The jetlag post- change of seasons and the marathon of flying

Manitoba on Monday morning

Ukraine on Saturday afternoon

I did get back to Ukraine on Friday afternoon; that's right, a day later than scheduled, missing most of the conference I was flying back to be in time for. The plane out of Winnipeg was delayed 5 hours, some of which was spent on the tarmac, as the rescheduled time, which maybe would have gotten me into Montreal in time for the flight to Frankfurt that evening, was dealyed again to check out a mechanical problem. Nice hotel, food vouchers ( a little skimpy for the hotel- and the one for lunch at the airport was dated for the wrong day so I couldn't use it) from Air Canada, and at noon on Thursday I was sitting at the airport waiting for my flight at 5:30 pm.

After landing in Frankfurt I had to run to make the plane to Vienna, hurrying ahead of a bunch of people toward the promised less people at passport control than the several hundreds waiting at the first lineup I found at one of the busiest airports in Europe, really plan on more than an hour to change planes there! By the time we taxied up and deplaned it was 6:30 and the only plane to Vienna on the departure board I could find was Luftansa at 6:45. The gate matched my boarding pass, it was a codeshare with Austrian, so I was looking for OS128 at 7:15. Even took a tram for one stop to terminal A-  needing to get through passport control to get stamped by the European Union, and security (get out the computer, take off the scarf and hoodie- which I left off as I was sweating and out of breath at that point, break a nail, drop the boarding passes, get them returned to me while tying the scarf and putting the computer bag back on top of the roller bag) before racing to the gate at 7:05 (my ticket said 7:15 for the flight, but that was when we started getting on the bus to go out to board the plane) totally out of breath, and no euros to buy a drink in the ten minutes to spare.

Now that plane took off late so my one hour in Vienna was looking shaky, plus there was the worry in the back of my mind that although my luggage was checked through to Dnepropetroesk, I did not have a printed boarding pass for the flight. I had asked the Austrian/ Lufttansa lady at the gate in Frankfurt, and she said I could get it right at my gate, so as soon as we got off the bus from the plane, I headed to the one on the board for Dnepro, noting it said delayed...which turned out to be good. No security to go through, just passport control, got my passport stamped again (now you know why I had to get extra pages in my passport) so I was there 20 minutes ahead of boarding, no agents at the gate (number 9), back to the toilets I passed by gate 5, back to the gate, talked to the guy, who had arrived while I was gone, about getting my boarding pass. He said I was not on the passenger list so should see the service desk back by gate one, good thing tha the flight was delayed so I should have time. Short line, got to the front and the lady had trouble figuring out what to do with my Air Canada coupon and itinerary, keep saying but I wasn't on the list I was on yesterday's, that seat was sold now, she talked to both of the other agants helping people made a couple of phone calls, all in German: while telling me in English she had never seen one like this it wasn't like theirs and AC had messed it up (which I had already guessed. )

I was thrilled when she handed me a boarding pass exactly 20 minutes later, and I ran back to gate nine, where the passengers for Dnepro were going through to get on the bus to the plane. I finally relaxed as we flew for two hours, I was amused to see that the business class got a fancy meal with a shrimp salad and steak; as I could see through the curtain, sitting in the first economy row she had put me in, while was eating my half of a cream cheesy-filled sandwich, with a whole can of coke. I even had a muffin and juice on the hour flight to Vienna, bring a book (unless you are in Business- they get magazines to read) and fly Austrian, even if they don't have little tv's to watch like Air Canada.

I got to the last two sessions -one Friday evening where I had to work to stay awake after about 30 hours up and the final one Saturday morning. At least I got to see our fellow missionaries in Urkraine. So for the first two nights I slept about six hours- going to sleep at nine pm, awake at three; and I figured that it would work better to go to bed at ten pm (and sleep until four) and instead I slept for two hours and was wide awake sortly after one am! Jetlag is a strang thing. I will probablly fall asleep around dawn...