My wife and I have split up. Yup, after four days of living together, we have gone our separate ways… For the day, that is. My wife is off to Abu Dhabi for a pre-packaged tour of the city; I elected to skip it because it was going to be in Russian and that didn’t seem like a fun way to spent the afternoon. So I’ve got a few free hours now, and I’ll try to get caught up on my posts.
I will start by turning the clock back a few days and finish up with Kiev and the trip to Dubai. As I had already posted, the ridiculously small transfer window I had between flights in Amsterdam got even ridiculouslier smaller when my flight was late arriving. Once I got everything squared away to actually get to Kiev, and knew that my wife knew I was going to be very late, I was able find a somewhat comfortable chair and grabbed a couple hours of sleep, intermixed with some reading and wandering around. An unplanned 11 hour layover is not a great way to start a vacation, just in case anyone was curious.
The flight into Kiev wasn’t overly crowded, and we got in just after midnight. Getting through passport control was no problem, but my bag was a slight issue. It wasn’t on the plane with me, although KLM had told me that it would be. In fact, my bag got to Kiev about 5 hours before me. Apparently another carrier had a flight between the one I missed and the one I was rebooked on, and the efficient handlers at Schipol airport put it on that one. After standing around watching the carousel for a half hour, I went over to Lost & Found and was told it was in the storage room. Finally, bag claimed, I cleared customs (nothing to declare), and at last got to see my wife again.
My wife had gotten us a room at the traveler’s hotel at the main Kiev train station (she was surprised when I told her we didn’t have those in the US), and there’s a bus that regularly goes between the airport and the train station. It was an uneventful trip, and it was just really nice to sit and touch my wife again.
Our room at the hotel had separate beds, because apparently they just don’t have double beds. (It makes sense — you only have to buy one size of sheets.) They also have some “dorm” rooms, for single travelers who don’t want to spring for a full room. There’s a shared bathroom and shower, which was on the clean side of grotty, and a “kitchen” with an electric kettle and a not very cold shared fridge. It’s the place where you stay for convenience, not ambience.
We were up the next morning at nine. Actually we were up before then, but if not, we would have been up at nine. As I had mentioned in my previous posts about my time in Kiev, there’s a church right across from the station and, as it happened, just outside our window. At nine there was some sustained bell ringing — a couple minutes at least — and if we had slept thought that (which, for me, could have actually happened), there was a companion ringing of the bells after about 20 minutes. Yes, apparently that church is an alarm clock, complete with built-in snooze.
Most of the day in Kiev, such as it was, was very uneventful. I’m sure I would have had much more to say if I’d arrived on schedule and had nearly to days to play. However, I was able to get in touch with my friend Vova, and he was able to join my wife and me for a small snack and some conversation before we had to head off to the other Kiev airport. (Vova was the friend who helped me get word to my wife about my delay, so I was quite happy to see him and thank him in person.) After spending a couple pleasant hours, we collected our bags and grabbed one of the shuttles to Zhulyany airport.