And we’re back

After the most harrowing experience trying to leave Ukraine, we have returned from our brief trip to the US. We brought back with us: a few extra pounds from fast food and American-sized portions and a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise as we did our best to boost the economy. And two days ago, when we first returned, I would have said I came back well-rested, but after two nights of jet lag, I’m just feeling tired and cranky.

I’ll start with the unpleasant part of the trip: trying to get out of this country. Delta is the only US carrier that flies directly between the States and Kyiv and they just have one flight every other day. There is also a Ukrainian airline that flies between New York and here, but I’m not sure how often that flight goes. As you can see, the options for getting out of Ukraine and to the States are extremely limited. Anyway, we were on the Delta flight when we left for our trip. Things started out normal enough, but quickly went south. There was a mechanical problem with the plane. We ended up sitting on the plane on a tarmac about a mile away from civilization for 6 hours the first day (yes, I said the first day). I actually watched the sun set out the plane window. It was eventually decided that we weren’t going anywhere, so they loaded us off the plane onto busses, drove us back to the airport, and we stood around and waited for what felt like forever. Eventually, they told us to come back to the airport at 8am the next morning and they would get us on our merry way. Now fast forward to the next day at 5pm. We’ve been sitting around the airport all day (I cannot put into words how much I hated Kyiv’s airport before this misadventure. Imagine how I feel now.), with our flight’s departure being pushed back every few hours. Finally, at 7:30pm, they loaded us back onto busses to take us back out to the plane. And after sitting on the tarmac for two more hours, we finally took off – exactly 36 hours after we arrived at the airport in the first place.

Okay, so I’m trying to let go of my anger over that, so I’ll move on to the trip itself. We got to spend Thanksgiving in the US! We had a good time with our families, although it didn’t feel quite as much like a “vacation” as I would have liked. We’ll have to save that for later this winter when we take our R&R. We did a lot of shopping – Shawn got some super Christmas presents, thanks to my new job. And I got to spend all of 30 minutes in a JoAnn’s. I really need to plan a shopping trip of my own… We visited our alma mater and had lunch with our former theatre professor. And we toured the campus to see all the improvements they’ve made in the 7 years since we were there. (Has it really been that long?)

In all, it was a good, relaxing time. We played with our niece and nephew. I got to look at wedding magazines with my brother’s fiance. We did catch one movie. And we drank in the Americana. (Although the Christmas decorations were a shock to me when we first arrived – I had forgotten it was that time of year somehow. And exactly how decorated it would be.)

So now it’s back to the sub-zero temperatures and work. Ah…regular life must go on.