Returning Home (For Now)

Friday 10 April

We left Orenburg for a day in Moscow. The plane was more crowded than you would expect for 0745 in the morning. Oh well at least this time we got an aisle that was not quite as cramped. The flight was uneventful, and we arrived in Moscow just a few minutes after we left with the time change. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up, and our agency did not have two vehicles even though our facilitator (Alex) had called them the night before to confirm that there would be. Jenn and Jim clearly had priority, since they were crossing to another airport to catch a plane back to the States. We waited at the airport for the other car, that arrived pretty much when the later flight was supposed to arrive. (We were supposed to be on the later flight, but it was booked, so they had to put us on the earlier one. This was the reason for the mix-up in the first place.)

Traffic was bad, but eventually they got us to the Holiday Inn Lesnaya, with our local translator Oxana pointing out some of the city sights along the way. I had no idea that it was so close to the Marriot Tverskaya (where we stayed on the Inbound trip). In fact they are only a few blocks away. After getting checked in we stopped for a bite for lunch, then took the Metro down to Red Square. We then walked around and took a few pictures and did some sightseeing. St. Basil's Cathedral is really interesting, though Ange says that if she just saw a model of it, she would assume it was done up that way as a children's toy because no one would really decorate a cathedral in such a mishmash of colors and patterns. We picked up the one geocache in Red Square, proving that it is possible to do some stealthy geocaching even in the most crowded of places. We have a few extra photos that were taken solely for the purpose of providing "cover" to bring out and replace the geocache from its hiding spot.

This time we did buy souvenirs from the vendor tents, and we even haggled a little bit. (Though we freely admit that we're not good hagglers. How can we begrudge them a couple hundred rubles when it is just a few dollars to us?) I don't know how much time we'll have for souvenir shopping we'll have on the next trip, and there are a lot of people who have been very kind & thoughtful to us that we wanted to show them we were thinking of them. We had to repack our suitcases slightly, moving some laundry to one bag to make room for our knickknacks in the bag where they are least likely to get broken. Back to the hotel we finally had Stroganoff for dinner. Still no borscht on this trip, but I tried it once & didn't like it, so Ange was reluctant. We also were able to get internet access on this last day and were able to connect to Skype and this made Cerri very happy to be able to see us.


Saturday the 11th.

We returned from Moscow back to Dulles. The in flight entertainment system was not working so that made for a VERY long flight. But all is well and we are back here. now just time to get our part 2 dossier done so that we can get our court date.

[Comment from Ange] It seems strange not to have him with us. We've only had about 10 hours with him, all of it in just one room. Yet every moment now we can't help thinking and talking about what it will be like when he is with us. We'll have more days in Moscow processing his paperwork to bring him back to the States. Will he sleep ok in a crib in the hotel? He can eat soft solid foods, but we'll have to proceed carefully and not overdo it. Changing his diapers on the airplane will be an experience, I'm sure. And what about that LONG plane ride, when I'm sure he will not want to sit still. Actually being home with him will be a piece of cake compared to that plane ride. I will have to work on teaching him some baby games like Patty Cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider. He knows Russian games, but I don't know them and not sure how quickly I could learn. But he'll need distractions like that at times.

Anyway, as Kris said, we will need to get moving on our paperwork so that we can get our court date and bring home our little guy.