Well, we’re here in Siberia! Here’s a recap of the last three days…

Friday, May 16^th

Completed our medicals successfully! This adventure consisted of seeing 8 different specialists over a period of about 4 hours. We were required to bring some labs we had completed in the U.S. last month and then spent maybe 5 min. max with each Dr. (with quite a bit of waiting in between Drs.). Once all of the consultations were completed, we received a stamp of approval from each specialist. We were then given the documents with all the pretty stamps to present to the court in our region.

The traffic in Moscow back to the hotel was horrible! Once we got back, we walked to KFC for dinner and had some interesting things to eat- it is not quite the same as back home! No mashed potatoes- bummer!

Saturday, May 17^th

Caught up on sleep and walked to Red Square with the Parks (the other adoptive family here from our agency). It was really hard to grasp the reality that we were actually standing there! It was amazing! After seeing the sights and taking lots of pictures, we ate lunch at McDonald’s- yum! Our 7 year-old son, Andrew, was in heaven! The food at McDonald’s was pretty close to what we are used to.

At 5:45 P.M., we again set out in the crazy Moscow traffic- it was even MORE horrible! Wow, it really rivals any of the big city traffic I’ve seen in the U.S.! As my husband likes to say, it seems as though the traffic lanes are merely taken as suggestions here. This can make the experience quite scary!

We arrived at the airport and went through security without a hitch. Praise God! I was so very relieved- on our last trip we were stopped and questioned about our visas.

At 9:30, we took off, headed for Siberia. One step closer to our baby boy!

Sunday, May 18^th

We arrived here in our region early this morning. Our flight here was uneventful, and we are thankful for that. Just after arriving, we were met by our facilitator here and told that our hotel would not have any hot water all week. No big deal, really, right? Things became a little more concerning on our drive to the hotel, though- especially when we drove right past it! I was quite confused, but remained calm. I have learned to just try to relax here and just go along with whatever is happening.

After we crossed the bridge, leading us to the “south” side of town, we pulled up in front of a different (slightly dilapidated and somewhat seedy-looking) hotel. This is when we found out the hotel we were planning to stay in (and had stayed in on our last trip) is booked until Friday. Our facilitators looked nervous as we checked into the hotel, so I became slightly nervous too. Then we were told there is no internet here and there is no way to call the U.S. from here. That’s when the tears started to form… I had told my girls we would call them when we arrived here. After several minutes, one of our facilitators found out we could purchase some kind of phone card to connect us to Moscow. Once connected, the operator dials your home # for you and connects the call. I’d never heard of such a thing, but we bought the card and called. And it worked! We got to talk to our girls. That made everything right again!

After a long nap, we walked down to the Yennesy River for some air and exercise. The view from our hotel is beautiful, with the mountains framing the river. We can even see a ski resort up on the side of one of the mountains not too far away. It was a pretty day today, sunny and about 70 degrees or so. We could see a lot of people by the river from our window and we were excited to get outside and check it out! Once we got down to the river, though, we were amazed at the amount of broken glass and trash strewn all about-how sad. I had to keep a close eye on Andrew, to make sure he didn’t step on any glass. Not a very nice place for children to play, although there certainly were lots of them down by the river today. Hmmmm…..

On to brighter note… tomorrow we see our son!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!