What a Day ... and a half
Where to start. Tuesday was a huge day for us. We had to acquire several signatures and documents all in one work day for us to be able to leave Tuesday.
We started at 6:30 am and it was adventure after adventure the whole entire day. Our translator was sprinting from government office to office and I occasionally was right behind him with my signing hand ready for action.
Everything came to a head when we got to the "big city" for our final two stops. We entered this seemingly abandoned building which turned out to be the ministry of justice or something like that. We walked into this ladies office and she started screaming at Roman. Then we stood there and for a minute and walked to another office. He told me to wait outside. I heard yelling inside the office and feared for his life. Then he calls me in. I sit down in front of this lady who was one of the biggest women I have ever seen in my life. She was seated but I estimated her height at maybe 9'2", 9'4" at the most and around 315 svelt pounds, or at least it seemed that way. She had huge blonde Texas hair almost in a Marge Simpson style. Her hands were massive, much bigger than mine and 3 times bigger than Davis'. Looking at those monsters made me flash to the Seinfeld episode where Jerry had a date with Man Hands and she started ripping apart 5lb lobsters with her hands as if it were salad. My mind quickly returned to the matter at hand as she asked for my passports. But she asked Roman. She did not look me in the eye for 1 second the entire time I was in there. Apparently she was extremely angry at us. At first I thought she might have been intimidated by my roguish dashing good looks or maybe it was the look on my face that I was about to wet myself in total fear of her. It turned out to be neither.
I guess their office shuts down at noon and we got there at 3:59, 1 minute before closing. If you have ever seen 3 women at the height of anger these were them. She kept waving her hands, I ducked twice, and pointed at the clock. Roman just shrunk in his chair and apologized, I think. People here do not like to work 1 second of overtime.
I was then told to sit outside. For the next 10 minutes I was given stone cold looks coupled with the occasional Ukrainian spat under their breaths. I had no idea what was going on about the time frame. Roman told me nothing. I just thought they hated us for any old reason. Anyway, 30 minutes later we were sprinting out of their office and as we were running he showed me her signature on a birth certificate. We both gave a resounding "Yes".
Next stop was for passports and we just made it by about 5 minutes. Mission accomplished. We were on our way home to our apartment 100 miles away. We decided to rent a car because the train was booked. I felt relieved that no one would attempt to cut away my fortune in my sleep. But problem was we all had to pack ourselves away with 7 bags of luggage and 2 kids plus 4 adults into a 95 Toyota Corolla hatch back with little to no shocks. What we were about to face was a 8 to 9 our ride in that little thing all the way to Kyiv. We left at midnight. I can only describe the roads as something similar to you driving off the freeway into the ditch and driving there for 8 hours. It was unbelievable. My kidneys have now settled into a nice paste. The kids amazingly enough slept thru most of the trip lying in a dozen different position on top of us in the back seat. Judy and I slept zero minutes the entire way to Kyiv.
We arrived in Kyiv at 8:30 and hit bumper to bumper traffic. I had to relieve myself in a huge way and there was no where to go. I was really enjoying this trip.
Anyway, we got everything done today and are scheduled to leave Saturday. But we are trying to get an earlier flight. We'll find out tonight.
So it's about 36 hours and counting and haven't slept 5 minutes. 5 cups of espresso are keeping me going.
The kids are having a blast. They love Kyiv. They have seen nothing like it. There eyes were wide open the whole time. Now we just have to get them on the plane to London and back to Denver. Lots to do yet. I can almost taste the altitude now.
Cliff
We started at 6:30 am and it was adventure after adventure the whole entire day. Our translator was sprinting from government office to office and I occasionally was right behind him with my signing hand ready for action.
Everything came to a head when we got to the "big city" for our final two stops. We entered this seemingly abandoned building which turned out to be the ministry of justice or something like that. We walked into this ladies office and she started screaming at Roman. Then we stood there and for a minute and walked to another office. He told me to wait outside. I heard yelling inside the office and feared for his life. Then he calls me in. I sit down in front of this lady who was one of the biggest women I have ever seen in my life. She was seated but I estimated her height at maybe 9'2", 9'4" at the most and around 315 svelt pounds, or at least it seemed that way. She had huge blonde Texas hair almost in a Marge Simpson style. Her hands were massive, much bigger than mine and 3 times bigger than Davis'. Looking at those monsters made me flash to the Seinfeld episode where Jerry had a date with Man Hands and she started ripping apart 5lb lobsters with her hands as if it were salad. My mind quickly returned to the matter at hand as she asked for my passports. But she asked Roman. She did not look me in the eye for 1 second the entire time I was in there. Apparently she was extremely angry at us. At first I thought she might have been intimidated by my roguish dashing good looks or maybe it was the look on my face that I was about to wet myself in total fear of her. It turned out to be neither.
I guess their office shuts down at noon and we got there at 3:59, 1 minute before closing. If you have ever seen 3 women at the height of anger these were them. She kept waving her hands, I ducked twice, and pointed at the clock. Roman just shrunk in his chair and apologized, I think. People here do not like to work 1 second of overtime.
I was then told to sit outside. For the next 10 minutes I was given stone cold looks coupled with the occasional Ukrainian spat under their breaths. I had no idea what was going on about the time frame. Roman told me nothing. I just thought they hated us for any old reason. Anyway, 30 minutes later we were sprinting out of their office and as we were running he showed me her signature on a birth certificate. We both gave a resounding "Yes".
Next stop was for passports and we just made it by about 5 minutes. Mission accomplished. We were on our way home to our apartment 100 miles away. We decided to rent a car because the train was booked. I felt relieved that no one would attempt to cut away my fortune in my sleep. But problem was we all had to pack ourselves away with 7 bags of luggage and 2 kids plus 4 adults into a 95 Toyota Corolla hatch back with little to no shocks. What we were about to face was a 8 to 9 our ride in that little thing all the way to Kyiv. We left at midnight. I can only describe the roads as something similar to you driving off the freeway into the ditch and driving there for 8 hours. It was unbelievable. My kidneys have now settled into a nice paste. The kids amazingly enough slept thru most of the trip lying in a dozen different position on top of us in the back seat. Judy and I slept zero minutes the entire way to Kyiv.
We arrived in Kyiv at 8:30 and hit bumper to bumper traffic. I had to relieve myself in a huge way and there was no where to go. I was really enjoying this trip.
Anyway, we got everything done today and are scheduled to leave Saturday. But we are trying to get an earlier flight. We'll find out tonight.
So it's about 36 hours and counting and haven't slept 5 minutes. 5 cups of espresso are keeping me going.
The kids are having a blast. They love Kyiv. They have seen nothing like it. There eyes were wide open the whole time. Now we just have to get them on the plane to London and back to Denver. Lots to do yet. I can almost taste the altitude now.
Cliff
posted by Judy @ 7:33 AM
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