We're here

 Saturday was a long day for us. We left for the airport at one am Ukrainian time, with Max driving. He knew how to find the Zaporozhye airport because he had picked up his mother and aunt there the day before. Max enjoyed the trip to Egypt so much he sent his mother on vacation to Hurgota, the other Red Sea spot for Ukrainian tourists.

The new Zaporozhye airport is where Austrian airlines flies from now instead of Dnepro. It is a shiny new terminal, opening just before the pandemic. Our check-in was a little more complicated for the staff, checking out what we needed to fly. Garry's ultrasound machine carry-on (for checking if cows are pregnant) required lots of looking over, but eventually we were on our bus to the plane, taking off at 4:30 am. 

We had a four hour layover in Vienna, which stretched to five because the plane had arrived late. We finished up the breakfast sandwiches I'd packed, and more of the snacks. Garry found some place to stretch out in the terminal. He had to reset his phone and took it out of the case.  There was a document check hours before boarding. This used to mean a visa, permits, resident document check, but now they also have to check your vaccine status and test verification so you can fly to Canada. 

Eventually, we were on board. There were empty seats in economy, but we were in a full row and legroom was tight. It's more of a problem for Garry than me, but when the guy on the aisle in front of us took off for greener pastures, I squeezed past the guy on our ailse to get his seat, so we both had an open seat next to us. I just handed my dessert and roll over the seat to Garry when the meal came. At least Air Canada has gone back to hot meals this year, last year's cold eggplant parmesan "salad" wasn't great.

The plane pulled up to the gate in Toronto an hour and a half before our flight to Winnipeg was scheduled to take off. We were making great time until I got pulled for the random covid entry retest. The guy told Garry it would just take five minutes but it was closer to twenty. However, all was well as we made it with time to spare as the plane  boarded a little late. Garry even had time to notice his phone might be missing, as he was looking for his power bank to charge his tablet.

We were met by a very excited Abby and her parents at the bottom of the escalator, and after drive thru Popeye's chicken sandwiches, we were on our way to the farm, where we fell in to bed at nine pm.  Saturday night, more than 24 hours with all the hours of time zone changes from when we left the village.

Sunday morning Garry was up by four am, out of the house by five I think. Time had changed, but the grandkids didn't care, so I saw Noah and Carson around six am. We had breakfast at Josh's house and we're a little late for church at the nine am service and missed the choir singing. Garry had thought it still started at nine thirty, like it did pre-pandemic, and we had to open suitcases to find his pants before leaving home. Afterwards we drove home to hang out with the kids for lunch, Garry went on the farm tour, we forgot about his family's zoom call, since it's not in the evening like when we are in Ukraine, we watched Eagles football on the big screen and had tacos for dinner at Noah's house.

Monday morning I logged in to find out I'd once again tested negative for covid, and checked the email, since I'd filed a lost item report with aircanada. That afternoon Garry went fishing on the new boat, before the weather turns colder in the next day or so. Hurray, they found Garry's phone and it's being shipped here.