Time for another trip to Ukraine, though it will really only be a handful of days there, most of them on the move. Then a quick stop in Krakow, Poland, which should be interesting (both in the getting there and in being there).

Most importantly, it will be nice to see my wife again; she’s been over visiting the family for the past month. Skype is fine for keeping in touch, but it’s not the same as having a face-to-face conversation.

As usual, I’m getting a little nervous and concerned, mostly with the travel plans going over. There aren’t all that many ways of getting the Kiev (well, there are, but most of the flight combinations offered you really don’t want to do), and I usually take the quickest version — one long flight that gets me to Amsterdam, and then the shorter 2-hour flight into Kiev. There are two flights to Kiev, one with a short layover from the first flight (50-60 minutes, depending on time of year) and one longer one. I’ve tried the shorter layover in the past and have gotten burned — a late arrival (even slightly) and a distant connecting gate. So I opted for the longer layover, something I’d done a couple times before. Not a super fan of that, but at least you don’t miss the connection.

The problem of late, though, is that that second flight has not been departing on time. The other day it was two hours late. I was doing some calculations, and it is late to Kiev almost 70% of the time. (Just recalculated with the latest numbers — it’s now at about 50% for the 2-ish months I’ve been watching.) Since I have to catch an overnight train once I get to Kiev and it takes about 45 minutes to get from the airport to the train station — after, you know, getting through customs and all — most any arrival delay has the ability to through the schedule completely off. I really don’t want to do a Plan B.

The funny thing is that while that second flight to Kiev has been late A LOT, the big flight over to Amsterdam has been arriving early most of the time — 76% the last time I looked. Most days there’s been almost 90 minutes between arriving in Amsterdam and that first flight to Kiev. Odds-wise, it would have been better to go with the flight combination that didn’t work the last time I’d tried it. I did try to get it changed — still about 3½ weeks out from my travel dates — but it would have cost over $800 — almost 1/3 the cost of the original ticket. So keeping my fingers crossed that I luck into one of the 17% of flights that get there early. (With the latest numbers it’s still 50-50.)

And I won’t even get into the concerns about being in Ukraine itself, especially that part of Ukraine. I haven’t been posting news of late, because things don’t change that much. That’s what a frozen conflict is. But there have been some troubling reports — not all of them confirmed — that suggest things will be thawing in Eastern Ukraine, and not in a good way. Like with my flights, there’s nothing I can really do but make the best plans I can for the information that I’ve got.

By the by, today’s flight to Kiev is a half-hour late.