Travel for Trip 1

Okay here we go! 

We left KC at 8 am on Sunday morning, flew to Cincinatti and I had the biggest letdown ever.  I saw a Chick-Fil-A and I went over to see what time they opened, only to realize that they were closed on Sundays!  Oh well, so we then get on our plane to New York, we were flying these really tiny airplanes, the ones where if you bring a carry on bag, you have to check it at the gate because it can't fit.  There is about enough room in the overhead bins for a purse and that is it.  So I get on and I try to put my bag in the overhead bin, because we were in the bulkhead and there was no seat in front of me to put my bag.  Well there was this purse sitting longways, so I went to move it sideways so I could get my bag in, well the lady whose purse it was started yelling at me to not touch her purse there were delicate items in there.  I told her I was just moving it and she got so angry at me  The bad thing was she was sitting right across the aisle from me so that was a LONG hour and a half flight!

So we get to JFK and we try to go through security for our international flight.  They tell us we have to go get a new ticket from Aeroflot, but that they don't open until 4.  It was about 2:30.  We were both starving, but people were already lining up in Aeroflots line, so we went to get in line.  We started asking around what there was to eat inside the secured area and were told to go eat in the food court instead.  This HUGE airport had 3 options for eating, chinese, McDonalds, and Sbarros.  What good choices.  So we ate, and then went through security, and waited for our flight.  While we were waiting, we ran into another couple adopting from our region Kirov, but they were going to an orphanage outside the city, and ours was in Kirov.  Still it was very nice to talk to them. 

Then the 9 hour flight commenced, it was ok, but the seats were hard and very close together, but I did sleep with the help of sleeping pills!  We arrived late to Moscow, got our bags, and caught the shuttle to the hotel where our coordinator  then grabbed us and we headed for the train station.  We had a little time to kill so we went to a cafe to order drinks, since neither Randy nor I drink coffee we ordered Hot Chocolate.  What the brought us was LITERALLY hot melted chocolate.  It was very good, but very rich.  

We then hopped on the train, still in the clothes we left in on Sunday, and we were starting to smell a little mind you :-)  We teamed up with a couple from Ireland, and a single lady from Florida.  With the help of some more sleeping pills I actually slept pretty well.  13 hours later, we arrived in Kirov!  Very cold and snowing.  We met our driver and translator, and they took us to the hotel where we checked in and we had 50 minutes to take a MUCH needed shower and have a light breakfast.  Then off to the orphanage we went.  Details to follow in the next post.

P.S. I apologize for any misspellings, spell check is highlighting every word since we are in Russia!