Flights...arriving...and lots of pics

I promised I would do lots of pics...so here you go...plus a long article I wrote mainly on the plane...more story tommorow.



Somewhere over the Atlantic, close to Iceland the map tells me, it is 8:45 PM PST, but Vienna time it is 5:45 AM. The flight has about 2 ½ hours left until we arrive in Austria. I figured since I can’t sleep, I would take the time to jot down an entry to post later. The flight from Portland, Oregon to Washington DC was full. I think there were maybe 2 empty seats, and no, they were not in our row , but the flight wasn’t bad at all. We made it to the Portland airport and dropped off the rental car about 7AM and then drug all the luggage to the check-in counter. We did self check-in and then weighed our bags. My military duffle bag full of candy and clothes…no the candy is some of the stuff we are taking over for another family…but I think that between their stuff and our stuff we had 3 Costco containers of peanut butter. Tracey brought one for us and the other family sent 2 over. I know many say that there is no need to bring it…but Tracey does like her Peanut Butter for breakfast. Well that military duffle bag weighed in at exactly 50 pounds. That is the weight limit per bag. We then had 2 other checked bags as well. I big suitcase of our stuff, it came in at 47 pounds and then another smaller suitcase of shampoo and misc for the other family. It came in at 41 pounds. Word of warning to everyone. We had weighed all of these bags on our scale at home. It is a digital scale and they all came in a few pounds less then what the airport scale said. After getting the tags put on the bags, I threw that old military duffle up on my back and dragged the 2 suitcases over to the “luggage turn in” area. Tracey and I then headed through security and made it to our gate. We had about ½ hour before boarding, so Tracey quickly called and talked to the kids. We boarded and were packed in like sardines. We got one little bag of pretzels and a drink for a cross country flight. Oh you could buy a fresh fruit box for $5…well I sneaked out a bunch of goodies from the continental breakfast at the hotel. We had muffins and yogurt (which actually got flagged going through security) I completely forgot about that as a “liquid” and only being allowed a 3 oz container…well wouldn’t you know it that the yogurt was 4 oz. We had the right row to be in though, the scanner guy looked at them and let us go with no hassle.
We made it into Washington DC on time and decided to stop at one of the concourse restaurants to grab a lunch. One last meal before we leave the States…We then wandered down to our gate, which just happened to be at the completely opposite end of the concourse from where we got delivered. There was a wonderfully long line standing at the gate. Tracey stood in line to try and get our seat assignments changed. As with most parts of our journey, our seat assignments for Austrian Airlines did not match up with what we had reserved. We had seat numbers that were about 5 rows apart. Well, we did get that taken care of. We ended up being moved about 14 rows further back in the plane then what we thought we were going to have, but at least we were sitting together.
Tracey and I joked about who we would end up sitting next too. The seating in our section of the plane was 3 x 4 x 3 so we knew we were not going to get an empty seat as they told us the flight was overbooked. I joked with Tracey that I dreaded that we would get a 300 pound person in the 3rd seat. I then said that she dreaded having a good looking model sitting next to us. Well, I said we would do rock paper scissors to see who got to sit next to 3rd seat…oh that coveted middle spot in the sardine can. When we finally boarded, we waited til the last of the people were going through the gate, figuring there was no need to be on the plane longer then the 7:40 minutes of flight time. When we finally made it back to our seats…there were no empty seats. All of the seats were full. I was kinda hoping that this was going to be a blessing in disguise. I thought, hey we might get bumped to economy plus or even better yet Business Class. Well…no such luck. The couple that was in our seats hadn’t even bothered to see what seats in the row they were supposed to be in…Well Tracey got them out of our seats and well, I lost the Rock Paper Scissor competition. No super model in our row. We ended up sharing our row with probably a 6 foot 250 pound German man. I got the middle. I guess had the supermodel been there I would have gotten the window seat. Maybe on the way home. The meal was not bad. It was small pieces of chicken with rice a salad, which you all know I just love (Not) a hard roll and 3 little cream puffs with chocolate drizzled over them. They were great. We also had in seat screens with a choice of movies ore even games. Can’t say they were too much fun. We made it through Shrek 3 and the end of Oceans 13 then tried out some strange yoga positions to try and get comfortable in our row of 3 seats that only consumed a whopping 5 feet of width. I know that it was only this wide as I was able to touch the window and my hand was in the aisle. The flight was for the most part uneventful. A few moments of crummy shut eye, probably the best that one can hope for in a sardine can…did I mention that sardines actually have more room in a row then coach on an international flight does…I don’t think we really expected to sleep, but let me tell you this much…noise cancelling headphones are a wonderful invention. They actually almost make cargo class palatable. I am going to wrap up this post now and will try and get it posted at the earliest possible chance. Thanks for all the prayers on helping us to get at least to Vienna on time…

Well, Vienna came and went. We were on time getting there and on time leaving. As I was standing waiting for the passport control officer to open the gate, I saw a man with an HP shirt on waiting to enter as well. Come to find out that he was from Ukraine originally, was now American living in NYC and is a consultant to HP. We chatted over the next hour as we waited for our flight. It was a very pleasant experience. And yes for those of you who really know me. I did start up the conversation and found out a great deal about him…His name is Ross, married to a Russian born woman, who is also now American, 2 kids…etc..etc…

The flight to Kyiv was 2 ½ hours and uneventful. It was much more comfortable then the flight across the pond even though we were still very packed. Tracey and I ended up sitting across the aisle from each other as once again, our seat assignments did not stick.

Upon arriving in Kyiv, we came off the plane onto the tarmac and took a bus from the tarmac to the terminal entrance…once again, sardines in a box…but it was only a 3 minute trip. Upon arriving in the terminal, the search was on for our VIP escort. Tracey spotted him fairly quickly and he rushed us through the passport control area and into the luggage receiving area. He had Tracey fill out some paperwork to declare the amount of money we were bringing in as it was over $3000 each. I went and waited for our luggage, and waited, and waited…did I mention I waited. I waited so long that they turned off the conveyor on me and there was not a bag left on the conveyor.

Yep you got it right…our luggage did not make the journey with us. At this point I am thinking, boy am I glad we got the insurance on delayed luggage….it was within minutes of that though that I was thankful for the VIP service. Everything was easy up to the point of the luggage being lost. Alexy was then worth his weight in gold as he quickly got us into the lost and found area, helped us fill out our luggage claim and get us out of there, through customs (who actually asked to see the money we were bringing in) and handed us off to our driver Nicholi.

Nicholi rushed us away from the airport and into Kyiv to deliver us to Dima at the SDA who was waiting for us there.