UPDATE: October 20, 1998 - Today I received my invitation from the Orchid Agency (Select the K-1 Visa Option at the home page). I will soon send my passport off for the visa stamp for Ukraine.
UPDATE: November 1, 1998 - Today I sent my passport to the Ukraine Embassy in Washington, DC. I sent it 3-day priority mail and enclosed a 3-day priority mail envelope for the return. I sent my passport, the visa application that the embassy faxed me, a passport-style photo of me and a check for $75.
UPDATE: November 7, 1998 - After calling every imaginable airline, I finally found a travel agent who has helped me out. Monday I will know for sure about the tickets, but now it looks promising. The one I finally found who help me was a very nice lady named Armagan at Prime Travel Agency - (800) 344-3962. Her rates were a few hundered cheaper than any other I could find. Monday I will get the confirmation - I hope. Check out http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/1940 for a list of airline numbers and other ways to get tickets.UPDATE: November 10, 1998 - I finally locked in on the tickets. Thanks to Armagan at Prime Travel Agency. She really found me rates that beat the others. Now the tickets are squared away so I can relax a bit.
UPDATE: November 22, 1998 - Over the past week it has been a bit of a mess. I got a call from Prime Travel saying that the price on the tickets was different than what I had been told. So up goes the price. Oh well, the price is stil less than anyone else so I took them. Then the next day they arrived at my house. Can you believe it, there was a misspelling on the name on the ticket. I am waiting to hear if I need to get new tickets or if these will work anyway. Oh yeah, my passport did return with the visa stamp in it. The day before it came I was getting a little nervous since it had been more than two weeks. I called the Ukraine Embassy and the woman had a lot of difficulty understanding English. It was something else. Finally she did understand me (after about 5 minutes) and told me my visa had been approved and my passport was in the mail. Once I find out about the misspelled name on the ticket, I am ready to go. I find it amazing how nothing is simple. Everyone from the ticket agent to the embassy makes mistakes and makes it difficult. This is the nature of life I suppose. UPDATE: December 11, 1998 - Today is my birthday. I am getting all of my things ready for the trip. As it turns out I will meet my lady in Warsaw, Poland and be with her there for 5 days. We hope that she will receive her visa there to travel to the USA. We will then take a 26 hour train ride from there to Odessa, Ukraine. We will be there until December 26 and then we will return together to the USA by way of Istanbul, Turkey where we will spend a night and then to New York and then home. I have my tickets, visa, and all the other papers and things I need. I will leave work Wednesday December 16 and run for the car and rush to the airport for a 2:50pm departure to Atlanta, Georgia and then to Warsaw, Poland. UPDATE: December 16, 1998 - This is it. Today I leave for Odessa, Ukraine for the second time. Actually, I am first to Warsaw, Poland as I mentioned last time. I have packed my bags. I am surely glad I made a checklist yesterday while at work. It still took me hours to get all of my things together. I will take one suitcase and one carry-on bag. Tomorrow this time I will be in Poland and a few hours later I will meet my lady at the train station. After the wait of 120 days since our last meeting, I can hardly believe it is finally time to go. It seemed the months and weeks would never pass. I hope to see some snow but the forecast looks more like rain there. Maybe I will finally see a white Christmas. I still have a few things to do so that's it for now. I will be reporting upon my arrival. Best wishes and a happy holiday season to you all. I'm out of here...