Chapter 8: Day One – Flight to London
I am worried about jet lag, so I get this brilliant idea: I will try to put myself on Kiev time a day early. I try to go to bed eight hours ahead of time and get up at 2:00am to prepare for my trip. Dumb idea. I end up getting no sleep, and will be up for thirty some hours straight before I see my sweetheart for the first time.
The flight over is uneventful. Although I do not sleep (American Airlines did not pass out blindfolds on this trip which surprised me, because they did when I flew to Brazil…) the flight is pleasant. I watch some TV. I catch a movie, and I play computer games all the way over.
When I arrive in London, I breeze through passport control, and into the large lounge, and duty-free area at Gatwick. This is so much better than Warsaw, I can even describe it!
And, there is an Admiral’s club. I go to the club, and it is virtually empty. (It is, after all, 6:00am when I arrive…) I have five hours until my flight to Kiev. I push two of the leather chairs together and stretch out. It seems to me that I do not sleep, however, when I come to, a couple of hours have passed, and the Admiral’s club is quite full of people who wonder why I am taking up three seats.
I put the chairs back together, and head out to the duty free shops.
Happily there is about everything there you could want. I had forgotten to buy tapes for my video camera, but there is no problem getting it there. I have no idea what the conversion rate of dollars to pounds are, and I have no intention of finding out. Visa: It’s everywhere you want to be, as the slogan goes.
The time in England actually passes quickly, and before I know it, I am heading down to board the plane to my final destination.
The boarding process for Ukraine International Airlines is kind of funny, considering what I am used to. On American Airlines, they board in a systematic way. After first class, they board the premium members, and then they start boarding from the back to the front.
On Ukraine Air International it was pretty much simply an announcement: “OK, everyone get on the plane now.”
Fortunately, the plane was not heavily booked and it is not a problem.
I am pleased to discover that I have been booked in Business class.
The seats don’t look much larger, but there is a little more room. I settle in, and get comfortable. Shortly before take off, the steward comes up to me and asks to see my boarding pass.
I show him.
“This is a mistake,” he says. “You are not supposed to be here. You have an economy class ticket. Please, go to the back.”
I point to my seat number on the boarding pass. “This says seat 4E” I tell him. “That’s the seat I am in.”
“It is a mistake,” he insists.
Frankly, Business class doesn’t look all that great, anyway, but his attitude sorta pisses me off.
“Where should I sit, then?” I ask. “My ticket says 4E. What seat should I take?”
“Any seat!” he says, gesturing. “Please, take any seat you want that is not in business class.”
I decide it isn’t worth fighting over, so I go back one row to 5E. He shuts the curtain, shutting me out from business class, and all is right with the world.
Now understand that they serve alcohol for free anyway. To my knowledge, the only difference between business class and economy was that the business class guests get a hermitically sealed pillow and a blanket, and the seats are slightly larger.
But, I sat in a three seat side all by myself, so actually I had more room. And I took my damm pillow and blanket with me. So there!
Other than the fact that the steward kicked me out of the privileged section, my flight to Kiev went without incident.
As the plane starts descending into Kiev, I am suddenly struck with a thought: What if there is no one there to greet me???
I had paid for the VIP service, which was to whisk me through passport and customs. I think it cost $60. The only reason I did it was that I knew that Victoria was waiting for me at the apartment, and every minute was precious.
The problem was that I had arranged it through the same people who I had arranged my apartment through, and I didn’t know them from Adam. It occurred to me suddenly that if something went wrong, I didn’t even really know how to contact them.
I had paid for the first night’s rent up front, but what if it were a scam? What if Victoria had arrived at the apartment and there was no one there to let her in? What if she were right now wandering around Kiev? I had no one to call… I had no way to reach her… It suddenly came home to me that when you do something like this, you have placed a lot of trust in people that you don’t really know.
Which is why, if I had it to do all over again, I would have let Firstdream do all of my arrangements. There is something very comforting about knowing the person you do business with. My advice would be to pick some American-based company – be it Kherson Rose, FirstDream, Lifetime Partner or whomever-- and just let them handle the details for you. It just isn’t worth the stress… believe me… And as for money? I don’t think I saved a dime doing it all myself. Other than the brief satisfaction from knowing that I could do everything myself, I gained nothing but a little work, and a lot of stress…
