Dnipro Trip Day 1

[StevieC]

It’s 4.30am and Mark and I are loading 6 cases into a taxi in Livingston. At 4.30am it seems like a hassle to travel the 10 miles to Edinburgh airport but it soon sinks in that it’s just a fraction of the 4,000 mile round trip we are about to embark on.
We have suitcases packed with items that have been donated by caring supporters as well as a couple of cases that contain children’s trainers. Donated items we are taking over range from baby clothing, soft toys, kids trainers, pencil cases and hats to a laptop computer. Many thanks must go to the good people at Czech Airlines who allowed us to carry a lot more than our normal baggage allowance to get these items over.

We meet up with Alix at the airport and get our luggage checked in before heading to the departure lounge and boarding the plane. We take off on time heading for Prague, it’s a quick transfer at Prague airport then onto Kiev as the “easy” part of the journey comes to an end. It’s all over land for the remaining part of the outward trip and the excellent comfort and service afforded to us by Czech Airlines seems a long way away as we meet up with our translator Ira, before loading up the cases onto a very dishevelled looking bus bound for Kiev airport.

We manage to catch a couple of hours in Kiev before the overnight train to Dnipropetrovsk so we head with Ira for a bite to eat at the aptly named “poozata-khata” (which roughly translated means “fat-belly-house”). A quick taste of the local lager at O’Brien’s then its back into the train station and onto the overnight train for an 8 hour trip of stops, starts and broken sleep.