After a very long trip I have arrived in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine and was greeted by Ivan Skoleba (pictured above).
The best news at the end of every trip is that all flight connections were on time and all baggage arrived!
We arrived in Borispol, Ukraine airport and offloaded into a transport bus. We had walked a good way and thought we were walking into the arrival section because I could see the Arrival doors. Instead they directed us to board the bus. The bus waited for all passengers to board and then closed the doors, backed up about 60 feet so it could pull out into the driving lane, pulled forward about 50 feet, stopped and backed up about 40 feet. They then opened the exit doors and we entered the arrival doors!
I had left for the Little Rock, AR airport around 6:00 a.m. September 14 and the aircraft took me to Atlanta then Amsterdam and then to Kyiv. I was to take a plane into Ivano-Frankivsk later the night of my arrival (September 15).
Checking luggage in Ukraine is always an unknown adventure. You are always going to be overweight no matter how much your bags weigh. In years past the counter clerk would ask if you needed a receipt. If you didn’t need an official receipt then your cost as much less than if you needed a receipt. In more recent years all over-weight bags must be paid at an official cashier and the discounts vanished. Now there is a more recent change to checked baggage. Now when you buy your ticket you have to tell them how many checked bags you will have and you pay for the bags when you buy the ticket. On this trip I thought I would escape the checked baggage curse because Tanya had flown in early in the morning and we were flying out late night so she would have no checked bags and then with my bags I would have one checked through and she would have one checked through. That seemed like pretty sound planning. But she forgot to pay for a checked bag when she bought her ticket. The price for a checked bag is around 500 grivenas (about $19.00). So I had to pay for a checked bag on her ticket and it cost $40.00. Alas those traveling to Ukraine will find that in addition to the two notable inescapables in life (death & Taxes) we now add a third—paying for checked bags! No way around it…gotta do it…
I am unpacked, have checked on two container loadings that occurred during my travel (2 containers of new shoes loaded out of Hebron, OH), caught up on some email correspondence and am about to attend Volodya Diduk’s marriage. Volodya has repeatedly assured me that this wedding will be brief…
I appreciate all that have donated to the expenses that will be funded on this mission trip. I appreciate those who regularly send financial support that makes our work possible.
This is the first report of many that will be coming from this mission trip!
John L. Kachelman, Jr.
Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
