LEAVING FOR OUR COURT TRIP

Dear All:

On Tuesday March 17, we left for the final leg of our Adoption Journey, court!!! We started the morning with being picked up by our brother-in-law Nelson. It was so nice of him to take us to the airport. Thanks a million Nelson!!! We were able to check in and go through TSA without any problems. They started boarding the Chicago flight really early. We made into the place and once we got situated we started napping!! We felt that the flight took forever. Once we finally made it to Chicago we called my sister Claudia so we could meet for lunch since we had about 3 hours to spare. Things did not go entirely as planned (I can't go into all the details) but the important thing is that we were able so see Claudia and Donnie and that we were able to spend some time with them.

Once we were back at the airport, we had to go through TSA again. As soon as we reached our gate, they started boarding for the Moscow flight. The first part of the flight went without any problems. I can only say that regardless of whether you go in first class or coach, it is a veryyy long flight. On the last part of the flight, we had about 1 1/2 before landing, right after we had breakfast; I started to get really sick to my stomach!!! Something I ate from the breakfast did not go well with me (to say the least). I asked the flight attendant if they had Alka Seltzer, but I was told, no sorry. Thanks to God, I always try to travel prepared and we had a small first aid kit in one of our carry-ons. Mauri located it for me. Well, I was sick the entire day after that.

Once we landed in Moscow, we went through Passport Control and then on to get our luggage. For some reason, the luggage took a while to come out. Once we went through Customs, we were stopped by one of the officers and we were asked if we were together, we said yes. Then he asked for our passports and after he went to tell Mauricio that he needed to place the entire luggage inside the x-ray machine. We then realized that what caught the officer's attention what that we were carrying a stroller without a baby, and that made him suspicious!!!! After that, we were able to leave Customs and exit to the waiting area. Unfortunately, our CHI staff got there late to pick us up. Ohh my, I was starting to freak out.... I was concerned more for the language barrier than for anything else. Thanks to God, he showed about an hour and a half later. We then headed straight to Tver. It took 4 hours non-stop for us to reach our destination.... Even though Tver is only 167km from Moscow, the traffic in and out of Moscow is one of the worst I have ever seen. It is worst than in the US, yes, believe it!!!

Anyways, once we reached Tver, we were taken to our hotel. The bellman had a fit when he saw the amount of luggage he was going to carry. It was so funny to see his face. Afterwards I realized why. You see we were given a room in the main building in the 3rd floor and there are no elevators (lift as they call it)!!! Poor guy, I felt bad for him afterwards... We did give him a good tip though!!!

Well, once we got to our room, we were shocked of it's size. It was really really small. We barely fit with the entire luggage. The bathroom is super small. It cannot fit 2 people in it at the same time. We were (well, I was) concerned that it was too small for us to spend 21 days. Mainly because when we get our little girl, we won't be able to move around with her. We did talk to the receptionist (Irina); she was very nice and tried to help us out. I explained the situation to her, but she told me that we had to wait at least a week before we could be moved to a larger room because we were staying too many days and the hotel was booked. She came up to the room with us and she realized how tight we were. I requested to have access to the temperature remote so we could adjust the temperature to our liking. You see, the heater system is too strong and I can't stand it.... We also asked how we could open the windows because they were different from the windows in the other building. Well, between all of us we were able to figure it out. After that I started to feel better. Tomorrow, Thursday, we are off to see our little one. I will try to post more later. Until then.....