(posted by him)

:gasp: …that was a sigh of relief! This day has been more challenging than I ever could have imagined. When I said we were cutting it close by having to conduct all business we needed to do today, Friday, I only knew the half of it. I’m still decompressing and shaking as I’m typing this, let me explain…The morning started off normal. Vita called me down at 9:30 like previously planned. She already had the court decree and we were heading off to the ZAGS office. What we needed from them was an adoption certificate and updated birth certificate with our names to apply for the passport. We get there and go straight into to a large office room with modern office furniture. I sit on a couch in the corner of the room while Vita sits at the desk with the lady. They engage in some back and forth conversation for quite a while. I wasn’t sure, but the back and forth-ness seemed not to be a good sign. 40 minutes pass and she starts printing and stamping papers, so my nerves calm, we’ve got this. Though Vita still has not clued me into anything at this point. Then finally, just as we are about done, she turns around and tells me they will only be issuing the adoption certificate and NOT the updated birth certificate. Apparently a new law just went into effect in Sept where updated birth certificates may only be issued by the ZAGS office where the birth mother is registered at. Even though Sweet Girl was born in this city, her mother was from an outlying town and we would have to visit that ZAGS office. Vita isn’t from this area, so she had no idea how far that was away. But she and I had looked up her birth mother’s home town before on Google maps and I knew this was not a good sign. We return to the car and Ilya informs her where we need to go is over 100 km’s away. By this time, its 11:00am. I ask Vita how late the passport office is open, she tell me 4:00pm. I start doing the math in my head, this is not a good sign.

So we take off driving. We exit town over the river across a big bridge that she and I had seen before from standing at the Assumption Cathedral. If I’ve learned anything, I know due to road and traffic conditions, it takes far longer to cover distance than it does in the US. After getting outside of town, we have to stop for gas, but then the road turns into a quiet two lane highway. The country side is quite beautiful and we’re passing big fields, small shack towns, birch forests, and farms. There really isn’t much of anything except the occasional village or train tracks. The road is rough, but thankfully traffic isn’t too much of a concern being we’re in the middle of nowhere. After what seemed close to two hours of driving, a small little town square popped up in the middle of nowhere. Much nicer than anything I witnessed so far. We found the ZAGS office and as we were getting out of the car, Vita warned me it was lunch time. Sure enough, we go up and the door is locked. We return to the car where I play a couple of games of brick breaker on my blackberry and pass 30 mins until its 1:00. We go try again and its open! No one else is there but the counter lady. It takes us about 30 mins and we get the updated birth certificate with her and my names. Vita then informs me we need a “citizenship stamp” before going to the passport office and we would try to do that in this town. We drive to the other end of town square and she tells me to wait in the car and disappears for 30 mins. When she comes back, she says she should have known better, but the stamp must come from Sweet Girl’s town. So wasted 30mins and back we head.

checkpoint 2 – ZAGS office located!

Its 2:00pm by the time we start heading back. Now I know Ilya drove pretty aggressively on the way out because I could feel it in all the bumps in the road, but on the way back he took it to a whole new level. I felt like we were in the grand championship of the world rally federation and we were going for the cup! we were darting out and passing trucks and cars, sometimes 2-3 at a time, all along this wet 2 lane highway. One time I glanced over and his speedometer was touching 170kph, no joke (thats 105mph). We’re in a Ford S-Maxx… which i think amounts to a Focus and man that thing is flying over the rough asphalt, I’m just thinking keep 3 wheels in contact with the ground please. We’re running up on trucks going 30mph and he’s all over the binders, then we dart out into oncoming traffic to pass them. How that little car handles that sort of driving I’ll never know. There was no sleeping on this ride, it was hang on, grip tight! The rally adventure landed us back in town right at 3:30, and we still had to get the stamp before going to the passport office. I ask Vita if she thinks we’ll make it, she doesn’t want to hazard a guess. We pull over at an inconspicuous looking building I’ve passed many times, Vita hops out and tells me to stay put. 15 mins later she returns but I’m thinking, great the passport office must be across town, we’ll never make it. Thankfully, I didn’t know it was just down the muddy back alley a few hundred yards. So we get there and Vita and I jump out, its 3:45 by this time. We climb two flights of stairs and there’s the passport office. There was a hallway with four numbered rooms on it. Two younger people were already waiting outside. I’m thinking to myself, great, now we’re here, but there’s a line and they’ll probably cut us off while we’re standing outside the door! Vita sits down on the bench and organizes her papers, I go ahead and sign the application. One by one they get called in, now its our turn. Vita goes in and tells me to wait outside. 5 minutes later she calls me into the room. An older woman is sitting there going over all her papers, handing some back to her. 5 more minutes, she stamps things and hands Vita a piece of paper with a number on it, Vita says “lets go”. Just as we walk out of the office, Vita and I let out a collective sigh, we’ve done it with no time to spare! As we’re walking down the stairs, I hear Vita talking to herself and moving her hands in front of her… I’m thinking, is she saying a thank you prayer? We get back to the car and fill Ilya in on the good news, I thank him for his excellent driving.

So now is the first time all afternoon I can breathe. I’ve been hours in a car, all over the country side, at breakneck speeds… haven’t eaten a thing all day, haven’t stopped, and all I’ve been thinking in my head is what will be my plan B (change flights, extend stay over the weekend, what? as an FYI, Vita also has another family coming on Sun)… but it doesn’t matter now, we’ve accomplished it. I asked her about the less important bank work with Tatiana, and she said she had called earlier and Tatiana still hadn’t returned from vacation, so that was out anyway. We decided I would try to sign some blank forms for Tatiana in the hopes she could fill in the needed information, so we’ll see.  Then it was back to the hotel were we both celebrated and said our goodbyes. Vita will now be heading back home, she’s arranged for Ilya to pick me up at the hotel at a wonderful 5:30am to get me to the airport for my 11:50am flight. Just one more 3hr car ride in the morning and I’ll be on a plane starting my journey home, with almost everything I needed to get accomplished done.