My Trip
I just got back from Kiev with my mom and sister. I will write about the city itself in another entry, but will write about the trip there now. We left the US and flew KLM to Amsterdam. The check-in people were all Northwest people and were fairly rude. Luckily we were on a KLM flight with a Dutch crew. I have never had problems flying on KLM or at the Amsterdam airport. The plane was alright (each seat had it’s own TV and you could chose from dozens of movies or TV shows and they started right away (unlike on some planes where they don’t start the movie service until after the meal.) The flight attendents were very nice and helpful. It was a nice 7 hour flight. We had no problems at the Amsterdam airport either. It was weird that the McDonald’s there only had 3 breakfast items and it was 7:30 am local time (but they also served hamburgers, etc.) We paid for the Internet and used it up to our flight to Kiev.
We had to go through another security check to board the Ukraine International Airlines flight to Kiev. The Dutch security were very nice and pleasant (unlike the TSA.) The Ukrainian plane was aweful. It was very old and dirty looking. We were in the emergency row (which was 4 rows wide) and the arm-rests where either duck-taped together or came off completely. It wasn’t the safest looking plane. The food (it was some pork dish) was just nasty. We got to Borispil Airport in Kiev and had to take a bus to the terminal. We waited a good amount of time in Immigration (although it was still shorter than my when I had to wait in Moscow everytime.) The Immigration woman didn’t say anything to my mom, sister or me. She took some time and stamped our passports in the spot that says not to (which the Russians always did in my passport too.) Then we got our bags and went through Ukrainian Customs. A Customs guy started to stop me because I was pushing the cart with 3 large bags and he thought I was alone, but when he saw my sister and mom with me he let us go with no problems.
In my next entry I will wrote about Kiev itself.