The Signatures
I arrived in Ukraine only to realize that I had to change airports. If I knew this at some point I had completely forgotten. Luckily, I had five hours between flights and the fifty-minute drive was only a ten dollar Uber, so no harm no foul. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t have a great five hours in the Ukraine. I transferred from IEV to KBP airport within Kiev, and things were fine until my arrival at KBP. In an attempt to find my second witness signature I was turned down rudely by two airport employees. I was also told I needed to pay $55 for my luggage. All within about five minutes so while I realize it doesn’t sound like much it was not ideal.
Thankfully it got better quickly. The third airline employee was so sweet and a willing witness! She asked me to send more information about my trip to her email and was so interested in everything. That immediately made things better. Then I decided to just take my bag onboard. I only tried to check it because of misinformation online. Ukraine Airlines supposedly only allows one carry on, but they also allow a personal item. The check-in agent said I was overweight, but since I already had my printed boarding pass I just went on through security and basically ignored him. This works sometimes (basically anytime you are allowed only one hand luggage bag and you find in the fine print that you can also have a personal item i.e. a small backpack) but not others (never with EasyJet, WizzAir, etc.).
After arriving at my gate I became annoyed with Ukraine once again. The airport is obviously non-smoking but the smoke from the smoking rooms wafted throughout the entire airport. My head has hurt and my nose has been irritated ever since. Also, the power went out in the airport and I have no idea what that was about. Other than one friendly encounter (thank you again for making my day better, kind gate agent!) I was not treated very well and the smoke was just a nuisance. I’m sure there are nice parts of Ukraine but I, unfortunately, did not see them on my trip.
54 countries down, 142 to go.
