Hello from Moscow!

It is almost 4:30p on Monday in Moscow and Paul and I are in Moscow. Yes, Moscow, Russia and tomorrow we will hopefully be meeting our 2nd child. We are sorry for keeping most of you in the dark about the trip but we weren't really sure it was going to happen until we landed in Domodedovo airport on Sunday.

We had very uneventful flights and only a slight delay in our layover in Frankfurt. We were a wee bit tired as we didn't sleep on the long flight and only napped a bit on the Frankfurt to Moscow flight. When we arrived in our apartment is was about 4p Moscow time which was 8a US time. But at the point we needed to get some groceries and stretch our legs a bit. We had a bit of an adventure finding the grocery store since the one we were looking for was not obvious from the street. You had to enter some other shops (like a small mall) before getting to the grocery store in the back. We went into another store and I asked in my minimal Russian where the supermarket was and luckily the woman understood me enough to give directions. We got spaghetti and sauce for dinner and some breakfast and lunch items and headed back to the apartment.

When we got back I went to plug in the laptop to charge it up only to find that somehow I didn't bring the correct adapter for the 3-prong plug. To say I started to freak would be an understatement. Our laptop was not only to be used to stay in touch with Kali and Alexander (very important), and entertainment, but most importantly to send medical information and communicate with our International Adoption doctor back in MA. We need to download pictures here, etc. I am sure we would have found another way but it would have been a major pain. So I sent an email to Peace Travel, the group we arranged our apartment with, asking if they knew where we could get one. From what I remembered from last time these are not readily available here and should be brought from home. We didn't hear back right away and the computer subsequently ran out of power. :( I continued to stress about this but Paul convinced me that all would work out fine somehow.

We lasted until about 7:30p and then just could not stay up anymore. We went to bed and then promptly woke up every 2 hours feeling wide awake until about 2am. Finally we both then fell asleep for the night and didn't wake until 8am! Woohoo! What a good feeling it was to be rested and acclimating to the current time zone. But then I started obsessing again about the laptop. I then found the number for Peace and called them. They had gotten our email and were sending a manager over with an adapter! Apparently this has happened before :) and he confirmed these were not easily available in stores. Phew!

We then went for a walk to explore the Arbat area. The weather was nice today, low 40's, overcast but no rain. There is still some snow off to the sides of the streets and sidewalks but very easily walkable. It is the beginning of spring here as we saw a lot of bulbs coming up and everything is dirty :). We found another grocery store and stocked up on a few other necessities. We also found a Starbucks although I didn't get any coffee - I am too wired as it is right now :). We might go out to dinner with a woman who is here on Trip 2 and had a successful court today and then off to bed before the big day tomorrow.

Here are a few photos from the past 2 days - some scenery shots of our drive in on Sunday and walking around today (yes, that is an Obama matroshka doll in a store window!).


Paka!