Panic.

Today did not start off on the right foot.

Our train was scheduled to leave Kiev at 6:15am, which is about three hours too early for me. Since we had to take the subway to the train station and we weren't sure what platform our train would be at, as our train tickets are written in Cyrillic and not the Latin alphabet, we wanted to leave no later than 5:30am.

The person we were renting the apartment from had told us yesterday that her sister would come by in the morning "to pick up the keys and money." Umm, what money?? We paid already.... This is the way Airbnb works: you book a place and pay online via credit card or electronic check; Airbnb holds the money in sort of an escrow account; Airbnb transfers the money to the apartment owner the day after you check in. Luckily, her sister was understanding about the whole thing when we explained to her we'd paid already, and we were actually out the door five minutes earlier than planned.

Those five extra minutes meant absolutely nothing when we got to the subway station and found that it didn't open until 5:45am. CRAP. I had timed the ride while we were on the subway yesterday and found it took close to fifteen minutes to get from our stop to the train station. This was already cutting it close and we still needed to go inside to check what platform we needed to go to.

So we wait around for close to twenty minutes while I am having a serious internal panic attack, and once we finally get inside, buy a token, and go to the subway platform, we end up waiting yet ANOTHER ten minutes before the subway even comes. I am very close to losing my shit because now we have a fifteen minute subway ride to take, and only twenty minutes before our train leaves. And the only other train today leaves at 5pm; we already checked out of the apartment and I did not want to wait around for twelve hours without a place to relax.

We pull into the subway stop right next to the train station and it's like Black Friday, with tons of people pushing their way out of the subway.

Steve: "Why do all the old ladies push their way to the front, when they are the slowest horses out of the gate?"

The following ensues:

6:09am: As this is a pretty popular station, there is at least one other subway full of people getting off at this station, and all of us have to cram onto the one escalator that takes you up and out. There isn't even a staircase we could use!

6:12am: We finally get off the escalator and race out of there, dodging old people and their rolly suitcases. We run into the station and I helplessly look at the departure boards trying to figure out what platform we're supposed to go to. Steve figures it out quickly (thank goodness my husband is a smart man, and that he is calm under pressure) and we go.

6:14am: We run up some stairs then down some stairs then down the hall to our train. The stairs end up at carriage #1 and our tickets tell us (and by tickets, I mean the one English-speaking attendant at the station we bought our tickets from the other day) that we need to be at carriage #4.

6:14:45am: We show our tickets to the conductor(?) (Steward? What are these people called?); she nods and says something to us in Ukrainian that we don't understand. That's okay, we don't care; we just board the train, which is packed, and we sit down in the only two open seats that are together.

6:15am: The train leaves.


Maybe the exact seconds didn't work like that, but we had literally JUST sat down and the train began to leave the station. I was ready to have a heart attack, as I am one of those people who likes to get to the airport three hours early. When the train started moving and I realized just how close we came to missing the train.... Way too close for comfort. Steve just smiles at me and takes these things for what they are--a challenge, something we can't change or control but have to face--and he just GOES. I am so impressed by that. Thank God for him. If I hadn't married the most wonderful man in the world, I would probably still be sitting on the same curb I would've sat down on two days ago when we couldn't find the apartment, still crying and doing nothing. I did all the planning this past year for this trip, but as soon as we left the States, Steve was the one in charge. Without him to execute, I would be a mess.

In any case, today, I would've died of relief at getting to the train on time, except that would completely defeat the purpose of getting to the train on time. :P