This is a souvenir shop we visited today. They had these interesting 3-D paintings (not sure if you call this painting) on the wall for sale. Also, some even nicer stuff with birch wood. You could hear the artists/craftsman working on their projects in the backroom so all the stuff is made in-house.
Arriving back at the hotel after supper in the dark, the hotel is quite a local landmark. The lighted fountain makes for a festive atmosphere in front of the hotel.
This is Drew, King of the Jungle, Tarzan, master of movement and all things funny. Last time we visited Drew in October, I was somewhat embarrassed when I got him over stimulated in the first hour of our visit, horsing around. Today, I saved it for last and wasn't embarrassed because I knew its the last time we visit him before court. So they'll simply have to forgive us for being loud and boisterous... Drew needed it anyway.
This is Demitri. He's very shy, not accessible to strangers and cried bitterly when his caregiver left him with such cold and mean strangers as us. He came around today and was a much happier participant. He started some one-on-one bonding with Jen today after deciding she wasn't such bad a caretaker after all.
Our 2009 Year wish is to make a family portrait like this again with all of us wearing our Sunday's best, but that would require us all being home in Minnesota instead of at the babyhouse in Siberia.
Riding the Shuttle Bus to Novokuznetsk Airport building after getting of plane on Tarmac.
Walking into the Novokuznetsk Airport Terminal. Big welcome sign overhead, with birds chirping in the tree to the right of us. The sun is about to come up here.
The infamous damaged bag got lost again. Here I'm waiting for this damaged bag. We had all our luggage except this piece. Finally, Debbie (the couple traveling with us) spotted it leaning against the wall by doorway. Someone took it off the luggage conveyor and put it by entry. Whew.. .escaped without loss again!
Here we meet our coordinator for the first time this trip. (arranged by the adoption agency, works for the adoption agency) The driver of the van is also a regular driver for the adoption agency. (Please tell me when we will get the diesel engines in our vans back home.)
Hotel Novokuznetsk, upon arriving in Novokuznetsk at 6:45am in the morning they took us back to the hotel to check in, and will pick us up to go out to the babyhouse at 9am. So we had time to clean up, get bright eyed and bushy tailed before meeting the boys. This hotel doesn't look like much but the enmities are all there, very decent and good services here, has home style mom-daughter cooking in the tiny corner on one floor.
This is the couple from New York (Kevin and Debbie) that are traveling with us to adopt as well. We are traveling in the Toyota Hi-ACE Diesel Powered van featuring LazyBoy style seating. Somehow adopting folks share some qualities and we've hit it off with all such couples we have met.
On our way to the babyhouse to meet the boys on the first day we got stopped by the police for going 9kms over the speedlimit. I asked if it was the city limits but the coordinator said it doesn't matter whether in the citylimits, village limits or out on the open road you can normally go 9-12 kms over the limit. This police didn't think so. Our driver had to go sit in the police car while they wrote him a ticket. My pics through the van windows are bad because the windows on the van are always dirty or fogged in.
This post ends here and I will do my next post, before I post any pics of the boys, with just scenery and buildings I photographed while driving thru the countryside on way to the babyhouse.
Our flights turned out to be “uneventful” until we got to Domodedovo Airport, whereupon arrival we went to claim our luggage and it seemed to be the only luggage that hadn't arrived yet. Everybody from our group was already gone and we were still asking around for our luggage. A lady working at the airport got on her squalkie talkie and interpretted back to us that it would be 7min late. Well, our minds weree going “why is only our luggage late?” We would soon get the answer when 20min later she brought it over to us. Our main bag, the heaviest and largest one whose survival I've questioned on the previous trip already, was limping along on one wheel; the rollerblade wheels on one side were totally gone along with the frame for the wheels. Our luggage was searched via their random luggage searches.The only reprieve we were offered for the busted bag was to file a claim with American Airlines to get compensation on return to the USA.
At this point we were already running 1hr behind regular schedule and making our way through this huge airport with (personally, I had no hopes of still meeting up with our coordinator who had been arranged for meeting us here and helping with arrangments for next leg of journey.) all our luggage, dragging along the heavy broken one which now is like only half its weight is riding on wheels, the other half is just dragging on ground. When to our surprise we meet someone holding up a paper sign with “WIPF” on it. Despite all our delays with our luggage and finally finding our way to the exit, the coordinator had asked the airport to page us already, had looked in various places, wasn't sure if we even arrived on this flight, none of us knew of each others efforts but, it all turned out well in the end.
Having first real meal on foreign soil. This is at the AirHotel at the Domodedovo Airport. Just walking distance from the airport is this hotel that we stayed at. We had just gotten the time difference straightened out in our heads, and thought we had 1hr for supper before heading over to the airport to fly from Moscow to Siberia, and sat down to eat our food and Jen decided that we didn't have 1hr but rather 10mins and so we gulped down the wonderful food in a few minutes and hurried up to grab our stuff and something clicked in her head again and she said "no no its right... we have 1hr before we need to be back at the airport. So all the wonderful food could have been wonderful for even longer.
Considering my luck with this blog so far, I'd better post this blog and start a new post. I don't want to break my chain of luck now.
Flying over Russia, still lots of snow and winter here.
Arriving in Moscow on American Airlines. Our flight avoided having the travel through Moscow in dense, smog and traffiic from one airport to the next. Which is what we did last Ocotober. This time our flight went directly to Domodedovo Airport. The cool neon green S7 (aka Siberian Airlines plane) is the type of plane we took from Moscow to Siberia. S7 operates primarly in these outlying regions of Russia. For such a small airline they are very nice actually, and have mostly newer planes.
Just a quick line to say first days visiting with the boys is now over and we are back in the hotel. Rest of the afternoon is ours to kill. We will post a whole lotta pics and blog later tonight. Its too nice to stay inside now; its bright and sunny outside so we are all going outside now.
We have a few minutes here before we board the plane from Moscow to Novokuznetsk, Siberia. The time here is 9:20pm Sunday night. We have a 4hr flight to Novo from here. We managed to sleep about 5hrs at the AirHotel here next to the Domodedovo Airport in Moscow. What a relief that is to get some sleep on a 11hr layover after 24hrs in the transit system on various planes. We have pics and lots to post but this will have to do for now and we will post more after the next 8hrs are over and we are back in our hotel.
Well, lunch is now over and we're waiting for our flight to leave Minneapolis around 2:35pm today. Lunch was hosted by the French Meadow Bakery and Cafe; an all organic, all healthful menus place with all 'organic" prices too. One of those joints where you pay premium for convenience in the airport I admit it was very good quality and taste to almost match the price. We are now in the "holding pen" waiting for the call to board.
So the time has come, we are leaving our home here in southestern Minnesota for the Minneapolis Airport! I know our blog has been all words and no "play" but, stick with us... the jpegs are coming!
Since both the family we will be traveling with (who are also meeting a child) and ourselves having all been there on previous trips, one anticipates a smoother, less eventful trip; you know what to expect, you know the process, the culture, the food, the hotels... may the visitation & playtime with the boys be the highlight of this trip. Sure it was last time, but when your in sheer survival mode yourself, its difficult to embrace the moment, to be "in" the moment. It was somewhat a zombie state of being after being in the transit system for 36hrs prior to meeting the boys.
The time is finally here, tomorrow we travel!!
March 21, Saturday.
2:35 pm - Leave MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) (1.5 hr flight)
4:05 pm - Arrive at O'Hare in Chicago
5:25 pm - Leave Chicago O'Hare (9hr 45 min flight)
March 22, Sunday
11:10 am - Arrive at Domodedovo Airport, Moscow
10:15 pm - Leave Domodedovo (4 hour flight)
March 23, Monday
6:20 am - Arrive Novokuznetsk
We will be met at the airport by our coordinator and taxi driver and taken to our hotel. At 9:00 am they will pick us up again and take us to the orphanage (1 hour drive). We'll be at the orphanage from 10:00 to 12:00. We're then taken back to our hotel where we are on our own until the next day, 9:00. So we can walk around, tour the city or just sleep.
March 24, Tuesday
Just like the previous day, Monday, except that today we sign papers to accept our referral.
March 25, Wednesday
7:40 am - Leave Novokuznetsk via Siberian Airlines (4 hr 35 min flight)
8:15 am - Arrive Domodedovo Airport, Moscow
1:30 pm - Leave Domodedovo (11 hour flight)
4:30 pm - Arrive Chicago O'Hare
7:40 pm - Leave Chicago O'Hare (1.5 hr flight)
9:10 pm - Arrive MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul)
This is the plan.
Update regarding "posting comments" on this blog; notice the new message about comments now reads "all comments posted on this blog are viewable by all invited readers of this blog." Originally, I thought it was allowing limiting the reading of comments to authors and for various reasons this would have been a desired effect but, apparently not possible.
It's really chilled off here again; we're sitting at 35 F right now under clear sunny, beautiful skies. We are also sitting on pins and needles here waiting for Fedex to deliver our passports which for some reason the embassy ships back to you on the latest date possible. Not sure why they postpone returning it at the last moment; either to make you sweat out the final days of such already nervous affairs, or whether for legal purposes. Either way, it doesn't sit well with me until our important documents are all back in our possession. Jen being proactive, phoned them on Tuesday (3 weeks after sending them in for processing our visas) and they shipped them out on 2-Day StageCoach Express. The tracking is saying they should arrive today but, my experience with Fedex has been one of the stagecoach era where you can't be certain of any deadline they put on a parcel. Perhaps a wheel fell of the stagecoach, or bandits held it up in St. Louis, or lightning forced them to seek shelter, or a train derailed, or a passenger on the stagecoach threw up, you can never tell with Fedex.
Since this blog started out in beta version a week before the trip, I'm trying to post progress towards the trip each day this week. I admit, not much to report today. We were in Rochester (our fair city, as click and clack would say) today getting odds and ends for the trip. We recalled all the wishes we had from the previous trip and tried to remedy them; like last time we were there it seemed we were always hungry and would have paid $10 for a can of tuna and a few crackers at 12:08am at night. So we got various items of non-perishables rounded up. In a foreign country where the language barrier puts enough stress on you to not want to leave your hotel room, such minor tasks as getting something to eat can be daunting tasks.
From our first trip in November when we met Drew for the first time, I will never forget holding him on my lap and watching him eat Organic Animal Crackers we got from HyVee; just holding this perfect child, watching him, the idea of him being there free for the taking, happens to be one of the most touching moments of our adoption process.
