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.

Home

I went to see the little man Friday afternoon. He was happy to see the car in my bag but took everything out of the bag looking for the second car. I can’t put anything past him; he’s a smart little boy who will keep me on my toes. When he left me he had the car in one had and the bag of cookies in the other, he knows what he likes, cars and his food!

From there I went to the airport, despite heavy snow in Moscow and fight delays on both flights, I made it home Saturday night. Now I have more paperwork to prepare. Once mine is done and the paperwork that needs to be completed in country is done, it will all be submitted to the court and I will wait for a court date. I’ll keep you posted.

I thank all of you for following my blog, for your posts, for your words of encouragement and prayers. I’ll post again soon. Chris

Astrakhan Against The Odds

This morning I decided not to go to Red Square, it was snowing pretty hard and I didn’t want to take that long walk in the snow so I stayed at the hotel and did some things to prepare for tomorrow. I’ll see Red Square on my next trip.

At 2 PM my translator and driver showed up to take me to the airport as planned. When we got to the airport things began to change. Go with the flow, expect the unexpected, all things that are said repeatedly by adoptive families traveling all over the world to bring their children home. Well today’s trip to Astrakhan was just another example of expect the unexpected and maybe a little bit of just how much can you take? I checked in and my translator left me at the security gate. As I was going through a young officer came over and took my passport. He then started asking me several questions about where I was going and why and announced that my visa was wrong and that I could not fly on a tourist visa. I was able to fly on this visa from the US to Moscow, but apparently I can’t fly domestically within Russia on a tourist visa, it’s so much easier in the US, no visas to cross state lines, maybe it’s something we should think about, we could keep all those New Yorker’s out of Florida. Of course I have no way of knowing how to solve this but my translator has been well trained. Unbeknownst to me she had not left the airport, she was waiting to see if I cleared security and when I didn’t she came over and talked her way in to help me. A few phone calls and a lot of conversation and the young officer let me through the security area….. we’ll see if they let me fly back to Moscow on this visa, can’t wait!

Landing in the Astrakhan airport was different. We landed on an airfield where we had to get on a bus to take us to the terminal, I’ve done this before but the strange thing was the plane we were on was the only plane on the airfield, I guess we don’t have to worry about air traffic control here (see previous post about leaving JFK… ha ha ha).

Against the odds I made it to the hotel, not the one I thought I was going to, but that’s OK, I’m staying in the Azimut, it’s an older hotel right on the Volga river. A few minor problems here that my translator and coordinator are going to solve tomorrow, I was told not to unpack my suitcase, my coordinator had to pay for my room in cash tonight, etc. etc. One thing for sure is that I know I’m in good hands, I’m sure they will resolve everything tomorrow and hopefully tomorrows post will be without incident, one can only hope!!

Julian, great post, thanks for the laughs, much needed and I’ll be sure to count the layers of clothing tomorrow.

Happy Valentines Day! Chris

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

A Second Career?

For those of you who don't live in the New York area you may not know that we had a big snow storm yesterday, I think New York City got about a foot of snow.  It looks beautiful but made traveling a bit difficult.  Yesterday I may have discovered my second career, beacuse like the mailman, I didn't let the snow stop me.  I had to go into the city, get a bunch of documents apostilled and most importantly pick up my passport and visa at the Russian Consulate.  I did it all and was back home by 12:30, not too bad.

Now I have to get all of my paperwork together and finish packing so I can get on a plane tomorrow evening.  Lots to do, the next time I post here it will be from Russia.  Take care, Chris

Hurry Up & Wait, Then Hurry Up Again

Anyone who has been through this process understands it is a lot of hurry up and wait. As you go through it, you are driven to get all of your paper work done quickly so you can move ahead and then slow down and wait for the next step. Then all of a sudden something happens at home or in country and you have to prepare more paperwork or plan a trip as quickly as possible to the other side of the world or do both.

Well, if you haven’t guessed it, I’m doing both right now. I got a call on Wednesday asking if I could travel next week.  I have a lot to do as I’m getting ready to leave for Russia, documents, visa, packing, plane tickets, etc.  I’ll be leaving on the 12th for Moscow. From there I will travel to Astrakhan where I will spend the week. If things go well, by the time I come home on the 20th I will know my son. Stay tuned….