Wednesday Adventures

Hello from the Arctic blast!  Thanks to everyone who has left comments!  You have no idea how comforting it is to come into our warm hotel every night, turn on the computer and see that so many people are out there cheering us on.  This whole experience has been overwhelming, exhausting, and confusing being in a foreign country and taking in everything that comes with this process.  Nothing warms our hearts more than your words.

Wow, it suddenly became so bitter cold that you can hardly breathe!  The wind is gusting and throwing dry snow around with a vengeance.  We want to go sightseeing,but it’s nearly impossible when you feel like you’re on the North Pole, and that’s with a down coat, scarf, gloves and hat! 

Unfortunately, today started off on the wrong foot.  We were supposed to meet our coordinator in the hotel lobby at 9:20 am.  Well, we didn’t even think about setting the alarm because we’ve been waking up at 7 or so every morning, no problem.  At 9:30 our phone rang.  We were sound asleep.  I only slept about 4 hours last night even after taking a Unisom. I lied awake from about 3 to 6 am.  The combination of stress and jet lag is not good when you need sleep.  I think she was a bit annoyed by us.  We had to throw on our clothes, brush our teeth and fly down there so we could get to the Notary Public on time.  We were scheduled to go get our official acceptance paper notarized at 10:00.  Getting something notarized in this country is a much bigger deal than it is in America.  Notaries have had extensive law training and you have to pay them quite a bit to stamp your papers for you.  It’s serious business.

While we’re on the subject of "this country,"can I just say how surreal everything is to us?   We walk into these old, run down buildings, like the place where the Ministry of Education works.  Stucco is falling off the walls and there is a grumpy man with a fur hat sitting behind a glassed-in desk as you walk in and you can’t help but think, “We are in a movie, no?  This can’t be 2010.”  Most of the professionals are women who are dressed really nicely, so you would imagine that their offices would be nice.  But they are right out of the 1960s.   The buildings in this area are all tall and many of them look like they were built 40 years ago or so, but they are only about 15 to 20 years old.  There just isn’t money to keep them up updated or repair them.  We take our nice buildings, cheerful customer service and laid-back driving in America so for granted! 

 

After having our paper notarized, we stopped into this quaint little restaurant that no one but the people who work in the nearby government building likely know about.  It was so cool, though.  We ordered "Stuffed Pancakes" which are really more like crispy crepes with stuff in them.  (I haven't been impressed with the food we've had so far, BTW.  It's expensive and...not real tasty.)

When we were done with breakfast, we drove through the thick traffic to the office of the Minestry of Education and Elena took our official acceptance of our referral in.  So the committee now knows that we have met Anna in person and that we indeed still want to adopt her.  (That’s what this trip is for.)  We could probably go home tomorrow if we wanted to, but we want to have a few more visits with our Anna girl before we leave her for 2-3 months.  We're worried she won't remember us. :(

 We had several hours before our time at the orphanage so Jeremy and I went to the Hermitage Museum.  Wow!  What a place!  It's one of the largest museums in the world with over 1,000 rooms!  And packed full of original paintings, sculptures, tapestries, mosaics...you name it, from all over the world.  The queen who lived here kept building on and building on to the palace and buying more and more artwork to fill it up.  I've never seen more original works in two hours in my life! 

It was really cute seeing all the groups of school children walking through the museum. I had to get a picture of one of the groups leaving.  Also, Leonardo DiCaprio was in the museum when we were there! We didn't see him, but one of the workers told our tour guide they saw him.  Cool, huh?

Jeremy wanted me to take this  picture so he could show one of his contractors that he advertises for him all over the world! :)

And to the right, we have nothing other than a Michelangelo sculpture!

After our adventure at the Hermitage, we had the driver stop at the hotel so I could put a little makeup on for the day since I had no time that morning and take a 10 minute snooze to fuel up for our one orphanage visit for the day.  When we got there, the director had us go to into their rec room.  Anna came running in all excited to see us and wondering what fun things we had in store for today.  We got out a ball and some My Little Ponies, but all she wanted to do was color and look at her photo book we made her.  It's obvious that she is not accustomed to any roughhousing.  We tried that and she just got mad and said "Nyet!"  Elena told us that's totally expected, I mean all of her caregivers are women, and they have 12 kids under 7 to look after....who's ever going to do any roughhousing with these kids?  She'll learn about all that when she gets home with her brothers, though. Hopefully she'll like it after a few nights. :)  She didn't like rolling the ball or playing make believe, either.  She just likes looking at pictures, coloring, playing with the iPhone...anything visual and fine motorish. Typical of Ds...we'll have to work with her to round her out a bit, I'm sure. 

What a gal.  We wish we could bring her home with us. 

 Tomorrow, I'll have Jeremy write.  I think he needs a turn at this.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We'll miss our family greatly, but thinking about what we are grateful for will make up for any emptiness we feel being way from them.  We can't complain a bit.  Just look at what the Lord has given us. More than we ever imagined, times a million.