Thursday August 12, 2010

Frankfort Germany was a great place to be for about a 3.5 hour layover. Once again, after landing, we walked around the airport after we knew we were in the correct terminal, looking for a great restaurant. We finally landed in a German restaurant which served bratwurst, sausages and huge helpings of sour kraut and mustard. We had the most wonderful German breakfast with muesli, yogurt and fruit as well as a traditional German bratwurst and large helping of sour kraut. Camille had a plate with brie and other cheese and meats, delicious eggs and a wonderful basket of various breads and croissants, including a chocolate filled croissant which was to die for! After our shopping – including Camille’s purchase of a new clutch purse - we waddled to our gate and waited about ½ hour for our plane to board for our flight to Kiev.

Camille enjoying another delicious meal in Frankfort, Germany.

Calvin with his bowl of muesli

I remembered taxing to the runway and once our flight was cleared for take-off, I barely remember the acceleration of the plan as we began our assent. I was officially ‘down for the count’. After about 40 hours with little sleep, I finally gave into my body’s need for sleep and slept the majority of our two and ½ hour flight to Kiev.

When landing in Kiev, I was awakened out of a slight slumber as about half the plane’s passengers began clapping upon landing. At first I thought it was a “Thank goodness I’m in Ukraine” applaud, but when talking to our facilitator, Natasha, she indicated it is a tradition that people clap upon arrival to give praise to the pilot and crew for a safe landing. It is a nice gesture - and it’s like they say, "a bad landing is much better than a good wreck".

We were able to meet Natasha, our facilitator, at the airport in Kiev and transfer from terminal B to the terminal A so we could catch the last flight to our final destination, Kiev to Simferopol in the Crimea, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

We arrived in Simferopol where Albert, the husband of Oksana (a facilitator and good friend of Natasha), drove us to our apartment. Prior to doing so we stopped at the grocery store and picked up a few supplies to get us by for a couple days.

Our apartment is on the main level so stairs were not an issue – something that would have been a dream when Cheryl was over here the first leg of our journey. However, the best thing about our apartment is that it has free Wi-Fi for our laptop computers! Apparently our land lady lives next door and has a Wi-Fi connection so we just piggy back onto hers. The signal is a bit weak, but if you leave the kitchen door open and stay in the front room, it seems adequate. After we got to our apartment, Camille promptly fell asleep and I stayed up, reconciled my money spent to money on hand, surfed the net and got to bed by about 2:00 a.m. Natasha would be calling for us in five hours so I felt I needed a few good hours on a real fold out bed – Ukrainian style (which actually are much better than any American hide-a-way’s I’ve slept on).