We're HERE!

And we are exhausted but we are trying to stay up a few more hours so that we are on their schedule. The flights were uneventful and extremely crowded and the planes were OLD. We sat in the middle two seats of the four seat row in the middle of the 747 and we were in the row that butts up against the back of the bathrooms - so we had ZERO leg room. I couldn't sleep. Tom didn't sleep much. We got to AMSTERDAM and had a little lunch (I think it was breakfast time). The airport, of course, was filled with shops that sold wooden shoes and fake tulips. And herring and eel. And Cows on Parade figurines (for those who don't know - that was an art exhibit that was done in Chicago and Kansas City, etc). It was funny to see trinkets from the US in Amsterdam.

We decided to go to our gate and it was forever away. Gate 57. Nothing was open so you had to sit on the floor and - I did. The exhaustion was kicking in big time. I fell asleep and Tom woke me to tell me there was a gate change. So we pick up all our stuff and shlepped down to Gate 49. It was open so we went in and had a seat...and fell asleep. About 30 minutes later, they announced a gate change...to Gate 57. We did the walk again and they finally opened the door there and we sat down and...we slept. I woke up and realized that there were very few people around us...because everyone had already BOARDED! We weren't the last, but there were only about 4 people behind us! We got on the very crowded flight and...fell asleep. About 20 minutes before landing, I decided I had to go to the bathroom...and it took about 15 minutes to walk the aisle and wait for the stewardesses to let us pass them as they were hocking their souvenirs. We got back, sat down, strapped in and landed. Everything went according to planned (although our VIP escort wasn't there the minute we got off the plane). Went through customs in about 10 minutes, got our luggage and found our facilitator and translator (Kostya and Vasya).

Kiev has grown SO much. Houses built close to the airport look like major subdivision houses (not normal for here). TONS of new buildings. It's cold but not frozen yet.

We got to Randy and Janis's house (Randy just left for Nepal) and Janis had dinner cooking that smelled delicious. We had baked potatoes, BBQed chicken wings and broccoli salad...sounds pretty American, huh! Now I am sitting here blithering...because what I want is...SLEEEEEEP!

We are here, we are safe and, after a long night of sleep, LET THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!!!!