On Monday morning July 16th we finally set out on our journey. We had officially started the adoption process on July 11th 2011. At that time I had no idea we would only be on our first visit a year later. We had received our travel date on July 3rd letting us know we needed to be in Russia on Tuesday night, July 17th. I had been preparing for so long to hear this news that it didn't seem real when it finally came. You see, normally travel dates are issued on Mondays and our agency would call everyone sometime on Monday to let them know. So when Monday night came and we still had not heard anything I once again felt as if Monday had failed me. But on Tuesday morning there was an email from our agency saying we had an appointment with the MOE (Ministry of Education) on Wednesday morning, July 18th.
So back to Monday morning. We left the house around 7:30 a.m. Our flight did not leave until 1:30 p.m. but we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. We found parking at a Marriott Hotel for the week and they shuttled us to the airport. (the hotel was less expensive than the long term airport parking lots and it was closer with covered parking).
Check in to the airlines was a breeze but getting through security took a little over an hour. You have got to love LAX (not). After we got through security we decided to exchange some money for rubles. Then we found our gate and went to eat lunch. We ate lunch at Wolfgang Puck and it was not very good at all and very expensive. Not loving the whole airport food thing. They really know how to get you. I was also extremely frustrated at LAX because they had horrible Wifi connections. I was not able to post things I wanted to be able to post. I did get a picture of our plane though.
We then boarded our 10 hour flight to Amsterdam. The longest I have ever flown is 5 hours so this was not a fun flight for me at all. Steve is used to flying business class when he travels to France so this was a little bit of a switch for him too. Our seats were extremely cramped. I cannot imagine a very big person even being able to fit in them. Steve had no leg room at all as the set in front of him was built over some kind of box. I tried to sleep but it just wasn't happening. Our plane was very nice though and had individual TV's with movies you could watch. Except mine was having issues. I wore my flight socks and walked around a couple times to keep my feet and legs from swelling. I was so excited when we finally arrived the next morning in Amsterdam (located in North Holland - remember when we set off on this journey I told you all we were going to Holland -The Poem about Holland refers to families that will be parenting a child with special needs. I had not idea I was actually going to fly to Holland to get to Russia. It just seemed so fitting when I finally figured it out).
I cannot wait for Natasha to be home and wearing this shirt. The Amsterdam Airport was huge and very nice. But you cannot go sit in the boarding area until one hour before your flight. So we ended up walking around and then sitting in Starbucks to wait for our flight to leave.
Our next flight was from Holland to Russia. It was only a 2 hour flight and was so much better even though it was on a smaller plane. When we arrived I felt like a fish out of water. It was 5:30 p.m. there on Tuesday and I was completely exhausted. We had to fill out some sort of paperwork and did it wrong. We just needed to fill out both halves so they did not look happy with us at the window. I felt a little uneasy being in a country where I had no idea what the language was. There were some signs in English though. We did not have to wait long for our luggage but there was a mix-up with our driver. We had told our agency in the US that we did not need their driver to take us back to the airport. Apparently, she wrote and told the Russia agency that we didn't need their driver for the airport at all. We waited about 45 minutes looking for him and then found out that I misplaced the paper that had the agency contact info on it. I know,what a paper to misplace. So we called our son at home and woke him up. We were finally able to get a hold of someone and she took care of it for us. Not the best way to start out your trip in a foreign country when you are exhausted but it all worked out fine. Our driver was extremely kind and we are so grateful to him for taking us to our English speaking hotel.
We got checked in around 8:30 p.m. and went to bed around 10:00 p.m. It was still light out when we fell asleep. We are told that it gets dark this time of year from about 12:00 a.m. until about 4:30 a.m. but it always looks like dusk outside. Never completely black. We woke up around 3:30 a.m. and could not get back to sleep.
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