Last full day in Kyiv

Tuesday, July 12

Today was another day of "Hurry up and wait".  But we were waiting on the final documents, the immigrant visa.  This will allow Dasha to enter the U.S. and become a citizen when we go through immigration / customs in Detroit.  We left the apartment this morning at about 10:30 to go to the U.S. Consulate here in Kyiv.  Traffic was horrible.  We had an 11:00am appointment, and barely made it.  From the looks of it, it didn't really matter if we showed up at 11:30.  There was huge lines, hundreds of people waiting to get into the consulate.  My guess is that they are applying for immigrant status to go to the U.S.  But with a U.S. Passport, you walk right past everyone and go right in.  We turned in all the documents, paid our fee, then waited for an interview. 

When the officer called us to the window for the interview, the first thing he said is "I'm sorry.  I cannot issue a visa to you".  After a second or two of shock, he finished his sentence to say he is from Ohio, and he was giving us grief for being from Michigan.  It was a good ice breaker, I guess.  He was a very nice guy.  He asked Dasha in Russian who these people with her are.  She answered Papa and pointed to me.  Then she played around with him a bit and answered Mama and pointed to Kendra.  He didn't tell us what he said to her, and we didn't know what she said to him.  But all went well and we were told to come back at about 4pm to pick up her passport / visa.

We left the Consulate at about 12:30 or so and went to the Kyiv KLM Airline office.  We had already changed our tickets, but since we had to pay for Dasha's ticket and change our paper tickets, it had to be done at a ticket agent.  We have tickets in our hands to leave tomorrow!  We will leave Kyiv at about 4pm Kyiv time to head to Amsterdam.  We will then spend the night in Amsterdam and leave early tomorrow to head home.  We will land in Detroit at 10:30am Detroit time to go through customs.  After that, we will fly to Grand Rapids.  We will land in G.R. at 1pm.

Then, our translator had some business to deal with at the NAC, so we went there.  We waited in the car for an hour or so.  Long enough for little miss to need to find a bathroom TWICE.  The driver was gone with our translator, so we were left there with an open vehicle.  Kendra and Dasha took off to find a bathroom while I stayed with the van.  They found one a block or so down the road at a Chinese restaurant. 

We then left our translator at the NAC to go back to the Consulate to pick up our documents.  We were a bit early, and Dasha was ready for a nap.  Vitaly moved some stuff around in the back of his van and made Dasha a perfect little bed.  He even had a little pillow for her.  She snoozed for about an hour or so.  At about 3:30, I went back into the Consulate's office to pick up our stuff.  Everything was ready and good to go.

So, we are mostly packed tonight.  We will leave our apartment at about 1:30pm tomorrow to start our trek home!  See you all soon!

By the way, I had a glass of Kefir tonight.  This is the stuff that we mistakenly bought thinking it was milk.  It is kind of a sour milk / drinkable yogurt kind of stuff.  If you thought you were going to drink milk it would be a terrible surprise.  But, now expecting it, it wasn't bad.  I might even be able to get used to it and like it.  check out what it is at http://www.kefir.net or http://www.answers.com/topic/kefir