Day 1: July 1 and July 2nd

Dear Family and Friends,
We got through security and into the terminal with no problems except about 50 People to People kids that got in line directly before us in the check in line.
We then were greeted in terminal B (after the aerotrain trip) to 50 more People to People kids in which I believe almost every Grace Mission Team member had at least one People to People kid to sit next to them. It was quite exciting for the student next to me as he had never been on a plane, loved airplane food, and I got to get up 10 tens for him to use the restroom! Unfortunately Camille's P2P kid was more like a 40 year old business person (this whole plane thing was normal for him)...
We were on a 747 which was 2 floors! This was quite exciting as well! I don't think that Julie slept a wink! Dinner included pasta with spinach or chicken and mash potatoes. The salad even had shrimp on it! Breakfast a mere hours later included fruit, natures valley bars and bread. My fifth grader looking 9th grader decided he wanted to be just like me and try coffee with 5 creams and 4 sugars (the coffee was only the size of a dixie cup!)

On to Germany we are.... German security was much more intense many of us got searched including Rhys' guitar. The we were off to sit in the B terminal again but Gate 33. Next flight was 9:50 am German time - about 3:50 in the morning.

We boarded the next plane and much to Rhys' and the teams surprise the guitar had an assigned seat. Julie had the opportunity to sit next to a very entertaining Ukrainian father/son pair and she introduced them to everything from sour patch kids to her JMU sweat pants...soon nearly the whole team passed out after yet another plane meal- who knew what plane meal this was at this point.. I think everyone passed out and we were awoken suddenly with a jarring landing.

We then met Michael an intern and sat/stood in the shade until David, Bob (David's father in law) and Volodia came. We said lots of greetings and headed to a very cramped bus ride with all of our luggage. It took quite some time to get our hotel rooms and thus we were able to hang out in one of the nicest lobbies we had seen in a while (lots of falling asleep during this time)....

We are all paired up for tonight's hotel stay and after a little freshening up we went to meander through the hilly streets of Kiev to find a lovely place to eat dinner. Ukrainians like to wander as David told us and we wandered the city lots before and after our dinner. Dinner was a point and pick meal in which you just point to the food you think looks good and put on your tray. There was everything from salads to soups to pierogies to ricotta filled crepes and fried chicken breast cutlets-no worries EVERYTHING is accompanied with a "Daisy Dollop" of sour cream.  During our walk we chatted lots and saw everything from strip malls, president's office, a ghost building - used by government employees as a hospital, to several embassies. We walked A LOT.

Exhausted we are all headed back to go to bed after a quick grocery store stop to get bottled water and lots of other yummy items :)

8:30- earlier to bed!
Much Love,

The Ukraine Mission Team