I’m waiting at Kiev to board my flight to Odessa, and I think I have just enough time (and battery power) to post this.

The last couple days (or day and a half, depending on how you count time zones) has been a study in finding things to do when you’ve got nothing to do. My layover at JFK was, according to the clock, about 12 hours. It felt longer, and actually, it was longer by about 4 hours than if I’d still been on the tour as originally planned.

I suppose all airports are generally the same when it comes to waiting around, even a fine place like PDX. JFK wasn’t as pretty as PDX, but it did have some racing video games people could play. Apart from that, though, if you weren’t there for shopping (nope), eating (not really, plus the restaurant selection wasn’t that great) or catching your next plane, there really wasn’t much to do.

It was the same basic story here in Kiev (Borispil Airport). There are similarly few things to do, but it seems more exciting because it’s all in Russian. Fortunately (?) my layover here is a little shorter (9 hours), and will soon be coming to an end.

By the by, all these layover times disappear on my way back to PDX. Although it is taking me two calendar days to go from Portland to Odessa, my trip back all happens on a single day. It will be an interesting contrast in tiredness – little sleep spread across two day, or little sleep all on a single day.

Fun fact – Taxi is the same word here as it is at home. It’s a word that Russian imported, and although the spelling is different (along the lines of “takci”), it sounds exactly the same. If you ever travel this way, you see this for youself the moment you walk out of the terminal doors.