Plane trip to Odessa

I've been absent for quite awhile, busy with both the fun and the stressful.

I want to talk about a lot of things, mostly related to my Ukrainian family. I'll just start with some ramblings about our amazing trip to Odessa last fall.

At right are Vlad's sister, Tanya, in the blue dress, and her daughter, Anuta. This was the day we arrived. Tanya's showing off the necklace and ring we brought her from the Texas jeweler James Avery.

I'll start at the beginning. The plane trip.

We had two weeks to visit. The plane trip, including stops, is about 24 hours from Houston. It's pretty horrible. You're pinned in, stuck in an S-shape for 24 hours. The airports were worse than the planes. We flew to DC-Dulles to Vienna to Odessa; returned in reverse order. Next time, I want to stop for a couple of days in Rome or Paris both ways to break up the claustrophobia fest.

We traveled with our friends Sasha and Valia, and their young son, Daniel, who just turned 5. Or is it 4? Anyway he's a cute kid. Terrible travel companion, but cute. Valia was going to her niece's wedding. We've been invited and I'm so excited about seeing an Orthodox ceremony.

Daniel's at left, outside the civil wedding complex in Odessa after the wedding. You might think he's fascinated with the white doves and you'd be wrong. He's excited about all the trash in the window well of the building. A trash can built into the sidewalk! Who'da thunk it?

Our United flight from Houston to DC was very late. We pulled into a Dulles gate about five miles south of where our connection gate was located. We were assured a United associate would be in the gate area to hold our connections. United people lie. It was like Antarctica.

Most in our party ran the five miles to the gate. I am not in shape -- well I am a very big shape, which is the problem -- and they held the only Austrian Airways flight to Vienna of the day for, well, us. And I was the last of us. I'm flashing my passport and this Austrian woman in a crimson uniform worthy of McDonald's rolls her eyes at it and is screaming at me like a movie stereotype to "Get on zee plane now!!!"

Not even off U.S. soil and already I have 3 blisters.

Austrian has little monitors in the seatbacks. We could check the plane's progress. Watch the plane cams on takeoffs and landings, my personal favorite. And watch any of a number of mediocre shows in any of seven languages. The food was not remarkable except that it was healthier than what U.S. airliners serve, when they serve anything at all.

The Vienna airport was under heavy construction. We unloaded from the tarmac and were driven to our gate on a rolling waiting room. We were in the international section and couldn't leave and come back unless we wanted to go through immigration. We didn't want any problems on this end of the vacation, so we hung around.

I was confused. You go over here and stand in line and get a piece of paper and go over there in that line and do a curtsy for someone else. I found the people working at the airport there to be pretty humorless. Don't know if that means anything.

Couldn't find a souvenir I wanted so I got nothing but an Austrian Diet Coke. And that wasn't anything special it turned out. Not like Mexican Coca-Cola Light. The Duty-Free was a joke. The prices at home are cheaper.

There were lots of young people at the airport. Many of them sleeping across 5 chairs. Chairs are hard to come by, too. Daniel found a little girl to play with. She was from Albania. She had gone to Vienna for tonsil surgery. Daniel speaks Russian and English, but not Albanian. But not to worry, running up and down the escalators is a universal language.

A plane headed for Azerbaijan is loading. The rolling waiting room pulls up to the glass doors. A bunch of people speaking Russian dressed in a style I couldn't quite place gathered near the door to board. Women in long, dark skirts, flowing scarves and Muslim head wraps. Men in dark clothing, some dressed more Western than others, and little girls with golden earrings. This you don't see every day in Houston.

I felt I was getting closer to my destination. Starting to feel very far from home. It feels great.

We board the Ukrainian plane for Odessa. Much smaller plane and a short flight of only a couple of hours. It's a Western plane. All the English signs have been taped over with Russian signs for "Restroom" and "No Smoking."

We arrived. It looked like home. Lots of trees. The drizzle blurred everything. We leave the plane and get on a large but ancient shuttle. It takes us to the terminal. Everything is in Russian. I'm sounding out Russian words like a 5-year-old.

It's exhiliarating but we're exhausted and a little nervous about immigration. Everything will go smoothly. Right?