Travel Dates!

For those of you who have been following my adoption journey, you know that if it's winter it means it's time for me to travel to Eastern Europe!  I found out today that I have been invited to travel to Moscow in early February.  At this point I don't have many details, I just know I have a lot to do to get ready to go.  I'll post again soon.

Next Steps

CHI and I have had many discussions about the options available to me.  We discussed a few regions but ultimately decided that the best place for me to continue my adoption journey would be in Moscow.  That being said, today I applied for a Visa that will allow me to return to Russia in the beginning of the new year.  Hopefully I will receive my invitation to travel quickly when the calendar turns to 2011.  I hope all of you will continue to support me and follow along as I move forward in this process once again.  I'll post again soon.

Moscow

I made it to Moscow although it was not the best flight I ever took, that’s for sure. One thing interesting about Aeroflot Airlines, they leave the cockpit camera on during takeoff and landing so you can see the runway and see the plane takeoff and land. Although I only thought this was interesting for a minutes. As we were gaining speed and about to lift off the ground at JFK all of a sudden the pilot slammed on the brakes and the plane slid sideways down the runway! Everyone in the plane went flying forward as we slid. A few moments later he made a very excited announcement in Russian over the public address system, for some reason his earlier announcements did not sound quite as excited as this one, I think I know why! About fifteen minutes after that one of the cabin crew made an announcement in Russian and then in English that we were in line for takeoff and that we would be taking off soon. Well two hours late we took off, had a very bumpy flight but ultimately arrived in Moscow safely.

I had a meeting this afternoon to prepare me for the next few days. Some of you will really appreciate this, they told me not to speak Russian to the baby, they said when Americans try to speak Russian, they just confuse the children, have they heard me speak? I am allowed to say yes, no and stop in Russian to the baby, that’s about all they want to hear from me. All those hours I spent trying to learn this language, all for nothing.

There is one phrase I can use and I plan on using it often, I can say ‘I don’t understand’ in Russian, I’ve already used that one today when I went to try to get something for dinner. Buying food in a supermarket is a ritual, I point at something that looks like I can eat it and hold my finger up to indicate I only want one. A young Russian man took pity on me tonight and helped me with the food I thought I wanted, he made a suggestion, it was a little Russian pizza, it wasn’t bad.

Tomorrow I’m going to take a walk to the Red Square in the morning then I leave for airport to go to Astrakhan at 2 PM. I’ll post again when I can. Chris