flights, not even the almost 7-hour overnight flight over the Atlantic. So, when we arrived in Kiev, Ukraine at around 2:00 pm on Friday (remember that Ukraine is 7 hours ahead of South Carolina), we were already exhausted but not fully feeling it because we were too excited. Our adoption attorney/translator, Nastya, met us at the airport and, during a conversation in the car, I found out that when she was an exchange student she lived with a host family in Moncks Corner, South Carolina! She described South Carolina as "the best place ever." It is truly a small world!!

As we drove through Kiev with Nastya, I could not believe the size and busyness of this city! It is like New York City in many ways, including the crazy taxi drivers who leave you fearing for your life (we've already had 3 cab rides in less than 24 hours). And the historic, beautiful, gold-spired churches throughout this city are breathtaking! They are truly awe-inspiring monuments to this country's Russian Orthodox faith.

Before we came to Ukraine, we had agreed to take a reasonably priced apartment in the middle of downtown Kiev that is walking distance to restaurants, shopping, etc. since we would have no car. We arrived there around 4:30 pm. I will make a l-o-n-g story short and say that we decided this apartment was not suitable for us (i.e., heavy smoke smell and 4-inch thick - or should I say thin - "mattresses"). After several calls, we ended up lugging our 6 huge suitcases back down 2 flights of stairs, meeting a taxi minivan (that took almost heroic efforts to arrange due to language barriers), literally flying in a taxi through the streets of downtown Kiev until we arrived at our final hotel destination at 7:30 pm. We had now been awake continuously for over 30 hours and were basically walking dead people - and then we had to unpack - yikes! Speed forward...

Summer fell dead asleep at 9:00 pm even with 2 hotel workers in and out of the room babbling in Russian - poor thing - and she slept until 9:00 am this morning. Steve and I finally cut the light out at 10:30 pm and fell asleep almost simultaneously with the light going off. We all woke up rested and excited about our first full day in Kiev...which included Summer and I having to rent skirts...tune in again tomorrow for the rest of the story!! And photos too!!

Sunny (Tatyana's soon-t0-be Mom)