Leaving in 10 hours

I was so looking forward to flying JetBlue to JFK: comfy leather seats, individual TV channels and extra legroom. It wasn’t meant to be! About an hour ago, just before I wanted to check the status of my flights, the phone rang! It was an automated message by JetBlue airline calling to inform me that my flight to New York is cancelled and I can get a full refund. Let me tell you: it’s not the first time one of my flights is cancelled when I’m about to fly abroad :) It happened to me last year when I went to France on business trip, and I was freaked out then – how I’m supposed to make my connection if my flight is cancelled? Now I took the news in stride and started calling JetBlue. It was not easy, as many other customers did the same thing, so the time on hold was very long. To make the long story short, I received a refund from JetBlue and booked a Delta flight at exactly the same time as my JetBlue flight was – 11:40 am. Though this flight is twice more expensive because I bought it in less than 24 hours before departure :(

Anyway, my 5:45 p.m. flight to Vienna by Austrian Airlines is still in the “scheduled” status, so I hope it will stay the same :) This flight arrives to Vienna at 8:40 in the morning, and my next flight to Odessa departs at 11 a.m., so I have about 2.5 hours between the flights. Since Vienna’s airport is relatively small, I hope I’ll be able to make my connection on time. My final flight arrives to Odessa at 2pm Ukrainian time on Tuesday.

This time I’m taking only one suitcase (with empty duffel bag inside for Raisa’s clothes), and not even a carry-on, except for a laptop bag and my purse. Raisa doesn’t have much, so the duffel bag should have enough room for her possessions. I was shopping like crazy these weeks, buying all kinds of clothes, though I’m afraid everything will be too big for her. She’s 10 years old, but very tiny, so she can still fit size 8. I was buying size 10-12, but if that’s too big, I guess it won’t be long before she can wear it.

It was a very busy week for us with my preparations for the trip, and numerous activities with Victoria. We registered her for kindergarten, attended 2 birthday parties for her friends and watched her music class production of “3 Piggy Opera”. I’ll miss the parent-teacher conference at her preschool, but luckily Oleg stays home this time, so he’ll hold the fort for both of us in my absence.