So after nearly 8 months we have finally made it to Kiev, Ukraine! The flights were seamless. We left Boston Logan International Airport on Monday April 10th at 4:55pm and arrived in Amsterdam, Netherlands 5:55 am. We unfortunately did not sleep on this leg at all. I think were both too excited to sleep, but by the time we made it to Amsterdam we paid the price with exhaustion. Aimlessly wandering the airport we found this quiet little nook with about 40 reclining chaise lounges. The lights were dim and we could hear people quietly snoring in several different languages. We found two unoccupied chairs, kicked off our shoes and crashed for 1 whole hour. When we woke, we both were fighting headaches and that overall blah feeling you feel you get when you haven't slept through the night since August. After the most refreshing orange juice, coffee, yogurt and croissant, we made our way to our gate. Along with one hundred other passengers we were placed in a glass terrarium until we boarded our flight. Shortly after take off before we could put our seats in the 2" recline mode, we were out like a light. We slept through the entire 2 hour 45 minute flight to Kiev missing the drink & breakfast service offered on the flight.
In Kiev, we made it through customs despite the ugly look on the woman's face that checked us in. We gathered our luggage and went through an additional screening process before meeting up with Svetlana and Maria our facilitators. The drive to our apartment took us about 40 minutes. It was very interesting to see the country for the first time. Lots of high rise apartments along the drive. Maria told us that the population in Ukraine is about 48% low income and 48% high income families with about 4% of the population in the middle class range. She said in Ukraine you are rich or you are poor. We drove through areas of Kiev that were clearly neighborhoods of both wealth and poverty. When we arrived in downtown Kiev it reminded me of Commonwealth Ave in Boston. Cobblestone roads with brownstone looking homes and a section running up the middle of the road with park benches, grass and trees. Beautiful golden dome churches and pastel color apartment buildings and hotels up and down the road. The ground floor of these buildings were occupied by all sorts of shops and cafes. In a country with so much poverty it was surprising to see shops labeled Versace, Tommy Hilfiger, Rolex, etc. A few streets later we arrived at our apartment. Our van driver didn't bother to look for a spot to park, right up on the sidewalk he went. We made it!
