Another Package!, Luggage Wrap, Visa Trip & Cool Key

We received a great package from our friends in the office we worked with in Richland.  Lots of goodies - and two very nice scarves!  I was looking to buy one and the one in the box for me was PERFECT!  We're wondering who made the one for Sherry and who made the necklace.  It's beautiful.  I stole the chocolate chips...

In the airport in Kiev they had a luggage wrapping machine.  It wrapped your luggage in plastic wrap to protect it.  We thought that was agreat idea - probably wouldn;t work in the US since TSA goes through bags.  Oh well...

Just returned from our first visa trip - here's pictures of us at the airport and outside the airport in Kiev.  Pretty exhausting trip - the airplanes from Saratov to Moscow was a little scary - my seat did not stay upright so I rode with my seat reclined  on the trip back from Moscow to Saratov - not very comfortable or safe.  Sherry's seat did the same thing when we flew from Saratov to Moscow.  Mostly we saw airports so not too exciting.  Left at 4:50 a.m. and got home at 11:30 p.m. - Saratov to Moscow, Moscow to Kiev and turned around and flew back.

We go to Moscow in January for an EFY meeting and are taking the night train from Saratov to Moscow - 14 hours but we get a kope and can sleep.

Don't think I've ever showed you the keys to our apartment.  Most apartments have cool keys like these - each apartment door has three or four deadbolts and you have to turn the key three or fours rotations to get in and out.  There are also buzzers to get you through gates - the green thing on the key ring gets waved in front of a little pad and it unlocks the gate to get you into the parking lot or foyer. 

Also, did I ever mention that when someone tells you what time something is in Russia they use the twenty-four hour clock?   In case you don't know how that works every hour from 1:00 a.m. until noon is 1 - or 2 - or 3...up to 12.  After noon the time is 12 plus whatever hour - so 1:00 p.m. is 13:00, 7:00 p.m. is 19:00, 11:00 p.m. is 23:00.  It's the way the military tells time.  Cool!