International Women's Day in Ukraine

March 8th is an International Women's Day (IWD). This holiday symbolize women's fight for their rights, democracy and full equality with men. As the time passed, the holiday lost its political sense and became the day when men may express their love to the women around (mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc.)
March 8th is an official non working day in Ukraine. Usually people celebrate this beautiful spring holiday by having supper with family or by visiting friends. Men and women give gifts, flowers and postcards to their mothers, wives, daughters, sisters. Some Ukrainian men make a special gift to their wives: they do all household duties on this holiday, such as do dishes, cooking, cleaning, looking after kids. So women may enjoy all the day. So bad that we have this holiday only once a year. I wish to have it at least every week.
Everybody, men and women, make presents to women they are close. Usually the gift depend of how close you are related to woman. Flowers such us roses are the most popular gift on Women’s day. Chocolate, perfume and cosmetics are the next popular gift choices.
Since the IWD is an official holiday in Ukraine, employees celebrate it just the day before at their offices. In organizations all women receive flowers and small gifts from their male co-workers. During the lunch break, it is common to have a small office party with cake and a glass of champagne or wine. I remember, during all my school and university years I received some gifts from my male classmates and usually we prepared performances for our female relatives and teachers at school hall.

Our trip to Canada (corrected)

Immigrants know how long it takes to get papers to come to Canada. So after two years of waiting in Ukraine we finally got our Permanent Resident documents. We bought our tickets right away and were ready to leave Ukraine after three weeks. The magic day was Wednesday, November 28, 2012.
At 6 a.m. we (me, my husband and one-year-old daughter) left our apartment and went to the nearest airport located in another city three hours' drive away. Everything was good and organized: new tenants would move into our apartment later that day and the furniture was scheduled to move out on the same day too. When we arrived at airport, we were advised that our flight was delayed for one hour because of the fog. Actually, we had to change 3 planes - Odessa - Istanbul - Toronto - Regina - and waiting time was a couple of hours between flights. After some time we were informed that the plane was going to be delayed for more than three hours or even cancelled. So I figured that we would be late for our second plane or won't leave Ukraine that day. Turkish Airlines advised that they were going to change our tickets to Friday. With our one-year-old child we had to go back home to our city, where we didn't have a place to stay because there were tenants in our apartment. I was so upset. On our way back I called my tenants and asked them to move in on Friday. Thankfully, they were agreeable with that. Anyway, we came back to our apartment with no furniture and stayed there for two more days.
The second "magic" day was Friday, November 30, 2012. We had the same agenda as on Wednesday. And when we came to airport the second time, our flight was delayed for one hour because of the fog again. I couldn't believe that at first. After they extended delay time for 1 more hour my husband said to me, “If we don't leave today, I'm not going to come back to this airport again. I'll stay in Ukraine. It's a sign!"
After a couple of hours of waiting I realized that we were late for our next flight already. Turkish Airlines gave me these options: to leave today, stay one night at a Turkish hotel and leave for Canada the next day or come back to airport on Monday again. For sure I chose the first one and we left Ukraine after a couple of hours.
It was the worst flight in my life, we get lost in the airport and we took the wrong bus to the wrong hotel at 11 pm in Turkey - all these were nothing for me because I was so excited to move to Canada and we were on our way.
Next day we came to Istanbul airport and on the screen were displayed 100 flights and only one was delayed for 4 hours. It was our flight to Toronto. I was stressed out and asked myself: Why is it happening with us? It took some time to find the Turkish Airlines office in Istanbul airport. They advised that we would be late on our flight from Toronto to Regina, so we had the options to stay one more night in Turkey or leave the same day for Toronto, stay one night there and fly to Regina the next day. I knew that it was -20 in Regina so we traveled in winter jackets and winter boots. But in Turkey it was + 20, so we felt really hot all of our time there. Anyway we left Turkey the same day. On the 10-hour flight with a one-year-old child, everybody was so tired. Finally at 11 pm we came to Toronto airport. We got our 5 pieces of luggage, passed an immigration officer, stayed in the long waiting line, but we were in Canada! Thankfully, Turkish Airlines provided us with a hotel. We had a very short night and the next day left Toronto on time. That last flight was the hardest, especially for my daughter.
On Sunday, December 2, 2014, in the afternoon we landed in Regina. We were so excited. My mom met us at the airport and told us that the whole city of Regina had already been waiting for us for 4 days. But when we went outside it was so windy and cold, at -25. My husband said to me, "It's so cold here. I wanna go back to Ukraine."
I travel a lot, but this trip was the longest and hardest in my life so far.