Slowly recovering from yet another virus in my body. Was home all day yesterday and in bed with a temperature of 102. Just got back from a lovely 2 week vacation on January 2nd and have been in my apartment ever since. So here is the story of the color coded itinerary tour… we call it that because well there was a color coded itinerary involved.
I meet Stephanie at the train station in Kiev. I am walking past McDonalds and randomly see her on the street. We are headed to a restaurant that is not McDonalds but still near the train station so we can hop on a bus and head to the airport soon. We have some lunch at a Ukrainian restaurant nearby. We sit there for a little while to kill some time before we have to head to the airport. We are leaving out of the airport closest to Kiev called Zhuliany. It is only about a 20 minute bus ride to the airport and the busses leave frequently…we think.
We head to the back of the train station and search for the bus we need to get to this airport. After only about a 10 minute wait we find a bus that has the airport on its sign and we hop on. I am told that I can only have one bag to carry on and I currently have two if you count my purse so I proceed to rearrange my things so that I can stick my purse in my carry on. Near the end of our trip we turn a corner and I see a plane, maybe a 727, at the end of the road. I am not sure but I think that might be the airport. There is no sign. We are still within the city limits so you wouldn’t believe that there could possibly be a runway around here to allow for a commercial airliner to take off. The airport looks like a small administration building. But so it is an airport. We get off the bus and head in that direction. We go inside to find people everywhere standing around waiting for a counter to open. This certainly isn’t a place where planes fly often. The flight after ours doesn’t leave until almost 8pm so everyone in here must be on our flight or they are really early!
We just know this is going to be a zoo. As soon as they open the counter all the people that were randomly standing around have formed a small crowd around the one person that is working right now to check us all in. There are about 5 lines that are merging into one. Eventually we get to the counter and we get our tickets which we realize say “free” on them. Not sure how to make that out except the anxiety starts again when we realize that means we have to do this again when we go to board the plane. I hate lines or lack there of. We reach the gate and we have some time so I head to the bar. I am not sure why but in recent months or since I have joined the Peace Corps and lived in Ukraine I have this new found fear of flying. It could have something to do with my cluster mate. The first flight I took out of Ukraine last year was to Egypt and he kindly told me about his fear of flying and how he thinks since he has been flying so much in his life that his odds are turning against him. Like his number is coming up or something. I mean really dude?? We are on a plane right now and I don’t want to talk about how this may or may not be the day that the plane crashes and your number comes up!!! You know who you are! Thank you for that I haven’t been right since. Even better was our trip to Germany when he proceeded to tell me about Polish Airlines which we were flying at the time had crashed recently. Thank you again! Any other words of wisdom you would like to share with me about plane crashes while I am on a plane 35,000 feet in the air? People really need to work on their timing!
So anyway I take to the bar for a shot of vodka to calm my nerves. I end up getting a glass of vodka and I am ok with that. Stephanie helps me get it down. Then we see the line forming at the door and we rush over there. Meanwhile 2 hours later we are still standing there. Apparently, our plane is late but we wouldn’t know that because no one is telling us anything. There is nothing flashing on the flat screen TVs they have hanging all over what looks like an old garage which they now refer to as our gate except the weather. So we continue to stand because if we get out of line now they win! We are too close to the front of the line for that to happen. We have good real estate to get some decent seats on this plane. We aren’t moving!
The doors open up and we head to the plane. Stephanie is on it and she gets us some great seats. Now she is a window person and I need the aisle so we sit accordingly with an empty space between us. I am sure that is not fair but that is how we like to sit and if someone is alone they will just have to sit in the middle. Should have gotten here first! Well the stewardess comes by and asks if we are together and we say “yes”. A few minutes later she comes back with two young girls. They want to sit together so the flight attendant asks me to move in so the girls can sit next to each other from across the aisle. Well I am pissed because we stood in line for 2 hours and ran to this plane to get these seats and now you are going to ask me to MOVE? Shit well of course I am going to move because I am nice person but I won’t be happy about it! I am going to curse you and these two young girls for at least 10 minutes after this happens.
After that excitement was over we are in the air and on our way to Spain. Nothing matters now. The plane is full of young kids and I am not really sure why or where they are all going. They don’t even seem to have parents. It is quite the lively trip to Valencia. I look over across the aisle and this young boy is standing on his seat and reaching into the over head compartment. A few minutes later he does it again and a few minutes later there he is again. I ordered wine from the flight attendants and received a half bottle which is already gone so I am feeling a buzz. I start messing with this boy which is funny. Let’s not forget he doesn’t speak English. Then I find out that the young girl next to me that kindly pushed me out of my seat DOES in fact speak English and pretty well. Now I am concerned because I don’t know how much she understood when we were having the bashing session after getting kicked out of our comfortable seating arrangement. But it seems since she is doing a lot of smiling that she wasn’t offended or she couldn’t understand. This is good because I feel like an ass. Even though most of my anger was geared towards the flight attendant and not the young girl who just wanted to sit next to her friend.
We have finally reached Valencia and we land safely! I start clapping! We head into the airport to rush one lonely passport patrol officer for our entire plane. GREAT another line! Now I should tell you that it isn’t the “line” that we as Americans are accustomed to. No this is no ordinary single file orderly line. This is what you might call a gathering in front of the destination with no real order of who is next. They don’t do that on this side of the world we have found out and it causes those of us from a place of order with severe anxiety when you don’t know who is next or when someone else doesn’t know that YOU are next. I hate that. So when I say that we have to stand in another line that means that my blood pressure is going to rise and I have to deal with this chaos until I get to the front of the line and can escape.
Valencia is beautiful. I have only yet made it to the convenient metro that is right downstairs from where we exit the airport and we head to our hostel which is only about 7 stops away. It doesn’t get any easier than this folks. Only two hours late we arrive to the hostel get checked in. Receive our very fluffy towels and head to a restaurant. We can’t take the advice of our hostel lady who pointed us in the direction of a restaurant that is either not open yet or recently closed but right next door is a quaint little bar/restaurant and we retire there for the evening. Very good tapas and a margarita for us. We decide to go to bed and start over tomorrow.
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