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Journey Home (Trip 4, Day 7)

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On Sunday, after our marathon sightseeing Saturday, we got up and had breakfast while we waited for Boris to come pick us up. We had a few logistical issues fitting the luggage in the car, but we finally got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Through all this adoption travel, we made “status” on Delta and got to bypass the hour line to check in and went to the express desk. No issues checking in and no issues going through passport control. She is petrified and crying in this picture because she thought Mama and Papa were leaving and she was staying with Boris and Irina.
It took a few minutes for the KGB (okay, they aren’t KGB, but I don’t know what they call their passport people and KGB sounds fun  🙂 ) to approve all the paperwork. We were travelling with some medications for Sweet Girl and we had no issues on that end getting them through for others who might be in the same boat.
We sat at a little coffee shop and had our last meal in Sweet Girl’s home soil. She gobbled it right up. Good thing too because two cokes, a water and 2 apple danishes cost me $20.
We went on a last minute trip to the “toy-o-let”, looked at the planes out the window and then we were boarding!
So far so good!
Then the fun began. She didn’t mind the plane at all, but she was too overwhelmed to sleep. She knew that as soon as she said “toy-o-let” that we’d let her get up and walk to the bathroom. So about every 20 minutes she’d do this. Then about every hour after the first 3 hours, she’d get upset and start repeating something. One time, I took her to the back and tried to get her to say it for the flight attendant, but she just conned them into giving her a juice. (I have learned since then, she was saying something like “I want to get up”)
Overall, on the 9.5 hours flight, she drank an entire milk, 2 cans of orange juice, 2 cans of apple juice and an entire bottle of water. She ate the carrots in her salad and half of her bread. Then she ate tomatoes off a sandwich and the little snack size candy bar that came with it. And lastly, she ate an entire bag of trail mix. She refused to watch a movie, cartoons, the ipad, or anything that might give either He or I two seconds of peace. She constantly tried to stand up and kick the seat of the guy in front of her. All of her behaviors were normal 4 year old things or testing boundaries things. We were firm and consistent on some things (kicking the seat) but tried to be very relaxed on others (bathroom every 20 minutes). At about halfway He and I looked at each other and I think we were both thinking that we wouldn’t be taking another plane trip anytime soon.
FINALLY, we landed in JFK. The landing immediately made Sweet Girl a US Citizen. She celebrated by choosing that moment to lean over and fall asleep. Perhaps, somehow she knew – this long road is finally done, now I can enjoy the fruits of my labor 🙂

We went through US Customs and Immigration with no issues whatsoever, they didn’t even take us to a secondary screening! He just flipped through the pages of the sealed envelope and said, “Welcome to America, you’re done!” US security was no problem with the medications either and we were on our way!

We found a nice little corner spot to wait the 30 minutes for our next flight where Sweet Girl could look out the windows at the planes and run around a little bit. The minute we boarded that plane, she gave up very quickly again and went to sleep and didn’t wake up until we landed in RDU.

She was very impressed with Mama and Papa’s machina and her seat. She had no problems getting buckled. She stayed awake until we made a quick drive through stop (which she was facinated with!) and then fell asleep with her juicebox in her hands.

Once we got home, we made her a little pallet on the floor of our room and we all slept perfectly soundly…
.. until 3am when she was bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for the day. ::YAWN::

 

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Sightseeing!! (Trip 4, Day 6)

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We woke this morning to the doorbell ringing at 9:30am. While excited that we all slept that late, we then realized we had miscommunication with Boris. He thought we were leaving today, but we are leaving tomorrow. Sorry Boris.
We had another slow start and left about noon to head down to St. Basil’s and the Kremlin. We stopped at a mall food court for lunch and sweet girl pointed that she wanted spaghetti and a meatball. She did pretty good eating! Once again though, she was most excited for our friend’s cherry crepe.
We went to St. Basil’s and took the obligatory adoption pictures. Our friend took some other pictures on her camera we don’t have yet.
 
  
Then we were off to the Kremlin!  We were excited to see the Cathedral of Assumption which is modeled after a Cathedral in Sweet Girl’s region.
 
Our friends split off and were going to the theater tonight and we headed back home with a stop at Wendy’s for dinner. No, we don’t normally eat fast food at every meal, but when we don’t want to sit for a long time and pay a lot for a meal, it’s easy to point at the menu and know what we are eating! We tried a baked potato and chili for Sweet Girl. Those got a nyet, but she was happy with the Frosty and some Cheddar Bunnies.
 

A long bath and sweet bed time cuddles and her day was done! She did fantastic today even though we skipped her nap time for St. Basil’s. He and I have spent the last couple hours trying to put the luggage puzzle back together. Boris should hopefully be here to get us at 9:30 am. Our flight leaves here at 1pm here time and we will hopefully be home before too late EST tomorrow! We are hoping for a nice calm week where we can settle in, learn our new normal and start making good memories!

 

We have won the kid lottery. This Sweet Child is the most precious thing in the world. She is so so smart and so precious. I already can’t picture my future without her. She is kind and generous. She is loving and thoughtful. She is stubborn and independent. Her untamable hair makes me smile every time I attempt to tame it. Our three girls are our light and we are so thankful and so blessed that God saw fit to allow us to parent them in this broken world.

Out and About! (Trip 4, Day 5)

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We got a little late start to the morning since we all slept in a little bit! We had nothing on the schedule all day so we did a few tourist activities. We started at a little cafe so our friends could grab lunch. We ordered Sweet Girl a fresh squeezed apple juice. We got some sort of beef quesadilla thing. She drank her entire apple juice before the waiter even left the table, but she wanted nothing to do with our food! She did scarf down the left over pasta and salmon that our friend shared with her!

 
Then we saw some super cool tow trucks. They anchor to the ground and then have a boom that swivels and lifts the cars up. This car was parked in the middle of the sidewalk.
 
We took a quick trip down Old Arbat Street and then came back to the apartment to wait for this little beauty! Yay! Every bit of official business is done!!

We headed back out to Old Arbat (which is super close to our apartment) and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. The waiter asked Sweet Girl what she wanted to eat and read her the children’s menu. She picked a cheeseburger. We had tried this at McD’s, but thought maybe she just had picky burger tastes. It came and she ate a few french fries and her orange slices. She also ate our friends mashed potatoes. When we got back to the room she had cheerios and grapes to round it out.

We had an uneventful bedtime routine and then the adults stayed up way too late!

EMBASSY (Trip 4, Day 4)

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Praise the Lord, Sweet Girl slept until after 7 this morning. She’ll fit right in at our house! We love our sleep! I’m still having a hard time sleeping between 1a and 4a so I told Him just one more minute for me. Before I knew it, it was 9am and Sweet Girl was jumping on the bed. It’s just like home. On the weekends, He gets up with the girls for me and I get another wink of sleep. It’s just so hard to get up in the morning! Boris came and picked us up at 10:30 for our 11:30 embassy appointment. There were lots more locals in the embassy for business purposes than I expected. We paid the fee and sat down in the little room and Irina told us we were 1st in line. “This is good thing,” she told us. Soon enough, another 5-6 adoptive families filed in and began to wait with us. Sweet Girl seemed to be the oldest and she was for sure the most well behaved. Lots of the little ones were tired and hungry and cranky, etc. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a lady came out and addressed us all. They said to save time, they would tell us all the general information together and then we’d be processed faster. She said her bit and then we waited for another couple of minutes. She called our name and we went up to her window and she asked us to confirm Sweet Girl’s name and birthday. In under a minute she said sit and wait while we process the Visa! It took about 5 minutes for the Visa to be pasted in and the packet for immigration prepared. We quickly picked up our packet and were out the door. When we got back into the car with Boris it was 12:15. We ran over to the consulate to register Sweet Girl’s passport. We waited in the car for Irina and when she got back in the car, she said, “Success!’ They will pick up and deliver the passport to us tomorrow around 4. After that we are free to leave! We are checking on flights to come home either Saturday or Sunday – whatever is cheaper.We had Boris drop us off at the market and we picked up a couple of things – some cheese and beer to welcome my friend Luella in with tonight!

Back at the apartment, we tried mac n cheese for lunch. It was a no go for Sweet Girl. She ended up with yogurt, grapes and another breakfast bar. She’s doing much better about drinking a little milk at each meal and then helping herself to her water cup throughout the day.  After lunch, she went down effortlessly for her nap. We did stay in the room with her and play on the computer while she slept.

When she got up about 4 we headed out for dinner. We thought we’d test her restaurant skills at McDonalds which was bound to be forgiving. She behaved great and loved the apple juice that came with her happy meal. She did not however have any interest in chicken nuggets or a cheeseburger. I think we did get 5-6 fries in her. We are hoping that tomorrow night we can try TGIFriday’s. We’re still a little too nervous to take her to a place we can’t read the menu.

In the tiny apartment elevator

 

It was sketch by American standards, but pretty good for here.
 
We came back and straightened up a little and had bath time. Sweet Girl likes to wash her own hair and must have done so 3-4 times!

Around 6:30 or 7 our friend Luella and her husband got here. Yay! About 30 minutes into us chatting I saw that sweet girl had just started crying. We aren’t sure yet what spooked her, but Lu and hubby went ahead and took off for dinner so we could get Sweet Girl settled for bed. I later realized that maybe the gift they brought her messed her up. So far, the only people to bring her a new outfit were He and I when we were leaving the orphanage. It’s possible her little mind raced to the possibility these people would try to take her away.

While they were gone, we went ahead and put her to bed and stayed in there with her for a long time until she fell asleep. She was back to normal by bed time.

We however stayed up and chatted for awhile. It was so nice to have people who spoke English as a first language to talk to!

Clothes and Toys Oh My! (Trip 4, Day 3)

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We left off at about midnight last night when we finally got to sleep. We found a little mattress and lots of soft quilts to make a pallet on the floor next to our bed for Sweet Girl. She tried to drift off to sleep and then her eyes would pop open to make sure I was still next to her in the big bed. Finally, she gave up the good fight and went to sleep. He and I struggled to sleep well. Heat here is an interesting thing. During the winter, the radiators are just “on”. There is no controlling then. So, to get the right temperature, you have to open the window/s to let COLD air in to mix. But, we are on a very busy street and the sound of the traffic/police/horns is loud. Overall, we managed and Sweet Girl slept until 7:30 this morning.

We had a speedy morning of eating breakfast and getting ready to meet Boris at 8:30 for her appointment at a doctor for our US Visa. I couldn’t let another minute go by so even though it wasn’t the first bath of our dreams, I put Sweet Girl in the tub really fast to wash the orphanage off her. She had no problem getting in (a fear we had since often children aren’t given proper baths and instead endure cold water splashed over them) and splashing around. All too soon it was over and we were out the door. Before she went to sleep last night she went through her entire suitcase and looking at every article of clothing we brought for her. She ooh’d and ahh’d over everything except the pullups I brought in case of long car rides/plane rides. Those she called something that was probably “for babies” and then tossed aside. So this morning, I thought she’d be excited to pick her clothes, but the concept was too foreign and instead I picked and just asked her if it was okay.

Not a great picture, but here we are waiting for our medical.

 
The medical was interesting. First off, we drove for 20 minutes to get to somewhere that might have taken us 15 to walk to. Then, we were told that the doctor spoke English and was very good with adopted children. As soon as we went into the building, poor Sweet Girl knew it was a doctor and lost it. She had silent tears streaming down her face and was shaking. We filed into the doctor’s office and were the first ones there. We into his little exam room and stripped her very emotional little skinny self down to her underwear. The doctor seemed very kind and gentle with her but something just felt off about it. He told us that her crying was to get attention and to get sympathy from mama and papa and she would continue to be a drama queen for attention and we were to ignore these requests and not give in (no thanks buddy). Then he told us that her ears were no big deal and once she turned 8 we would just get them pinned. I don’t have a problem with her ears so it seemed very odd to have him mention something so obviously cosmetic without us asking. Before we knew it she was done. It took way longer to undress her and redress her than the entire “exam”. As soon as her clothes were back on and we left the room she calmed down.
We went straight back to the apartment, but by this time it was 11 am. We hung out for a bit and little miss made herself very at home in this little home away from home.

The ipad watching above lasted about 4 minutes, then she carried the headphones and ipad around and pushed the buttons. I think everything new was too overwhelming for her to concentrate.

About this time, we headed out to find a market. We ended up at the one Boris pointed out to us. It was very 5th Avenue ish. It’s the bottom floor of a very fancy department store. We were seriously the only customers and on the end of every section there was an employee there watching us. We let Sweet Girl look around a lot. She has never seen a market and never knew that’s where food came from. We let her assert choices and pick out the fruit we wanted. Since we knew we’d have to carry everything back, we didn’t get much.

We got back and had lunch (chicken noodle soup, yogurt, and grapes). She ate everything but the soup. Then around 1:30 we took a family nap. Sweet Girl went down effortlessly, but I’m not sure if she gave in to sleep before I did or not! We spent the whole afternoon playing in the apartment. Sweet Girl has been talking to us nonstop, but I think we’re finally getting a rhythm. Up until bedtime, she was doing FABULOUS. Beyond better than we could have hoped. Everything is new and she’s just soaking up the experience and the attention. Even something like being able to take a drink of water when you want is new to her. Her favorite activity is turning all the lights off and looking out the window to the city lights. We try to turn one back on and we are immediately corrected that it’s not allowed!

For dinner, we had a pizza that we found at the market. It was pretty good but Sweet Girl wanted nothing to do with it. Then, I made her oatmeal. I bribed her into taking one bite, but she was not a fan. Then I tried these little cheese things I got at the market. She wasn’t interested in that either. I took a bite to show her it was safe and realized I just took a bite of cream cheese. No wonder she looked at me like I was crazy when I put it on her plate! She ended up with a kids cereal bar, an apple, and some milk for dinner. We are struggling to get enough fluids into her. She will drink a juice box all day long, but when any liquid is in a cup, she has a couple sips and then leaves it. Her little system isn’t used to so much juice and it’s causing interesting bathroom time.

Speaking of bathroom time, for all the other adoptive families out there…. She is not scared of the big potty at all. Sometimes we ask if she has to go and sometimes she goes in there on her own. She crawls up there all on her own. If it’s pee, she doesn’t wipe and just hops down. If it’s the other, she waits for me to hand her toilet paper and then wipes on her own. I’ve been wiping after her to make sure she’s good too. She’s not strong enough to push the flush button so we can always tell if she’s gone 🙂 There are two bathrooms in here and either she doesn’t know she can use both or she’s has designated one hers.

Then we got to bedtime. We were unable to get any sort of a schedule of her day so we have guessed that her bedtime is 7:30 or 8. Tonight about 7:15 she started to get a little more hyper and distracted. I took this as a sign she was tired. We did jammies and brushed teeth (she needs a little help, but understands the concept and the spit at the end) and I put her on her little pallet, said some prayers and left her. About 5 minutes later, I opened the door to check on her and sweet little thing was silently crying her eyes out. I’m not sure if she was scared of the dark or scared we weren’t there or what, but I laid down on the bed next to her and rubbed her back for a long time. Then I moved to our bed and watched her watching me. Again, I’m not sure who fought the longest, but before I knew it it was 11pm. Oops. Since my nap has kept me up, I’m out in the living room blogging and two of the four loves of my life are sleeping in the other room.

Tomorrow we have an appointment at the embassy in the morning and then we are going to try to register her passport right after. If we can get her passport registered tomorrow, we might be on track to come home a little earlier. Lu comes in tomorrow as well. I’m sure they are going to be exhausted, but I hope they recover quickly and want to do some sightseeing Friday afternoon!

FAMILY DAY!! (Trip 4, day 2)

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How do you describe the day that your child gives up a life of being an orphan and becomes part of your family?I have loved her from the first moment I saw her picture. She wasn’t smiling and wasn’t making eye contact with the photographer. She looked lost, scared. Today I know this expression of hers. It is her “I am overwhelmed” face. She gets the blank stare and doesn’t make eye contact when she doesn’t know what else to do.. when she is overwhelmed by the situation and doesn’t know how to respond. It is a face that breaks my heart.This overwhelmed face is different from her uncomfortable face. She has lived a life of being alone, caregivers and friends coming and going. When you attempt to show her love and affection she doesn’t know what to do. It is awkward for her. The feelings she has are foreign to her and she doesn’t know how to process that mama and papa want to love her. The simple act of giving her a hug causes her to shriek and squirm. An observer might think she is being 4, but I know that she’s uncomfortable with the contact, with someone else initiating touch. She will run up to us and climb on us and sit on our laps all day long, but in those instances SHE, not US initiates the contact and can leave it when she’s had enough. If you try to hold her she gets uncomfortable and displays behaviors that are meant to get away.Both the overwhelmed and uncomfortable actions are what he and I are trying to help her process. She has to learn that we are safe people, that we will meet all her needs, that we will love her even when she messes up. The first step in that is one of the happiest days of our life and the most terrifying of hers. It is called Gotcha Day in the adoption circles. It’s the day we get her and take her away from her life as an orphan. The day we claim her in front of the world as our daughter. She has been ours since the judge said da on 8/31, but today almost 7 weeks later, we get to prove it.

We started the day at 9:40am and went straight to the orphanage. Vita told me to bring Sweet Girl’s clothes and coat.  Once there, He, Vita and the director went out for some business. I was to stay and play with Sweet Girl and change her into her new clothes. She was very unhappy that I wanted to put new clothes on her, but we managed. She looked absolutely adorable!

While changing her, I noticed the cold hard truth that the numbers only eluded to. Our sweet precious girl is the height of an average 4 year old but weighs only 30#. She is very very skinny and her bones protrude from her back, knees and elbows. It’s not purposeful malnutrition, it’s a sweet orphanage director only having limited resources and lots of children to feed. She does so so much with what she has. She has done a fabulous job advocating for these children and exposing them to many different things, but no matter how fabulous it is, it’s still an orphanage. It’s still a building where little children go to bed hungry because there just isn’t enough to go around.

We sat and played while we waited for the gang to get back from their errands. They returned pretty quickly and said that they were only halfway successful. We had to decide whether we would go to the other part of the region 1.5 hours away to finish some business or not. The business was optional, but I have fought in this region for what it represented. I was afraid to decline the invitation to go, lest it negatively affect the families after me. He and gang went back out to pick up the passport and go to the adoption center and left Sweet Girl and I to play again. They arrived back at about 1:00 and we left Sweet Girl at the orphanage to rest. Our trip was supposed to take about 3 hours. This would put us back and leaving the orphanage around 5 to make it to the capital around 8.

Of course as it always goes in this country, someone at the orphanage saw we had a driver and asked for a ride somewhere first. By the time we got out of town it was 1:30. We are booking it along rally car style (this is the same town he went to on trip 3 that he had to race to and from) and the GPS shows we are 30 minutes away and then it happens. We had slowed down to go through a little “settlement” but still took a bump too fast. We came down and “pop”, the tire blew. Ilya had it changed and us back on the road within 15 minutes. The whole time I’m doing math in my head about what time the subsequent events would happen. We took care of our business and got back on the road. It was 4:00. We hit town at 5:30 and still had to go to the notary, the adoption center, pick up our luggage from the hotel, stop and buy a gift for the orphanage director who had stayed late to wait for us (ironic that we made her stay later by stopping to buy her a gift) and then finally, at 6:30, we got to the orphanage. It was the night crew for sure, but Sweet Girl sat in her clothes and coat and looked very scared waiting for us. We collected her and the director (remember, we had a driver!) and took the orphanage director home. The entire time, Sweet Girl did extremely well. She for sure had her overwhelmed face on, but she was hanging in there. To add to the stops, Ilya decided he wanted to stop and grab another spare tire just in case. Good idea, but by the time we got on the road for the capital it was 7:30. Sweet Girl slept most of the ride thank goodness.

We got to our apartment in the capital about 10:30 and by the time we were up and settled it was close to 11:30. We had one small breakdown when Vita said goodbye and we walked into the apartment alone. I think it was a combination of fear, darkness, tiredness and the emotions of the day all coming together. Since then, Sweet Girl has been doing AMAZING. She just talks and talks and talks to us and acts like this is no big thing.

So.. now, here’s the pics! We are dying for lunch, but I know so many of you are dying for this post, so forgive the lack of captions right now!

Sometimes It’s in the Details

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Sometime shortly before March 12, I was doing adoption agency research. After hours of searching, I couldn’t find any information about the agency that had been recommended to us. But then, I found “her”. Let’s call her Luella. Lu had posted a small blurb asking for reviews of the agency on an adoption forum. I immediately messaged her hoping to steal her research and we immediately began an email courtship. We both dove right in to the process to bring home babies and have been within days of each other the whole process, up until court at least.
We have many similarities: we treat adoption as a business to cope with the uncertainties, we both get similarly frustrated at the lack of communication in the process, she works in the industry that comprises my old client base in public accounting. We both love to sew and enjoy blog reading.
But as much as we first clicked, I have come to realize that we have so many differences. This will be her first child. She prefers to sit back and evaluate where as I dive in and stick my foot in my mouth. She actually finishes the craft projects she starts. I’m pretty open about the process whereas she prefers to hold on to the details.
We took our first trips in back to back weeks and had dreamed and hoped of perhaps meeting up on our court trips in the capital. Then, we got our court date and I was heartbroken week after week when issues kept coming up for them and no date was in sight. He went back on the 3rd trip and still no date for Lu. We got delayed by visa issues and still no date for Lu.
All the while, he and I were making our last trip preparations. We’ve known the schedule for several weeks now, but for some reason, I didn’t make reservations for accommodations in the capital. We knew we wanted to stay in an apartment because the thought of the extra space and kitchen was appealing since we’ll have Sweet Girl with us. I kind of pittered about on the apartment websites and made notes of ones I liked and their prices but never committed. I finally received a recommendation from our agency on which apartment website to use. I went and searched it for our needed days and location and only 2 apartments got returned. One was a studio which was the same size as a hotel room, but with a kitchen. There was nowhere for sweet girl to sleep though except in bed with us and we aren’t sure if she’ll need her space.  The other was a large, “grand” two-bedroom apartment. It was more expensive and more space than we needed. We couldn’t decide and nothing was perfect so a couple more days went by.
Then, I got the email – Lu got her court date! And, against all odds, they would be in the capital almost the exact same dates we were. My thoughts immediately turned to that two bedroom apartment. They wouldn’t have their child yet, so there was plenty of space for 5 people. But, I’ve never actually met her in person. Sure we’ve exchanged almost 500 emails this year, but would we get along in person? Would it be too much to handle Sweet Girl and this new friendship? Would this be a disaster? I emailed her and asked thinking if she hemmed and hawed that maybe she had the same concerns we did and I’d just ditch the idea. But she said she’d love to! The apartment was booked that day.
So, regardless of the adventure we’re getting ourselves into, I’m very excited that I get to share this journey with my new friend Lu and her husband – not just through emails and on the phone, but in person. I feel a complete peace about it and I’m most excited to have other people to eat with and sightsee with because he and I are not so good at taking chances in foreign countries. And if it gets to be too much, then we’ve got two bedrooms 🙂

It’s just proof to me that God is in the details.  Here’s to hoping that regardless of the space between them our eastern European kids can grow up together!___Also, our sweet friend Paige took some “maternity” pictures for us. It was a stressful day and none of the kids wanted to cooperate, but I think we got some good ones 🙂 I hope it shows sweet girl just how much we’ve prepared for her and want her in our family.

 

Da Svidaniya! (Trip 1, Day 7)

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Day 6 -6/23-  Our final day in country before starting the long travel home. We woke up this morning around our usual time to meet Ilya out front of the hotel. But something was different this morning. We had said our goodbye’s to Vita the night before as there were no more trips to the orphanage and no more visits with Sweet Girl. Instead, we would be traveling back to the city where the airport was located in preparation for departure… a day of mild sight seeing in attempts to take in some of Sweet Girl’s culture as the orphanage doesn’t permit visitors over the weekend. It was a somber feeling leaving her hometown, being so close to her knowing that tonight, when we laid our heads down, we’d once again be in different cities and the distance between us growing.
The drive to the airport was 3 hours. We had somehow gotten accustomed to the driving… bumpy, narrow pothole filled roads, aggressive driving, mounds of traffic… but we were in good hands with Ilya, who we have grown to admire.. and the drive went surprisingly fast. Even without Vita present and though Ilya spoke little English, we had reached a comfort level. Before we knew it, we were pulling up at our hotel smack in the city centre and quickly unloaded. We presented Ilya with the gift we had brought him. He seemed genuinely surprised and motioned for us to wait while he ran back to his glovebox. He returned and presented us with two coat pins… propoganda from his nation’s past… muttering in broken english “very old” and “history”.  We were touched by this gesture, he will be missed, and we hope he is our driver in the future.
After saying our goodbyes, we were alone once again. It was noon, but we went to try and check into our hotel anyway. We were pleasantly surprised to find the staff speaking english. We were told no rooms were ready yet, so we asked that our bags be held as we set our on an adventure… a few hours of light sight seeing in the city centre. Our first mission, navigate the local subway system to get there. Luckily, she had done a little research ahead of time and I had a tourism book that already came with a local subway map and translations of the stops. We found a station not far from our hotel and mapped out a route to get there, now to execute. Buying tickets proved far less challenging than initially expected. We found our line, only challenge was to make sure we’re heading in the right direction. We made our choice and hopped on a train. Unlike NYC, the subways lacked any sort of helpful hints for foreign travelers. No maps of the stops, no LED boards showing the next stop, stations were barely marked. The driver would simply come over the intercom and verbally announce the stop. Luckily we were able to correlate with our map, make sure we were on course, and count the number of stops to our destination. When we surfaced from the train, we found ourselves in the middle of a mall, albeit generally where we intended.
The Great Wall surrounding their nation’s “white house”.
Where we surfaced from the subway. Seemed as though some festival/concert was either setting up/tearing down as there was lots of mobile fencing diverting the flow of people and coordinating off certain areas.
We decided to walk around not knowing exactly where we were going. Most of the streets seemed to be closed to traffic. Not sure if this was due the event, normal for the weekend, or what. Pictured on the right turned out to be a very large and extravagant mall we discovered.
One of the most famous Cathedrals in all the world. Of course the crowd control barriers prevented us from approaching at all angles, so we simply had to admire from afar.
The barriers prevented us from entering a square that would be normally teaming with thousands of people, but today was only filled with empty sound stages and crew techs.
The great mall from the front and an empty beautiful square.
To enter the subway, you had to swipe your paper card in front of these scanners. We had only purchased 4 trips, 1 for each of us out and back, so we were careful to make sure to enter the right station/line. We bought ourselves no second chances.
The subway arriving. Not much different than NYC subway in terms of comfort, though I did miss the little LED navigational boards that lit up as the train hit each stop.
Our hotel for one night, a much different experience than the hotel we had been in all week in Sweet Girl’s hometown. This hotel is from their countries history, and is very large, extravagant and somewhat Americanized by comparison to where we came from.
Grand entrance way where we were greeted by multiple English speaking staff.
View of the city from our room on the 9th floor.
As we had such little time here and our thoughts were still with Sweet Girl back in her hometown, we had little time to enjoy it. For tomorrow we would be waking up early to start our journey home. In place of Vita and Ilya, we had Boris and Irina who would be picking us up from the hotel and escorting us to the airport. We had yet to meet them, but they would be our guides in the big city. That night, we recieved a call from Boris to the next morning. We would meet him at 7:00am to head to the airport. Even though we were in the city, the drive to the airport would take 45mins – 1hr due to horrendous traffic. We look forward to returning home and seeing Cranky and Happy, but can’t stop wondering when will we see Sweet Girl again and will she remember us and our short journey. Until then, Sweet Girl….
-Papa