October 2, 2002

We woke up early in the morning (6:30am) and began rushing almost immediately. Today was our last day in Ukraine, and we had a plane to catch!

Inna and Vitali picked us up at the apartments at 7:30am, and our first stop was a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. Vitali dropped us off at the outer gates of the embassy building, and Inna gave us some hurried last-minute instructions. Inna sent us through the gates (bypassing the line of 20 or so others waiting to get in), and then Vitali and Inna drove off to find a parking place.

Our visit to the embassy was short and quite easy. We went to the U.S. Citizens Services area, where they had a nice play area with toys and chairs, and pushed the call button on the equivalent of a bank teller window. The staff at the embassy was helpful and efficient. We made a couple of visits to various windows, including one in a private room where we answered some basic questions just to verify that we knew what we were doing. The staff gave us our paperwork back, along with a sealed envelope to take to the embassy in Warsaw, and we were done! We met Inna and Vitali outside the embassy again, and continued on our way.

We drove to the airport, stopping along the way at a drug store (ATEKA in Ukrainian) to pick up some more diapers for Evan and cold medicine for Lee. At the airport, Lee was pulled aside at the customs area into a private area, where a customs agent checked his cash. It didn't quite match up with what was on the declaration form because he'd filled the form out the previous evening and then used some U.S. cash at the U.S. embassy and taken some grivna from Kristin that morning. Afterwards, Lee suspected that the customs agent really was halfheartedly fishing for a bribe, but Lee's (genuine) dumb act seemed pretty effective at deterring the attempt. We waved goodbye to Inna and Vitali and moved on into the airport.

We were treated to the front of the line at both the check-in desk and the gate. (Very nice.) Evan was a tiny bit fussy, but really behaved himself very well, all the way until we were in our seats. When we got on the plane, we discovered that we'd been seated in first class! Wow! It wasn't all that fancy (Lot isn't quite as sophisticated as Lufthansa or KLM), but it sure was nice to have the extra room and better food! (The drinks before takeoff were very nice. Kristin had a mimosa, but Evan knocked a fair amount of it onto the floor as he tossed and turned while getting settled down.) Kristin put a blanket over her head and Evan's, and he almost immediately collapsed in exhaustion, as if to say, "Well, it's about time!"

Evan again slept for nearly the entire flight, waking up only as we taxied to the gate. Even then, he was quiet and wide-eyed, taking it all in. We were so relieved that he'd so far been so good on our flights.

We negotiated the Warsaw airport with little difficulty. Lee remembered being there in the winter when he visited Krakow for work, so it wasn't an unfamiliar place to him. We easily got our luggage, got through customs, found the Marriott hotel desk and were escorted to the shuttle bus for the hotel. The Marriott staff was incredibly helpful.

The hotel turned out to be luxurious! Our room on the 30th floor seemed like a palace compared to anything we'd seen during the past week and a half. Evan looked around and grinned, happy as a clam. Lee and Kristin breathed many deep sighs of relief as we discovered that everything was just perfect. The only thing we could possibly have wanted that wasn't here was a coffee maker, and that was nothing more than a tiny detraction from the comprehensive comfort of the room. The king-sized bed was huge and extraordinarily soft (Evan loved being tossed onto it by daddy), and the carpeted floor was perfect for Evan to play on with all of his toys.

We ordered room service (a big plate of mashed potatoes for Evan and two tall glasses of iced tea for mom and dad). Evan was apparently famished, because mom was able to feed him most of the mashed potatoes!

Our crib hadn't arrived immediately, so Evan and mommy took a nap together on the big bed, while Lee uploaded the website using the local Internet service. (It took a long time, but boy was it nice to have Internet service at all!)

Evan played after he woke up, and we got the crib installed. Then Evan had another totally new experience: a bath in the tub! He was skeptical at first, as daddy filled the bottom of the tub with warm standing water and let Evan feel the water run out of a cup into the water, and he was really quite unnerved when daddy made him stand in the water. But after we'd played in the water for a little while, he was totally happy to sit down and play with his plastic cups in the water while mom and dad washed and rinsed him. After that, he enjoyed playing with the soap bubbles in the water. When it was finally time to let the water out of the tub, he was genuinely disappointed to see it go. For the rest of our stay in the Marriott, the bathroom was Evan's favorite room!

After getting washed up, we went to one of the restaurants downstairs for dinner. Evan didn't want to sit in a high chair, so mom and dad took turns holding him on our laps and feeding him. It was hard finding anything sufficiently bland on the Italian menu for him. We first tried some risotto with turkey and mushrooms, but Evan wouldn't have any of that. He didn't like the bread (which had olives in it). We tried some farfalle cooked in olive oil (very simple), but he didn't want any of that either. Eventually, we realized that he'd eaten so many mashed potatoes that he just wasn't hungry. Amazing! It was probably the first time that Evan wouldn't eat for us.

We had a nice quiet evening in the hotel, and then put Evan down for bed around 9:30pm. (10:30pm in Donetsk and Kiev.) Kristin spent much of the evening getting our paperwork ready for the visit at the U.S. embassy the following day.