Saturday, November 24, 2007

Journey Home: Kyiv to New York


The flight from Kyiv to New York lasted about eleven hours, passing through the airspace of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, England, Ireland and Canada. On the trip I had a delightful visit with Mariana, a twenty-one year old Ukrainian woman from Lviv who was traveling to Northern Virginia where she will be working for a year in an internship. She represents the best and brightest that Ukraine has to offer--a smart, courageous and humane Ukrainian young person with endless possibilities. She spoke of the difficulties someone in her circumstances has in trying to find a foothold in her native land.
After a grueling flight, I arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, where I went through passport control, customs, and then had to recheck my luggage and go back through security screening before waiting more than four hours for my connecting flight to Salt Lake City.

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