5 and 1/2 years now

It's been 5 and 1/2 years since we adopted from Ukraine. Overall things have gone very well. Our daughter is 20 years old now. She is in college and trying to get her nursing degree. She has added a lot to out lives. I know some have had a lot of problems with the kids they've adopted but we have had very few.

Aftermath

We’ve been home for over two months now. I doubt anyone is reading this anymore. The embassy visit was fairly routine. They were very nice there. You have to go through security and if you bring a backpack like I did they have to x-ray it and make sure you’re not hiding something in it. You also can’t bring cell phones or camera’s into the Embassy so leave them outside. Some people said the embassy had a big line of people round it. When we went they had put up a tent and all of the people were outside in the tent so there were no crowds present when we went. Basically we called them and got an appointment. When we showed up they asked us a few basic questions like:
Why are you adopting?
Why from Ukraine?
Why an older child?
How many kids do you currently have?

And not much more than that. You then have to come back around 3pm-4pm and pick up your paper work and child’s visa. They give you a packet to give to U.S. customs when you get to the United States. Some people think that packet is for Ukrainian Customs. It’s not. The Ukrainian Customs people only want to see the original court decree saying you are the legal parent of so and so…

So that part of our adoption process is over. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I really liked Ukraine. It was a nice place. Some people weren’t very friendly and others were. I think you find that every where you go though including America. We plan on going back there someday. Vica would like to visit her friends and we would like to see Ukraine without the stress of an adoption. Iv’e heard that they are trying to change the law so that total adoption time is 30 days from the time you submit your Dossier to the time you have custody of your child. That would be very food for the children there. We ended up only adopting one child because of the length of stay it would have taken to adopt two.

Since we have come home we have:
Registered Vica with the Ukrainian Embassy
Filed court papers to get a Utah Birth Certificate for Vica
Got a Utah Birth Certificate for Vica
Still need to get a SSN for her.
Registered her in school and have been helping her do homework ever since.

Vica has adjusted very well so far. She is learning English very quickly and is doing very well in school. I think she has all A’s or –A’s in school except in one class. It’s late and I’ve been working a very long time today. So I will end this post and hopefully get some time to add more later.

Kyle

My journaling time has been a little limited in the last few days so I’ll just include some of the highlights.

Friday was a whirlwind of paper work and rushing to each office to get signatures and forms. Ira our translator did a great job and we were ready to get on the train by 10:10pm when it left. We even had time to stop at McDonalds and eat dinner. Any other restaurant would have taken too long.
We then stopped at the apartment and paid our landlord which was the father of the family who lived there when they weren’t renting it out. He decided we need to pay for 9 nights instead of the 8 nights we actually stayed there. He was not very honest. The whole apartment thing was very interesting and a story that should probably be told offline. So if anyone is interested please email me.

Valdimir our driver took us to the train station and helped us get our luggage on the train. Then we stay outside the train car until it was time to go. We decided to upgrade to a luxury class car because all of the other ones were full. They are a little nicer but not a lot nicer. The bathrooms are just as bad on the luxury car as on the private cars. Jaynie and Vica stayed together and Ira and her daughter stay together. I was stuck with a stranger in my car. He didn’t make a lot of noise though so that was ok.

Once we got to Kiev Saturday morning Alex met us at the train station and took us to buy some souvenirs. Our apartment wasn’t going to be ready until noon. While shopping for souvenirs we ran into a family from Nephi Utah who offered to send their son to pick us up and help us get to the international branch of our church here in Kiev. We took her up on the offer because we have no idea how to get anywhere here except back to our apartment. This family is here with the American Bar Association. They bring United States judges over and they work with Ukrainian Judges to help fight some of the corruption that exists here.

After souvenir buying we headed to the apartment which wasn’t ready. Alex found us a great apartment over looking Independence square. It has two bedrooms and is only $60 per night. We could have found a cheaper apartment either by ourselves or through Alex but we liked this one a lot and $60 isn’t that bad.

When we got the apartment it wasn’t ready yet so we went to a travel agency to book our flights home. We flew Aerosvit here but they told us we couldn’t make a reservation for a child when we didn’t have her complete name. Since we didn’t know what the name would be and they wouldn’t hold a reservation we had to rely on getting a ticket after we got here. We found out later we could have bought the tickets in our name and then transferred them to our child. But they didn’t mention that.

Anyway… all of the flights out were booked. So we transferred my ticket to Vica. Then I’m going to fly to New York on Wednesday, stay over night, meet Jaynie and Vica in New York on Thursday and then we are going to fly home together Thursday night. Even with the extra ticket I had to buy on Wednesday it’s was still cheaper than flying KLM/northwest with their adoption fare. Alex was great at helping us get a flight out. He helped us find a business class flight from Kiev to New York that was pretty cheap.


On the way back from the travel agency Alex told us he had spent a lot of money getting us into Kiev and usually when he does that he covers 50% and we cover 50% of the extra costs. Hummmmm… not good. We signed up with Alex because we were told this was an all inclusive deal and that we would not have to worry about any unexpected surprises financially. This is not appropriate for him to be hitting us up for more money than we agreed to. For those who have yet to go Alex told us all regions are now considered hard and he is charging everyone the extra $1000.00 that he has listed only for hard regions. Since we are already paying the ‘hard’ price it only makes it that much more inappropriate for him to be asking us for more money. While we appreciate everything he has done (his team is awesome!) he is more than twice as expensive as other facilitators and we feel we have paid the piper so to speak. We also specificly asked if there would be anything extra we would be required to pay beyond his fees and we were told no. Alex said he would leave the decision on whether or not to pay extra up to us. So we will see what happens.

We tried out our ATM card on Friday in Odessa. It didn’t work. So I called our bank Saturday and asked them why. They said they had problems with fraud and ATM’s in Ukraine so they disconnected their system from Ukrainian. Oh well, so much for that idea. We are pretty much out of cash until Alex gives us back some of the money we gave him for two kids. Since we ended up with only one child we should have enough to get home without the ATM card.

After church on Sunday the Leavitts invited us to their home for dinner. We met a 4th district Court (I think) Judge from DC that just flew in and another Judge from Saint George that was also at their house for dinner. These people have great stories and it was fascinating to listen to them. After dinner Dave Leavitt and the two judges left for a region in the south somewhere and we visited with Chelom Leavitt (I hope I’m spelling that right). The Leavitts have a great family and it was very nice to talk to people from Utah and who are LDS. I think we may have overstayed a little bit but it was hard to leave such a great home. Their son Adam offered to give us a tour of the WWII museum here in Kiev. We are going to try and take him up on that offer Tuesday if we have time.

Tomorrow are trying to go for our medical appointment. We are also going to try and get through to the Embassy and setup our Embassy appointment.

That’s all for now. Thanks again for all the prayers and messages of support.

Kyle

Our in region approval is signed! 7/20/2005

We finally got our in region approval signed. It went up to the NAC yesterday to get their sig. too. When it gets back here to Odessa we will be ready for Court. We aren't sure when it's going to get back here though. The NAC has up to five days to sign the thing so it may not be until next week.
My foot has become infected. I was swiming in the Black Sea and was about 1km out to a cement barrier. I wasn't keeping good enough track of where I was and I slammed my foot into the cement barrier as I swam over it. It scraped it up a little bit so I just put neosporen on it and called it good. It's been three days and now my whole foot is swollen and a little red. Our translator took me to the Doctor today and he presribed some antibotics. I'm hoping they don't kill me :)
We were going to go site seeing today or go to the arcadia beach and have some fun with Vika but my foot put a damper on that. So we're going to try that tomorrow ... probably.
More about Vica... (I think we've been spelling it wrong... ). She's a typical teen. I tried to get her to play a card game with me today called fools. She didn't want to have anything to do with it. And was kind of pouting. So I played with our translators Daughter instead. After she beat me several times in a row Vica decided I was an easy target and agreed to play with me. She beat me twice in a row before I finally got the best of her.
Vica also likes to play tickle. She keeps trying to tickle when I'm least expecting it. When I've had enough I have to tickle her until she can't stand up anymore.
Our communication is typical teen too. Like.. is there anything you want to do? Response: I don't know.
We haven't had a lot of exciting times the last few days other than getting our approval signed. We've stay close to the apartment and haven't gotten enough excerise. I have only got one good run in since we've been here and considering the condition of my foot that's probably all I'll get before we leave. So Lynn if you're reading this now is the time to pass me up in running :)

Keep praying for us and the other two families who are here in the same region. We could all use the help. :) We also would like to thank everyone who's sent us their concern and support. We really appreciate it.

Kyle

More Pictures

We went to the dophin show Saturday. I got some great pictures here.













Here's Jaynie and Vika sitting near a bridge called the mother-in-law bridge. (it's a long story).

July 14th

Today we spent most of the day waiting for our translator to come back.  She was running papers around and trying to get our approval signed.  She though she would only be gone for an hour or two but when 2:30pm rolled around she still wasn’t back.  She returned to our apartment around 2:45pm with Vika.  She told us the man who has been giving us so much trouble in the past wanted to talk to us before he signed anything.  The problem was that the van we have been using broke down and Valdimir our driver couldn’t get it started again.  We wanted for about an hour add our driver was able to get the van started but the engine sounded terrible.  It sounded like someone was hitting it with a  hammer ever few seconds.

 

Anyway we headed out and took some paper work back to the Internat, stopped at a mechanics shop to let him listen to the vans engine (after which he said it need to be totally rebuilt), and headed to the administration offices to talk to the stubborn man who won’t sign our papers.

 

 When we got there both Jaynie and I were furiously thinking of what we were going to say.  But it was all for naught.  We basically sat in a chair outside the offices and watched people walk back and forth and talk very quickly to each other.  Evidently the stubborn man has found another thing he’s not happy with.  Vika only has a brother listed in her paper work, but the brother has two sisters listed in his paper work.  So the man says we must find the two sisters (who are in their twenties) and make sure they don’t want to adopt Vika.  These sisters are half sisters to Vika and Ukrainian law says only full blooded siblings can adopt their follow siblings.  The law also states that if they didn’t visit Vika for 12 or 14 months while she was at the Internat their rights are terminated.  But we are going through all of the hoops this guy is throwing at us.  I don’t know what will happen but we are believing it will turn out ok.  

 

 Evidently the ‘stubborn’ man made one of the ladies who works for him and who had been helping us cry by telling her she was selling children and showing her the story about the Ukrainian child who was killed in the U.S. by adoptive parents.  That is a very sad thing that happened but if you look at the statistics of how many kids die here in Ukraine verses how many die after being adopted I think adoption is showing a much, much, much higher survival rate than just letting the kids sit in a orphanage.  If this ‘stubborn’ guy was really interested in helping these kids he would spend his energy trying to get funding to give these kids a place to go after they are too old to be in the orphanage.  

 

 Anyway after an hour or two of listening to a language I don’t really understand and only catching a word or two here and there we left, got some dinner, and took Vika back to the summer camp she is staying at.  We gave her a hug and told her good bye for the night.  Tomorrow our translator is going to try and find the two sisters and I need to work on some projects from work so we are probably going to postpone our sight seeing trip with Vika until Saturday.

 

 Tonight we are going to watch the Bourne Supremacy.  We don’t get to watch movies that often and in the last week and a half since we left we haven’t watched anything we brought.  Although we’ve done a lot of reading because we’ve had to wait for long periods of time either in the van or sitting in an office somewhere.

 

That’s all for now.

 

Kyle

Pictures

This is Vika and two of her friends, Julia and Catya. The one in the middle (Julia) was sad to see Vika go.












Here we are when we first met Vika at a camp ground near the Black Sea.

Sunday July 10th

We got up today and went to church. Both of us have been waking up at 4am in the morning since we got here. Yesterday I managed to stay up the whole day without falling asleep for very long but Jaynie had no such luck and took a long nap. As a result I had my first full night of sleep last night while Jaynie was up again at 4am. Thankfully she let me sleep.

We went to the central Odessa branch. Our driver is off today so we had to take a taxi their and back but our translator went with us (that was really nice of her). She went shopping while we went to church. We are home now and Jaynie is resting due to some stomach distress.

We met 2 sister missionaries sister Hales from Toole and sister Peterson from I can’t remember where. We also met two brother missionaries and an elderly (sort of ) couple from Preston Idaho. One of the younger brother missionaries was from Saint George and I’m not sure where the other one is from.

The taxi ride to and from the church was interesting as all taxi rides here are. Some drivers are worse than others though. The one taking us to the church wasn’t too bad but the one who took us back actually sped up when he saw a group of pedestrians crossing the street directly in front of us. Peds do not have the right of way here unless it’s a really good looking girl in a skimpy outfit (of which there are plenty around).

While at church we sang our English version of the hymns they were singing in Russian. They sang hymns I knew the words to but when I hear words you’re not expecting it confuses me so it’s a good thing we brought along a hymn book in English. After church we came home. I think our translator was wondering why we didn’t want to eat lunch there at the center of Odessa and why we didn’t want to do anything else that day. I don’t think the translation goes through very well when you are trying to explain religious beliefs about keeping the Sabbath day holy by refraining from buying things or working on it.

Yesterday we went to the store again and got some much needed laundry detergent. We each only brought about 4 changes of clothes to keep our packing light. Almost everything that the stores (food stores) is very cheap. We bought a lot of food and other supplies for 65 rph that’s about 13 US dollars. The restaurants prices here can very a lot. We eat at one restaurant that only cost us 6 US dollars total for 2-3 people. Another one was more like $20 and you can find some that are more expensive than any we have in our home town.

We should meet Vika tomorrow and take her out for the day. We will probably have her with us during the day until the adoption process is finished. We have had it easy so far. It has been weird not having children to take care of for the last few days but that will all change tomorrow.

We are staying in an apartment complex looks like the project housing you see in New York. Our translator says it’s a good area but it really doesn’t look like it. The out side of the apartment complex is dirty and not kept up very well. But the inside of the apartment is nice although the beds are as hard as a rock. We have running hot water all of the time is a luxury here in Odessa as hot water is generally turned off at night. The people we are renting from are kind of funny. They have two bedrooms but they locked one and won’t let us use it. As a result our translator is sleeping on the coach/pull out bed in the kitchen. The first night we were here we our translator had to call and ask our landlords for knives since they hadn’t left any. The husband asked why we needed knives since we had already eaten lunch and dinner…?? I don’t know what he thought we were going to do for the next two weeks… eat out I guess. We can’t afford to eat out all of the time so he came over and unlocked the bedroom they won’t let us use and came out with some knives. Who know what else they’ve stashed in that bedroom but this apartment was stripped bare before we came. It’s kind of funny since we are worried about being robbed and they seem to be just as worried about the same thing. Although why anyone would want to rob them of their knives I don’t know.

We will post more tomorrow once we have met Vika and spent the day with her.

Kyle

Appointment Day

We had our appointment today. Our day started out normal. We were picked up and driven to the NAC. It’s a non-descript building with a guy in camouflage at the front. I’m not sure if he’s part of the army or just a guy who like’s to hang out at the NAC. He wasn’t in a guard house or anything and didn’t look like he was standing at attention.

While at the NAC we found out the girl we are interested in has a brother. Who is sixteen. We hadn’t considered adopting an older boy and have reservations about it but we are willing to keep our minds open. We are heading to Odessa tonight on the train. Our facilitators did some magic to get us on a train (it’s a long story).

If you’re not up on your fast walking I’d recommend starting to get in shape while here. Everyone walks here a lot. Our facilitators walk very fast and don’t really look back to much to make sure you’re keeping up. But their haste is much appreciated on this end.

Last night we found the internet café in the post office and used it for a little while but it was slow. We then had a few hours of sleep, woke up at 4am and I couldn’t get back to bed. We’re taking drugs tonight on the train! Ok… they’re legal drugs but drugs none the less. Hopefully we will be able to get some sleep on the train.

We had our first Ukrainian restaurant meal it was very good. Some things here are very cheap like McDonalds and a couple of other places J Other things are very expensive. We are in an apartment overlooking Independence Square. The view is great and the apartment very nice. They are still on the pulse dialing system so using the calling card is interesting because you have to dial the phone card number by pulse then switch the phone to tone to punch in the account number and phone you are dialing in the USA.

We have only had a couple of hours of down time so far. Jet lag is present in full force but I’m sure I’ll adjust about the time we are supposed to leave. Please pray for no futher complications… we can use all the help we can get at this point. We can’t afford an extended stay here but we have high hopes things will work out.

Our facilitators are sending a taxi for us to meet them at the train station in a few minutes so I’d better go and get this sent. Give the kids hugs and kisses for us (for the Smiths). We are missing them a lot!!!

Kyle

We found Vika!

Hello all!  We have great news!  After traveling for several hours on very bumpy roads and me about throwing up 10 times, we four wheeled it to Vika's camp and found her there, along with some other shocked kids.  We made quite a stir to say the least!  She was not expecting us at all!  We came home, let her take a shower, ate dinner, tried to converse a bit, then she went back to her camp in Odessa and we went to bed, very exhausted!  She is left handed like Kyle, reminds me of my niece Paula, and is tall and thin.  She has brown hair and beautiful blue eyes.  We spent today finding her some clothes, doing the "shopping" thing.  Kyle was really thrilled when we went to the lingerie department, ha ha.  We are having a fun time trying to get to know her and we are learning some Russian words and phrases from our very boisterous driver, Vladamir.  I finally told him that I had a headache and that I couldn't hear any more!  ha ha  Things are moving along and we are hoping for a second referral for a boy this week.  We are very hopeful that things will work out our way.  Thanks again for your prayers on our behalf.  I can feel that they are working.  We are excited and are having a great time on this adventure.

 

By the way, we went to church Sunday, couldn't understand a thing, but met some missionaries from Utah and had fun talking to them.  So wonderful to go partake of the sacrament and sing our hymns!  We felt such a wonderful spirit there.

 

Now to find a skirt that Vika likes so we can take her to church.  Everything we have shown her so far, she hasn't liked!  EEEEEK!

 

Take care and we will post pictures soon!

 

Jaynie

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Saturday Morning in Odessa

We have had some interesting events unfold the last couple of days. We took the overnight train from Kiev to Odessa. Sleeping came after taking prescription drugs! I felt like a cow in a stock truck! Eeeek! But, we did get some rest. When we got on the train, it was very hot, so we were worried that we were going to cook in that little car. We shared it with an unknown teenage girl and our translator. As we started moving along, our translator asked an attendant about air, and she said that they did have it, yippppeeeee! It made much more comfortable! Kyle and I didn’t drink anything after dinner because we didn’t want to have to go to the “bathroom” in the middle of the night. But, that didn’t work, so I woke Kyle up at 3 a.m. to go with me because I was too scared to go by myself. The toilet was a scary place and you really had to hold on for dear life to avoid being thrown against the wall. Let’s just say that the outhouses in Yellowstone are stinkier, but they don’t move, ha ha.

We arrived in Odessa at 7 a.m. and drug ourselves and our luggage out onto the walkway to the station. We met our driver there, a stocky guy that looks like many of the other Ukrainian guys his age. Our team hires drivers in each region, people they can trust to keep the luggage and hang out for us all day while we do whatever we have to do. It is very handy and we felt very safe. We then drove to McDonald’s. We didn’t go through the “McDrive”, but went inside to have a bit of breakfast. We ordered four blueberry muffins, two large o.j.’s and a forest berry pie, yummy! Our translator ordered coffee and fries. McDonalds was the only place open for breakfast because Ukrainians usually eat breakfast at home.

After breakfast, we drove to the Registration Office and waited til they opened at 9 a.m. to go in to meet with the lady over adoptions in the region. She asked us a few questions about ourselves and family, then told our trans. That she would have to find the paperwork and might get it signed that day, or Monday. In Odessa, we have to meet with the child you want to adopt for 5 days before they will give us approval to adopt her. We were hoping to have our paper signed Friday because they said they would count the weekend as part of the 5 days, but now we will have to start on Monday, or whenever they sign the paperwork.

We then headed over to the Internat/Boarding School to talk to the director. The building and grounds are very run down and dilapidated. It was quite the dreary place to be and I’m glad that my kids don’t have to live/go to school there. The inside was just as dilapidated, but we noticed they are replacing some of the windows at the front of the building, so at least they are making some improvements, probably through donations of kind hearted and generous people. We found out that she was on vacation and that all of the children were at summer camp a few minutes away. We found this out from a substitute for the director, who had the lowest, gruffest voice I have ever heard. I guess our trans. made some calls because she said that the lawyer and director were going to come in to talk to us. They arrived a few minutes before 10 a.m. We met with the lawyer first. She was very friendly and asked us to sit down. She found the paperwork for V. and her brother and said that her brother was no longer at the school. He had run away and had been brought back by the police only to run away again. She said, “.He is basically a bad boy with a bad face”. Kyle and I looked at each other with relief that he was not at the school, but then wondered what the next step was. She said that he would not be suitable for adoption, but that we needed to find him to have him sign a paper stating that he did not want to be adopted. So, then the director came in (I noticed she drove up in a Mercedes, hmmmmmm. . ..), and they discussed the situation. She was actually very nice also and she thought that the best course of action was to find this boy and get his signature so that we could submit it to the courts.

We're in Odessa

  We've typed some detailed stuff on our computer but haven't had the ability to upload it to the net yet.  We are hoping to do so soon.  We made it to Odessa Friday but were unable to get the required approvals that day.  We are hoping for Monday.  Some of the things we've run into have made us doubt that we will be able to adopt two kids in the time frame we have.  We are hoping for the best however and are leaving a lot up to faith and our facilitator. 

  We miss our kids greatly.  Ukriane is a very interesting place.  We went to the Black Sea today because there wasn't anything else to do.  There are jelly fish in the sea that don't sting.  I picked a few up to hand to Jaynie but she wouldn't have any of it.

  I'm really hungry right now so this is probably going to be a short message. 

 

Later,

 Kyle

While in New York - July 5th

Well… I’m sitting here in the airport terminal waiting for our flight which should take off in ohhhh I don’t know 7 HOURS! Sheesh… I haven’t had this much ME time since before Kaleb and Brynn were born. Ian was always an easy kid, very self intertaining and ‘lego’ motivated so before Kaleb and Brynn both Jaynie and I had time to ourselves every once in while. Now having time to myself just feels like something is wrong. It’s kind of like the feeling you get when you suddenly realize the house has been quiet for far too long. You are enjoying the quiet, you don’t want to lose the quiet, but you know the kids are getting into something they shouldn’t be. They drawing murals on the walls, taking apart the vacuum cleaner, or found some paint you left out and are painting the furniture….. that’s how I feel right now.

Leaving last night was hard on both of us. The kids were so busy with fireworks they didn’t want to give us too many hugs and kisses. I suppose that was best for them. At 4 and 2 they don’t realize just how long Mom and Dad are going to be gone. I am alredy missing / worrying about them, but we have a great neighbor who is going out of her way to help us. Our children are staying with her.

Last night we met a lady Jaynie has been emailing, who adopted from Ukraine a year or so ago. She showed up at the airport to see us off and offer words of encouragement. That was something we both really appreciated and neither of us could believe she went out of her way to do. Both of us are very nervous. I don’t think we are so nervous about the travel, but about leaving our children, about the whole process once we get there, and about how many things could go wrong in this whole process. We are going on faith right now.

On the flight we sat by a girl who was commute-dating a guy from Utah, she lives in New York. It sounded like she did most of the traveling in the relationship but I could be wrong. She helped us out with all of the amenities of Jet Blue. Every seat has a TV screen, you can get more than one snack but you have to ask, and you get the entire can of pop instead of a small glass full of more ice than drink. Those are all the good things about Jet Blue. The bad things are that you can’t really watch TV because the flights leave so late you can hardly keep you eyes open. You’re in coach so even if you do fall asleep you will wake up a few minutes later with a sore neck and run the risk of drooling on your neighbor or having them drool on your while they/you are in a semi-comatose/awake state that doesn’t really resemble slumber. But the flight is cheap and non-stop so the pro-s out way the con’s in my book.

Once at JFK airport we asked for directions to Airosvit. I don’t’ know why but I always seem to get in the wrong line. This time was no exception. The travel information booth had two people. We got in the shortest line… thinking the shortest line would be the quickest right? Wrong! We had a lady who had to clean her counter, then she had to tell the lady next to her, who had already helped 10 people the entire time we had been sitting in front of the first lady, to help her clean the entire booth. After the booth was clean, and then cleaned again, and then our ‘helper’ lady’s hands were wiped very carefully about oh… 10 FREAKIN TIMES!! She sat in front of her computer screen saying the computers were slow, mean while the lady next to her had de-queued another 10 people from her line. Finally our lady actually started typing on her computer (computers are really slow if you don’t type on them) and gave us the information we wanted. “Ok, what you want to do is go out these doors and go left. Then take your next left. And you can Walk to terminal 4.” Great I thought. That won’t be too bad… nice easy instructions, left then left. I can handle that. I walked out the doors, turned left and found a large… make that very large line waiting for taxis. I couldn’t keep going. Ok… time to ask another person. The next person said “go right then left and keep left till you get to terminal 4.” So we went right. We were outside now and right took us into another building. Ok.. time to ask another person. This person said take the Air train by taking this elevator and then going left then right and you would be at the Air Train. With my current experiences of understanding peoples instructions here I decided that I would chance walking instead and asked for walking instructions. The lady looked at me like walking was a novel idea and said “Cross the street.”

Ouch… so we crossed the street, turned left and kept walking. About 2 minutes later we saw terminal 4 and, when we got there, crashed on the seats for several more hours of not-so-good sleep.

Well… I’m sitting in a booth right now and my back is hurting because it’s a metal booth and kind of square. One thing I have noticed about JFK is it’s not quite as clean as the Salt Lake City airport, the people have a lot more additude but they are still very helpful even if I don’t understand what they are explaining to me all the time.

Kyle