Instead of German efficiency

Nothing in Terminal A of the Kyiv Boryspil Airport inspired confidence. Two hundred passengers milled about in the cavernous, smokey, concrete-floored waiting room, gathering in small clusters around enormous piles of baggage, huge, bulging, saran-wrapped suitcases, toddler-size boxes with pictures of beefy, toy 4-wheelers, young ladies teetering on four-inch heels in skirts of the same length, clutches of matrons barricaded within the fortress of their goods ate dried sausage off the knife or roughly-cut bread. There was nobody at the check-in desks, nothing posted on the information boards, no indication whatsoever whether or which flight would board. We had three hours to wait before our flight. The first hour, Axel ate through our bag of beef jerky, cheese crackers, fig cookies, oyster crackers, and pretzels. When he finished, as if informed by sonar, people began to queue at one of the destinationless check-in counters. I picked up Axel, loaded as many of the five bags onto the stroller as possible, and hurried to get in the line. My instincts were lucky--we managed to get in fourth place, ahead of the hundred-plus other passengers (Fifty of the more hitryi economy class crammed into the First-Class line).

Check-in took about a minute, brief glance at our passports and we were sent to security, which, amazingly also took about a minute (nothing had to be taken out of or off bags and bodies), and we proceeded to another smokey, information-devoid waiting room. This one had windows at least. After another hour and a half, during which my former Axel emerged who slept in my arms for the whole time, we were informed in three languages that our flight was boarding. Three airline employees materialized, pushing their wheeled check-in stations in front of them, a crowd formed instantly around them and instantaneously the crowd was scanned and rushed out the doors into an unmarked bus. Which took us, helped by three other passengers (the first time of our entire trip that people helped), for a ten-minute drive (longer than the bus-ride to our hotel from the very same airport), to a tiny plane waiting on the ground. One elderly woman whisked Axel out of my arms and into the plane, a man took over the stroller, a nicely dressed woman made off with Axel's Thomas suitcase, and I followed after with the rest. About a minute of instructions in Ukrainian and what I am supposed to believe was English (I'm sorry, but it was absolutely incomprehensible), the stewardesses ignored the still (can you believe it?) sleeping Axel in my arms, (unlike the first two flights, where the hysterical child was firmly informed by the steward collective that he had to be buckled in the purchased seat), up and down without any service interruption, we landed, people massed out, again grabbing whatever piece of our entourage they could, we were met at the plane by two people who pointed us at a bus, sat in seats, driven a block or so to another truck holding all of our checked-baggage. Again, the crowd massed, picked up all our stuff and carried us through the doors of a building and out onto the street. It was the quickest, most-efficient travel by plane that I have ever experienced in my entire life.