До побачення!

This is how you say Goodbye in Ukrainian! (I have not the slightest idea how to pronounce it) but I thought it would be an appropriate title for this post.  Last month I brought 87 children to the United States from Kiev, Ukraine to spend Christmas with host families in America.  Now it was time for these sweet orphans to head home.

Initially they had planned to send me all the way back to Kiev, but we realized it was going to be a lot less expensive if I just took the three girls that I brought to Dallas back to New York, where they would reunite with the rest of the kids and their chaperones before continuing their journey.

I met the Franklin and Atchley families at the Delta counter an hour and a half before our departure.  We were able to check their bags all the way to Kiev, so we would not have to mess with it in New York.  The Delta agent also gave gate passes to everyone so that we could all go to the departure lounge and visit a little longer before boarding the plane.

It's always a sad time for the kids and the families.  The Atchleys and the Franklins had hosted these same kids previously, so there is already a strong bond!

When they announced the call for final boarding, it was time to say goodbye.  The girls remained strong though and we made our way down to the plane.  It was booked very light, which gave our little regional jet the feeling of being a little bigger.

We had a fast and easy trip up to New York.  They were all fascinated with my Nook e-reader and were pretty good at reading the english, even if they did not always understand!

After we arrived in New York I was supposed to be met by another flight attendant who would take the girls over to Terminal 4 to the Aerosvit ticket counter, but no one was there.  Turns out there was some problems with another group connecting from Charlotte and so they were trying to handle that.  I got them over to Terminal 4 and made the hand off and hauled ass over to Terminal 8 to try and catch a 4pm departure on my airline back to DFW.

I made it just in time and settled into my seat, thinking I could relax and enjoy my 50% discount off wireless internet, but got an email that one of the escorts returning to Dallas with me had forgotten to hand over the passport for the child she escorted.  Thank goodness we had wifi onboard.  After working thru various scenarios, we figured out we could ship the passport via my airline's cargo division and get it back to New York the next morning.  The child and her Ukrainian chaperone would travel the next afternoon, so it all worked out in the end!