Here has never felt so good

I suspect that some of you are keeping an eye on this site to see if we actually made it to Ukraine and whether or not they would let us in this time.  The answer is yes to both of those but the process was a trying one.

Ironically, the easiest part of the trip was actually clearing immigration in Kiev.  I rushed through the paperwork on the flight (so I could get back to trying to nap) in my .  The bus from the plane to the terminal dropped us off about 17 feet from immigration and we were the only flight that had come in, meaning we were the second in line.  Once again the embassy in San Francisco messed up and put Sarah's maiden name on her visa, but the lady at immigration didn't seem to care at all (or notice) that her paperwork and her passport didn't match... it was Orthodox Christmas Day so that may have helped with her ambivalence.

One other item of note was that I was able to get this picture....

I know that none of you know (and very few care) who this guy is, but I'm going to share anyway.  He's a Brazilian footballer known as Brandao and he's the first-choice striker for Shakhtar Donetsk, my chosen club in Ukraine.  He was sitting about 15 feet from us when I took this picture.  I had never realized - until I tried to take this sneaky photo - that the camera on my phone sounds like a bomb shelter door closing.  

He realized what I was doing and looked over with a friendly smile... and then promptly moved seats.  I don't really know why since I appeared to be the only person in the airport who recognized him.

Other than that, the 7 hours in Kiev were awful.  Cam hadn't really slept in 24 hours and a few times it was pretty obvious.  Once we made it on the plane to Simferopol we were able to relax and the drive home with Andrey was nice if a little long.  We're here today and recuperating with a little soup and potatoes, plus a generous allotment of tea breaks.  More updates to come regarding HopeCenter, it's staff and the situation on the ground here.