1/9/13 Kyle, Diane, Keoni And Ikaika Begin The Long Journey Home To Los Angeles From Kiev

This is the final leg of the journey for Kyle, Diane, and Keoni as they return home, with Ikaika bundled up with them.

Once again, I was unable to capture the wonderful pictures Kyle included with this email transmission but this post in Kyle's own words does capture his insight and humor, humor so popular it seemed everyone looked forward to his updates.

His reference to "Auntie Em" is from the movie classic, "The Wizard of Oz," (1939), in which Dorothy, played by Judy Garland wanted desperately to return home to Auntie Em and all of her family and friends.

Subject: There is no place like home, there is no place like home!

Dear Auntie Em et al.,
While I am so happy that Diane and Keoni are good travelers who make the most of each day, I know that they want to go home as badly as I do.  Our package with the DNA results was turned around last Friday evening in a suburb of Chicago.  It went via Memphis to Paris by Saturday and now we were cooking until we weren't.  Sunday it just said "in transit" which from our experience meant it was headed to or was in Kiev.  Monday was Christian Orthodox Christmas so the country was basically closed and it still sat.

On Christmas, our main man Concierge Dimitri said we must go to a replica Cossack Village and enjoy the holiday.  He got us a cab and off we went.  

It was very festive and very cold (was snowing) but we got some hot wine (a Ukrainian delicacy) and were able to edge in next to a raging fire amongst the crowd in the open air.  Ukrainian hard rock was blaring and most were dancing and hopping to the driving beat (or were trying to keep blood flowing).  The Cossack Village was very interesting and I told Keoni that one of the parts of his Heinz 57 was likely a dweller of these snow huts.  Then I explained what Heinz 57 was...

We didn't last as long as most although we enjoyed the flavor of Christmas (that said, Keoni has asked that we do our own Christmas when we return as we still have our gifts under the tree and he missed his Langer's deli breakfast - our own tradition).  As we wandered the village, I came to a large building with plenty of noise and commotion so I opened the door (ignoring the Russian scribble on the door) off to the side.  To my and the female inhabitants surprise, it was a dressing room.  I got mean stares, chastised in Russian and the door slammed in my face.  It was a Benny Hill moment.

We took the cab back to our favorite hotel to get some dinner.  Dimitri greeted us and asked why we didn't eat at the Ukrainian restaurant in the village.  I told him that I wasn't in the mood to shake any more door handles looking to not get yelled at.  Our pal, the Indonesian Chef Eko welcomed us and prepared our favorite dishes.

Diane has long gotten used to my creature of habit ways but there is something nice in getting to know people from our repeated visits as it makes the world feel so much more cozy.  There are so many wonderful people whom we have met who have really added to our stay.

We've also become friends with another couple (he American and she German - they live in Heidelberg) and they had their son in Kharkiv just before Ikaika was born.  Because the Germans do not recognize surrogacy, Birgit came to Ukraine before the baby was born and will pretend that she is the birth mother.  Luckily the US only cares about a genetic link so Dominik was going to be an American.  While they are in their mid-40's and have been married for over 20 years, this is their first child as it has been their dream to one day be parents.  They shacked up in the Hyatt with their dog and other than meeting us in the lobby bar for a drink, they stayed in their room all of the time.  They were neevous wrecks whenever their little one moved or made a noise.  my gut is that you were like that too...  Interestingly enough, they did their DNA test about 5 days before we did and our results were on the same delivery time frame (we were all hitting refresh on our FedEx.com page to see progr
  .

On Tuesday, we did our usual, wandered around the snowy city (ran a few errands), went to the gym (jacuzzi, steam and sauna is Keoni's fav ritual) and at the end of the day found that the tracking was a few hours behind the delivery.  Both ours and our friends' packages had been delivered to the embassy.

At the request of Keoni, we made a return appearance at Beef for dinner and then he and I were up early to share Donald's cab to the embassy (he had an appointment while we were just dropping by - Diane loves nothing more than my winging it).

No glitches at the embassy and yes, they remembered Keoni and me. Great Oden's Raven, The Holy Grail was mine!  

More importantly American citizenship was Ikaika's!  A great moment shared with my oldest son (Diane was back at the apartment) that benefited his younger brother.

We went back and played with the newest American and prepared for our departure along with arranging travel back to Kharkiv for our favorite nurse Inna (she arrived Monday morning replacing Natasha).
We visited the St. Sofia Cathedral which is conveniently located across from...wait for it...yes, you guessed it, The Hyatt.  It was built in the 11th century and has amazing mosaics which are 1,000 years old.  It is also the burial place of Yarislov the Wise (what a great nickname which I would have enjoyed had it already not been taken) who was a revered King from the 11th century.  This was the other Unesco World Heritage site in Kiev and was very cool (even for us who get "churched out" while visiting Europe).

Donald and Birgit left the same afternoon that they received the passport and he agreed to alert me of any issues at the airport.  We proceeded to go to the gym although Diane opted to audible from our routine and got a 90 minute Thai massage instead.  We then picked up Ikaika and Inna for a goodbye dinner at our fav Asian restaurant.
The long haul started with a 3 am pick-up (thanks to Dimitri for arranging a huge van) and just prior to leaving, I received an e-mail from Donald saying that they were detained for almost 2 hours at customs by the Ukrainian military.  He said "leave early and have all of your docs in original form, they have to be convinced that this wasn't an adoption."

We had 2 hours to departure when we arrived at Kiev Borispol Airport.  I was preparing for an Argo-like experience with the Ukrainian gate minders giving mistrusting stares at me while Diane's breathing became shallow with fear.  Did my family unit have the mettle to handle such an experience???  I then flashed back to reality and realized we weren't in 1980 Iran and were taking our son home.

We checked our 6 bags (including an oversized box) and went through security.  Just passed were the dreaded customs gates....

As we stepped up, a guy who looked like my brother Clayton waived us forward. Unlike my brother, I had to take this guy seriously but wondered why he put absolutely no thought into that haircut.  I'm sure neither has a good explanation so I just thought it to myself without either of them knowing my innermost thoughts about their identical coifs.

Clayton II studied our passports and I could see him locate the entrance stamp into the country.  All had one except for the thinnest and newest passport which he was comparing to the others.  He studied it while his co-worker in the box seemed to be making jokes in Russian at him (my guess was that he was telling him how rich he must be in savings from not spending at the barber).  I looked at Diane and her breathing was shallow a d Keoni had a look of nervous anticipation.  cue the Iranians as this was turning into an Affleck movie!

After at least a couple long minutes of study, he opened it up and stamped it before handing me the passports.  We were through!  My iron will prevailed as did my Affleck-like beard...

Diane the paranoid (that name not taken) just walked and after 100 yards, I said, " we're through" to which she looked up and around for the imaginary drone listening in and shhhh'ed me.

The Lufthansa plane was towed out to the de-icers and off we went to Frankfurt.  I write this from 38,000 feet with about an hour to go before landing.  Like she did with Keoni years before, Diane is a master at juggling feeding so that he is sucking and swallowing during take-offs and landings.

We have a 2 hour (minus the de-icing delay albeit sort of necessary) layover before our flight to LAX.  It feels so very good to be en route home and Keoni and I have packed shorts and tees in our carry-on's so that we can swap out Arctic wear for LaLa appropriate...

One thing of note, something so often mentioned by our Ukrainian friends was how lucky Ikaika is to have gotten a US passport.  So many people would do almost anything (including marrying an American troll) to visit let alone get a green card.  As our politics have gotten so divisive of late and often mean spirited, it was a tremendous reminder for me at just how good we have it in being American citizens.

I am clicking my heals and looking forward to being HOME.
Best,
Kyle