Привет from Moscow

Not sure if the last post made it so I am going to try again now that we are at German's house and we have wifi.

So the plane ride was rather uneventful, long and our butts hurt but we had the exit row so that made things more comfortable. There was quit the eclectic group of traveler on the plane, Russian nationals going home, hopeful adoptive parents, students traveling over seas for the summer, adoptive grandparents going over to help their daughter and son-in-law bring back twin girls and many more we didn't talk to. We were also blessed with a peak into what is to come on our trip back - the gutteral screams of the unconsolable child. This little girl sounded like a ferral child raised by apes. It was pretty impressive, all I can say is thank the dear Lord above for headphones and our laptop!

After landing in Moscow we could not deplane until the Russian health ministry boarded and took every passengers temperature and got medical information concerning swine flu risk, that was interesting. And no, there were no probes, our temperature was taken by an infrared device that I had never seen - pretty cool technology.

After getting off the plane those if us on our first trip followed the croud, like lemmings I might add, to the very long passport control line. Nothing too scarey but very serious. Then baggage claim and you will never believe it but you have to wait an eternity here as well, seems like one of those universal constants - I will have to ponder the physics if that process when I solve the rest of the world's problems.

Then CUSTOMS! It is totally not what you think. No armed gaurds no stern folks digging through bags, no strip searches. We walked through the doors and were directed through a corridor and emerged on the other side to find German waiti g for us with a sign. Very unentful! I like uneventful!

So German is our driver, host and interpreter - he is our life line here in Russia and he is good at what he does. He took us to meet Tatiana, the head if Gladney operations here in Russia. Tatiana lives on the top floor of a building with NO elevator. And it was not a two story building! No one had prepared us for the adoptive parent cardiac stress test that us what I am now calling the "Tatiana protocol". She must be in excellent shape to do that climb every day. We completed our paperwork there and we were off again.

Driving in Moscow is the second part if the adoptive parent stress test. It is not for the faint of heart. Greman was kind enough to take us by Red Square, Kremlin and numerous other famous sights - we have pictures.

We made it back to German & Mariana's home, the top floor of a building WITH an elevator, albeit the smallest elevator I have ever seen.

Mariana is an exellent cook and had fixed us a meal so we would have something in us and then it was NAP time. We woke up after three hours and had dinner and we have packed for Kaluga.

In the morning we will head out for the drive to Kaluga. When we get there we will meet with the head doctor to review medical reports and ask questions and the we meet Aleks!

So it is time to catch some z's so we will blog tomorrow.

До свидания


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