Our flight to Amsterdam the next day was at 1:00 in the afternoon, so we were able to have a relatively leisurely time that morning. My heart did skip a few beats when I saw the line to get through security, but the folks at Sea-Tac were keeping it moving pretty quickly. The flight was uneventful; the worst part about it was that my resolution to keep fully hydrated (to fight off my cold) backfired on me when we spent more time on the runway than I had expected. I actually jumped out of my seat to use the bathroom while the plane was taxiing! The flight attendants were much gentler with me than they could have been under the circumstances, and even though they made me go back to my seat they promised me I could get up as soon as it was safe, so as soon as the plane had taken off they gave me the nod and I climbed up the aisle to the lav for some much-needed relief.

So, live and learn. I've been flying most of my life and have never been that stupid about it. I guess it's something I'll have to remember when I want to tell my kids "You should have gone before we left!" :-)

We arrived in Amsterdam early Sunday morning. Our plan was to overcome our jet lag by staying up the whole day and get a good night's rest that night, and that's exactly what we did. It was a very, very hard day. Fortunately we didn't have a whole lot of choice because we couldn't even check in to our hotel until the afternoon. So we wandered the streets of Amsterdam, one of our favorite cities, taking it as easy as we could, finding a good internet cafe, and drinking a LOT of coffee. We felt like the walking dead by the time we went to bed, and my cold was definitely getting worse, but the next morning we woke up, bright and early, and everything was 100% better.

For anyone going over, if you have the time and $$ to do a couple of days' layover before you get to Kiev, I would highly recommend it. We had 3 nights in Amsterdam, but even just having 2 would have worked. I can't tell you how much it helped our attitude to be over our jet lag so fast, and to have a couple of days to decompress from the plane ride, as well as savoring our last little mini-vacation as a childless couple. We spent our time relaxing, walking around and enjoying the city, instead of trying to take in sights. We figured that there would be enough of a "forced march" flavor to the later parts of the trip, so we didn't worry about museums or sightseeing. We just enjoyed a beautiful, clean and friendly city during the first few days of summer.

As a bonus, by the time we boarded our flight to Kiev on Wednesday, my cold was definitely going away. The flight was about 3 hours and very easy. Then we arrived in Kiev.

Our first impression of Ukraine was that it was HOT!!! It felt like we had landed on a tropical island. Getting through customs was fairly easy, although it took forever to get through passport control (with no a/c in the customs area), and we had gotten the wrong customs forms on the airplane so we had to fill out new ones. Our customs officer was very polite. We told him we were coming to adopt, so the amount of money we were carrying didn't surprise him, although he did ask if we were bringing any gifts (we weren't). When we got into the arrivals section we were immediately besieged by people asking if we needed a ride, but we managed to keep them at bay until Dima P. showed up and introduced himself, and then we were off to Kiev with him and his driver, Sergei.

Dima got us settled in at our flat and phoned our translator, Natasha, to come over and meet us. The flat was very nice, clean, with plenty of space for us, and even hot water. It was on 5th or 6th floor (I can't remember which now), but there was an elevator, which was very nice. We didn't have a lot of bags (one small backpack and one carry-on sized rolling suitcase each), but it was great not to have to lug them up all those flights of stairs.

Within an hour or so, Natasha showed up. (Dima actually employs two Natashas; ours was "Big" Natasha). After introducing us, Dima left and we sat down with Natasha to talk about our plans for the day. We had some shopping to do: some basic groceries like coffee and water, changing money, and buying gifts for the AC. Natasha took us to the grocery store a few doors down (which also had a money-changing booth, very convenient), and then we were off to shop. Natasha took us downtown to a new underground shopping center, where I fell into my typical shopping role, which meant that I followed Natasha and Anne around, paid for the stuff they selected, and carried the bags. After that, it was back to the flat to drop off the loot, and then out to the pizza restaurant down the street for dinner.

During dinner we talked to Natasha about what kinds of kids were available. We were hoping for a four-year old or younger boy, healthy or with correctable health problems. We were also willing to consider older children, although we were reluctant to tell Natasha that initially, because we really wanted to see what kind of younger kids were available. Natasha was pretty blunt with us about our chances with a younger child. She simply said that there were very few young children available who were healthy. BTW, our definition of "healthy" included no hepatitis. Natasha disagreed with this, and I know there are other people in the group who have had successful, happy adoptions of kids with Hep A, B and C. This is simply a decision that we had made as a couple, and it was one that we had to stick to pretty firmly with Natasha. For other people planning to go, you may find that there are more kids available if you are willing to deal with hep.