No sleep? No sanity? No problem.

Christmas 2009, my family ventured to Ukraine, braving the serious European elements in Amsterdam (I mean, dad stood in lines in the Amsterdam airport for 14 hours, and I'm not exaggerating that part) to get there. By the time they arrived, they had been traveling for almost 3 days, I'd been sitting up in the Kiev airport for, like, 18 hours (bundled in ALL of my winter gear-including my hat-because it was almost as cold inside as it was out- oh, and there are dogs that wander in and out of the aiport like they own the place), and we had to take an overnight train back to Poltava (this after I'd had to eat the cost of 2 previous sets of train tickets because of all the delays). We had about 4 suitcases, carry-ons, and 762 lbs of winter-wear because it was sub-zero temperatures. Not making that part up either. It was absolutely miserable.

Anyway, Ukraine is NOT a travel-friendly country in the sense that you can't be planning on traveling like an American- you know, with luggage. My family was very kindly and generously bringing me goodies and happies from home, as well as our Christmas presents, so I mean, we had suitcases. You REALLY should have seen us hauling those suckers over 2 inch sheets of ice in and out of a McDonald's where there was approximately one square foot of open floor space in the entire restaurant. Or, hefting them up two flights of stairs in the train station only to drag them down two more flights of stairs to get to our train. The best part might have been lifting and heaving them into the train and squeeeezing them down the walkway to THE VERY LAST CABIN (of course). Man, we were looking so cool.

Once in the cabin, we got to figure out how to get all of our stuff and ourselves into a 6ish x 7ish foot cabin. Thankfully, the bottom bunk mattresses raised up and we could put a couple of bags under there. Amiee and I were pretty much stuck, though, once we got up on the top bunks- all floor space disappeared.

Daddy fell asleep after about 3 seconds of laying down. Mom and Amiee were out within minutes. I was exhausted but couldn't fall asleep- partially because I was a little creeped out thinking about the state of cleanliness of the the mattress. I opted to keep my coat on.

We got to Poltava a little before 4 in the morning. We were functioning at top speed, of course (uh...yeah...that's not true). Nastia had called and ordered us two taxis to take us home (even though I lived less than a mile from the station. The drivers hated us, but I paid them well.), so all we had to do when we got to Poltava was get ourselves from the train to the front of the train station. It sounds so easy...

We all woke up (extremely groggily, I might add. Like, I'm not sure my sentences were coherent.) and somehow got our luggage off the train (the train workers weren't too fond of us either...enemies all around). It was then that we realized our difficulty: we had four train tracks to cross. With our bags. And 3 feet of snow.

There was nothing for it. Mom was having difficulty with her hip, so she took a couple of carry-ons and went ahead to locate the taxis. Dad, Amiee, and I each took 2-3 bags (of various sizes) a piece and proceeded to walk like zombies. I don't have any idea how long it took us, but it felt like an eternity- trudging through the snow, trying not to fall into any deep pits.

Mom was quite a bit ahead of us when she disappeared. One second she was standing, the next she was sunk waaaaay down in the snow. Dad called to see if she was ok. Amiee and I immediately died laughing, which caused us to drop our bags and lose our footing. We were so not in control of our muscles/tired/laughing/tearing up that we couldn't really get moving again. We just hung out in the snow, laughing and laughing. Dad was very valiantly trying to get to mom and dig her out, but Amiee and I didn't even attempt to help. We're such good daughters.

By the time we finally got out of the snow and got our bags to the taxi, we were pretty much useless. It was all I could do to get my address out to the taxi drivers. They were already super annoyed and my uncontrolled giggling did not help matters.

Never fear: Mom was ok. However, I love the mental image of her trying to climb out of the snow while maintaining poise. Sorry, Mom...it's just not quite possible, although you gave it a valiant effort.