A very long night in the airport........

To start our adventure we almost missed our flight out of Kiev. We got to our boarding gate two hours early to be on the safe side. When it was time to go there was still no one at the desk so we went and asked and they told us the flight got in late so we wold have to wait. Right after this they announced over the loudspeakers that our gate had been changed to a different part of the airport, but it was only announced in Russian so we were not aware. I kept getting antsy, checked the board one more time and realized that our flight was on the last call. We ran through the airport and just barely got on. We had heard that the Paris airport was very nice, so we weren't too concerned about having to spend the night, and we were still hoping that the airport would issue us a temporary visa for Misha which they have the option to do. When we got to the airport we found out that we were supposed to stay in our terminal and not go into the main airport. This meant that we couldn't leave this tiny, ugly area with no food or water and nowhere to get comfortable for an over night stay. We were not to happy. We kept asking different people and they kept sending us to different people and we went around and around on the bus and shuttle trying to find someone that would let us leave the terminal. We finally irritated the night manager and he banished us to our little lonely spot with hard chairs with no backs on them. We were located right next to the shuttle that would blast and light up every ten minutes. We could never sleep, which makes getting on our 15 hour flight home seem really long. Two nights without sleep seems inhumane to a kid who has just been adopted. I think he is a little worried about our parenting skills. He kept asking if we could go see the city of Paris, or find a place to sleep. We thought that it had been explained to him that we might not be able to because he is not an American citizen yet. Luckily in the morning we were allowed to go to the main part of the airport which really is nice. They have internet connections and free play station units and places to plug in our computer. We could have really used all this last night!! One very nice employee who felt very bad for us brought us some sandwiches and water or we really would have been in trouble!! We are flying into Salt Lake at 1:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon on Delta from Paris on flight 0171 for those of you who've asked.