Post for Sunday, August 02, 2009:

We are here! We made it to Kyiv this afternoon (Sunday, August 02, 2009) around 4:04 (CST + 8 hrs). We had to stand in line at the Immigration desk/ Passport Control for a bit, we made it through with no delays. On to claim our baggage which thankfully had made it all the way after being checked in at Birmingham and 2 connecting flights. From there a quick and painless walk through customs. We were really dreading this part, but there were no delays at all. Our facilitator had sent one of his team to meet us at the airport. We were very glad to go through the main door and see our name immediately. We had to get through the mob and many offers to give us rides and help before we could get to Nikolay’s SUV. A fast trip into the city delivered us to our apartment. Nikolay accompanied us to exchange some currency, purchase a few groceries (Courtney see below) and buy a phone card for the cell we were provided during our stay. We do not have internet yet, but I’m typing this now in hopes to have access to post this tomorrow via an internet café. Maybe we will have more internet contact when we get into the girls’ region. I will try to prepare post in advance and update them all when we have internet access so you may see multiple updates at once (I will title the post with the actual date to clarify).
We are going to eat a quick supper from the food we purchased earlier then we are going to try to get some sleep! Neither of us was able to get much sleep (hour total for me, Tim even less) during the almost 24 hour travel experience and we are exhausted! We have a day to recover. Our SDA appointment is scheduled for Tuesday. We are not sure when we will travel to our girls’ region. Late Tuesday or sometime Wednesday? Either way, we should meet them on or before 8/6. 
Courtney, we found/bought Pringles, Coke and a Kit Kat at the grocery store. We can sustain life! Be sure to let MawMaw know not to worry, I have found food that I will be able to eat!  (We also bought bread, apples, orange juice, 2 Ukrainian dishes from the deli and bottled water, but you don’t have to mention that… it might spoil the fun!) We didn’t buy much yesterday since we do not know how long we will be here and the 24 hour grocery is on the corner diagonally from us so we can easily buy as we need. You have to walk under the main road to get across and the underground walkway has vendors on each side selling flowers and various things. It smelled good through there with all of the flowers! 