All's well that ends well

At least I hope so. Garry finally arrived home at two in the afternoon on Wednesday. He got to Chicago on Monday and got on the plane for Vienna that afternoon, feeling pretty good. He had gotten an exit row seat on the plane.


Unfortunately there was a mechanical issue and the flight was cancelled. He deplaned and was re-routed though Munich, where he arrived late morning. His connection to Kiev did not come in until after ten pm, so he booked a hotel near the train station Tuesday night and a third train ticket for Wednesday morning (he had bought one for Tuesday evening Sunday afternoon that he couldn't use).

My flights went well and I had two seats on the train Monday night, I put my suitcases in Garry's original seat. Victor picked me up at 11:30 pm and I slept on the couch at his house, since it was so late. I thought I might stay in the city until Garry arrived Tuesday night (it was about the time he was boarding his flight to Vienna at midnight in Dnepro) but when I woke up I discovered his flight had been cancelled and I thought he might still be in Chicago, so Victor drove me out to the village after I got some groceries. The students were happy to see me and asked when Garry would arrive.

We also had to quick plan Leila's birthday party for Wednesday. Leila is one of the girls that live in our house, and she wanted to invite all the students for dinner today. Which we pulled off, with Victor picking up more groceries for me before getting Garry from the train station.

I did cooking class this morning at nine am ( I called Garry to make sure he had made his seven am train) and I cheated a bit, we made pudding to fill the cake roll Leila asked for and fruit cup or fruit salad as everyone else called it, for the party.

At eleven am class was over and I was working on lunch and boiling eggs for the oliviya salad (think potato salad with meat and peas and carrots to boot). After we ate lunch, Victor and Garry arrived after two. Garry carried in and unpacked his suitcases.

Garry went all over the farm and fields checking out everything they had gotten done while he was gone. The wheat is planted and most of it is up and the corn was combined starting Monday. It yielded about four times as much as the nearby farmer without irrigation I think he said.

 Meanwhile, Nelly and Leila and later more of the girls helped me prepare the party food. We made the salads. Leila did the tomato, cucumber and onion one herself, we did the oliviya, the girls peeled potatoes to mash, chicken legs went in the oven. Nelly and the girls prepared four kinds of open-faced sandwiches that Leila had asked for (she had planned the menu with Nelly)- liver pate, cheese and kolbassa, cheese and garlic and anchovy or some kind of little fishes.

The birthday party went off before six pm (we were trying for five) and was a success. Afterwards Leila cleaned up (have I mentioned how much she likes to clean up?) The cake roll was messy looking (and to cut)  but tasty.



























About eight pm Garry and I were thinking about sleep when we realized he did not have his briefcase with his computer and passport in. I messaged Victor, thinking he'd left it in his car. Unfortunately Garry was half-asleep when he got off and somehow left it on the train. He said he slept most of the trip and did not get his computer out. Victor called later and said it was on the train still and thankfully he was going to pick it up in the middle of the night.

Garry also lost his headphones on this trip, he thinks he left them on the plane in Chicago, but if he's still got his passport I'm happy. He's been wanting better ones anyway.

Well it's after one am here and I haven't slept (Garry went to sleep as soon as he heard the briefcase is on the train still) so off to fight with jet lag... Good night

update- Victor brought the bag this morning and everything was still in it, passports, computer and even two hundred dollars!
Garry woke up for the day around three am, shortly before I finally got to sleep...