Stranded in the Ukraine

This morning, the archaeological group of URI and friends woke up somewhere between 5 and 6 AM to prepare to leave Haifa.  Most of the students had a flight at 11am or so, but my flight wasn't until 1:45, Ryan's wasn't until midnight, and Shana was staying behind.  Dror was supposed to come and take some of us to the airport, but was late.  Because we three didn't need to be in Tel Aviv right away, we waited the extra fifteen minutes for Dror and ended up going out to breakfast with him in Tel Aviv.  It was a great morning, though he tried to convince me to cancel my flight the entire time!  He said Israel has more to offer than Vienna and Budapest.  I opted to leave, though, and he walked me into the airport he used to work security at, got the chief of security to check me in through customs in a few minutes time, and kissed me on the cheek goodbye.  Then, I had a few issues waiting for my carry-on to be checked and paying for my obese bag, yet again.  Next, my flight from Tel Aviv to Kiev was delayed by an hour and a half due to baggage issues.  Luckily, there were some nice Israeli musicians there who had noticed me in distress earlier and we all started talking for the wait.  I ended up asking if I could buy their CD and listened to it on the flight.  They were going to be taking a 40 minute flight to a city in the Ukraine from Kiev and I was worried I was going to miss my flight to Vienna, so they wished me luck.  On the flight, I sat close to a girl who was also on my flight and we discussed our situation with the stewardess who did everything she could to delay the flight.  Unfortunately, the plane left before we touched down and it was the last flight to Vienna.  Fortunately, the girl from Los Angeles and another guy from Vienna were stuck with me, and we all spoke English, so we got comped a night in a hotel close by along with dinner and a flight at 7:20am tomorrow.  After we all showered and met up for a simple but nice sit down dinner, who walked in??  My musician friends from the airport!  Apparently, they made it all the way to their gate before finding out that the plane had just started towards the runway and they were not permitted to board.  I feel bad for Kat, because she went to the airport to meet me before I was able to contact her and let her know the deal, but I am looking forward to a jam session a little bit later in the evening with my new Jewish band friends!  Their music takes traditional religious songs and puts a spin on them and they are very sweet.  I definitely lucked out... Also, one of the security officers from the airport who was close by when I was paying for my oversized bag and started small talking with me just friended me on facebook!!  I didn't even tell him my name!  Anyhow, I'm going to go to the restaurant and see what time we're jamming... My wake up call is at 5:15am and we'll be taking the 5:40 shuttle to the airport.  Life is crazy and you can't plan for it, only be ready for anything =)