Several Days of Updates

Day One and Two - Trip Two
This was an incredibly long day - 30+ hours of travel. We started out by driving to MSP in a snow storm, then we were delayed leaving because it took a long time to de-ice. A lot of people were complaining about missing their connecting flights, but we know we can make it across O'Hare in 8 minutes or less!! We made our next flight - we only had to walk from gate 9 to gate 17. We next flew to Washington Dulles. We had a long layover here, so we sat down and ate at a Subway. After waiting and waiting, our flight to Vienna was delayed 1-1/2 hours because of an emergency on board the flight prior to ours. We made up time during the flight and arrived in Vienna on time. (Monte and I both got sick on this flight - it felt like we were descending forever!) At the Vienna airport, our gate lead to the outside and the doors kept opening and closing and the benches were metal. I am glad we only had a two-hour layover there - it was freezing! Then, we flew a quick flight to Odessa. It was much easier and much quicker to go through customs in Odessa than Kiev, but changing planes four times was a killer!! Our driver from our first trip was waiting for us and all of our baggage made it. We made it back to Belgorod quickly - Zhenya drove really fast this time - sometimes playing "chicken." George was waiting for us at the Christian Clinic. We put our bags away and went to go see the kids. If you read my blog from yesterday - at least I think it was yesterday - it is hard to keep track of what day it is - you know that our visit went well. It was awesome to see the kids again and that they missed us and couldn't quit hugging us. Then, we went to a new market to get some groceries - it just opened two days before we got there and it is like a Wal-Mart. Then we went to bed.