First day in Odessa

We are in Odessa! I finally got the Internet access, so it will be a long entry, please bear with me!

Our flight to Kiev was, um, interesting. After spending 10 hours at JFK, we finally boarded the plane, found our seats and tried to get comfortable for the long flight. It was not an easy task since my seat wouldn't recline all the way down, and Oleg's seat wouldn’t recline at all! There were no other available seats, so we had to stick with ours. As soon as our plane started taxiing towards the runway, I felt something strange… I looked up and saw that the water was trickling down from the overhead bin to my seat! We called the flight attendant again telling her that the roof is leaking :) She looked like we need to have our heads examined! After examining my seat and verifying that the water is indeed leaking from somewhere, she called in a consult. Another flight attendant came in, and all of a sudden the leaking magically stopped. Well, it was raining in New York, so I guess the rain has stopped :) After that our flight was fairly uneventful.

Going through the passport control and customs was very straightforward. For those of you about to travel, I don’t think you really need the VIP service, even if you don’t speak Russian. First, you go through the passport control. Make sure to fill out the form you are given on the plane on both sides. I didn’t realize we need to fill out both “Arrival” and “Departure forms. Have your facilitator’s address written down somewhere, so you can specify this address on the immigration form (or even the SDA address – they didn’t care as long as you put any address there). Then go straight ahead to get the luggage. Even if you bypassed the passport line with the VIP service, you’ll still need to wait for the luggage. After that you have a choice to go through the Green corridor (if you don’t have anything to declare, i.e. you have less than $3000 per person), or through the Red corridor where you have to fill out a declaration form. The forms are available next to the luggage carousel in English.

Yesterday was a big day – our SDA appointment. Even though we knew they shouldn’t deny us to adopt Raya, we still felt nervous. But everything worked great! We were greeted by a very nice woman who introduced herself as Zarina. She showed us Raisa’s file, talked to us for a couple of minutes, and that was it! We asked whether it’s possible to come back for the paperwork that same day because we planned to leave for Odessa in the evening, and she agreed! After we were done at SDA, our great facilitator Sergey spent the day taking care of us - sightseeing, shopping, he even took us out to dinner, and then to the train station.

The train was not bad at all! Well, we had an experience riding the trains in Ukraine many years before, but let me tell you: our train was much better than we expected. We bought all 4 bunks in the cabin, so we were very comfortable. Not only we had our privacy, but also we had enough room to put our luggage in! There is very little room for luggage in the cabin, so we used our extra bunks for our bags. We were also told that we need to show our passports to the attendant, but she didn’t ask. The bathrooms were more or less clean, and get this: there was even a toilet paper! Though it took a great skill to actually use the bathroom because the train was swaying all the time. So overall the train experience was okay, even though I wouldn’t call it my favorite way of travel :)

And finally this morning we arrived to Odessa train station at 6:00. Our friends Lena and Kostya were waiting for us – it was so cool to finally see them after 11 years! After a short drive to their apartment, the moment we were waiting for such a long time finally arrived – Raisa was waiting for us! Here is her first picture with us this morning: isn't she precious?


Now it's time to go to the Regional Inspector's office to prepare a lot of paperwork that we have to send back to SDA. More later!