Thurs & Fri April 29/30

We're home now and somewhat coherent so I'll take the opportunity to elaborate on the end of the first trip. Nastya came to Schors on Thursday and we went to see the judge to beg for a change in the court date. We met with her but she's a new judge and didn't want to risk moving our date up as it would look like we had bribed her. So much for my bribery strategy. Where's a corrupt judge when you need one? Nastya was very emotional at the decision so we spent some time comforting her.
We left court and went to say goodbye to Julianna. To make things worse Nastya didn't want to drive at night (can't say I blame her) so we couldn't stay to see the show. I was hoping we would have a quiet and somewhat private area to have this converstation but somehow we ended up sitting by the front door, the worst possible location. Before we really started Julianna ran out the front door. Evidently her Aunt was there delivering mail to the orphanage and she ran out to see her. The Aunt, who has virtually no contact with her, was very angry she didn't know Julianna was being adopted and wanted her to sign papers on the house they own jointly. Nice.
So we moved the party out to the car and said our extended goodbyes. Her friend Marina was there to comfort her so we appreciated that. I haven't seen any weepy Ukrainian guys in our time here so managed to hold it together until we got back to the hotel.
We travelled the 3.5 hours back to Kiev and and got an apartment and started working on flights. We had the choice of waiting until Tuesday at no additional fee or paying more for a flight out Friday morning at 05:45. We opted for spending more money. Why stop now?
The flight to Frankfurt was ok, the long flight from Frankfurt to Seattle not so good. The flight was completely full and Diane had a very old East Indian guy next to her who started vomiting before we even pushed back from the gate. I wasn't feeling well at all and oddly enough this didn't help. I spent most of the flight with my eyes closed trying to go to my happy place but it didn't work. We told the flight attendant we couldn't afford to get whatever deadly virus this guy was carrying and she was nice enough to suggest I run back to the counter and upgrade to first class. She lost me at the running part.
So anyway Patient Zero continued to vomit all the way to Seattle and let's just say he needs some work on his technique. I kept imagining Diane and I on the top of this chart showing the spread of some new disease in America. At one point he fell asleep and rested his head on Diane's shoulder which was a sweet and tender moment.
I'll probably take a hiatus from blogging for a couple weeks unless something significant happens and then pick it up again when we head back. Feel free to call or email and thanks for all the support.