Slowing down in Moscow

It's Tuesday morning for us and Lucas is taking his morning nap so I thought I'd use this free time to catch you all up on our first few days.

Kali and I left Boston on Saturday and had a relatively easy flight to Amsterdam. As this is my 3rd trip in 2 months I've become a pro and was able to sleep for about 4 hours. Our layover in Amsterdam was quick (1hr), however once we boarded our flight for Moscow is when things went a little south. As we were about to leave the gate they announces that someone did not make the flight and thus their baggage would need to be removed before we left thus delaying us about 20 minutes. No biggie. We arrived in Moscow about 30 minutes later than expected and proceeded to wait a LONG time in the passport control line...but hey no problem since at least our luggage would be waiting for us by the time we were through right? We both got through passport control and went to look for our 4 bags...yup 4, 2 heavy and large suitcases filled with all of our clothes, food, tioletries, gifts, Lucas' clothes, bottles, formula and toys and 2 duffel bags stuffed with clothing donations for the baby home and a few gifts. Well we quickly found the 2 duffel bags and then waited, waited and waited until the carousel stopped moving for our suitcases. A few other people from our flight lingered with us hoping to find their items. Soon the carousel started up again but with the bags for the next flight. Uh oh.

We got in line for Lost and Found and waited, waited and waited some more. At this point it was and hour and 15 minutes after we were supposed to have landed. There were only 3 people in front of us but it took about 30 minutes to get to the front of the line and we soon found out why. Since both Kali and I had 'lost' a piece of luggage we both had to fill out 4 separate forms. Yes, 4. Once they were completed we had to take 2 of the forms over to another line to have another customs official review, write something in cyrillic and place several stamps on them. We then had to take them back to the first person who gave us another form which stated that our bags would be on the next flight arriving that night and would be delivered to us the next day. Finally after an hour in lost and found we were out of there and desperately hoping our driver was still waiting for us. Luckily he was and he was irate! Not at us fortunately but at KLM saying they are infamous for losing luggage and it happens to almost every family that flies KLM from Amsterdam to Moscow.

We got to our apartment finally about 6:30p and after getting the overview of how to use the key, phone and wifi, we ventured out to find some food as we were starving. Kali and I went to Old Arbat street and found Moo-Moo's, a Russian cafeteria style restaurant. We had a yummy dinner and then proceeded to go grocery shopping. Luckily we are staying right across the street from the apartment Paul and I stayed in the 1st trip so I knew the area well and we could quickly get to where we needed to go. We came back to the apartment, unpacked our groceries and then spent a few funny moments trying to figure out how to make the 'couch' in the living room fold down into the sofa bed it was supposed to be. We should make a video of how this works for the next family staying here...basically works like a lawn chair but with four sides!

At this point we were really missing our luggage as we only had the clothes on our back and no toothbrushes, soap or pajamas. Regardless, we slept fairly well, Kali better than I, and woke to get ready for pick-up day. We tried to make ourselves presentable in our now smelly clothes and left to go to the passport office as we needed to first apply for Lucas' passport. Once that was done, Kali and I were off to the baby home! We arrived at the start of Lucas' naptime to find him in a walker in the playroom...all the other babies had gone to sleep. Since we didn't have his clothes they let us leave with what he had on...as long as we promised to have them returned as they are in short supply of clothing.

OK..it's now Tuesday afternoon...Lucas woke earlier while I was typing :)

We left the baby home with Lucas on my lap. He did great in the car and since it was his naptime, shortly fell asleep! He slept for about an hour which was great considering we were stuck in the usual Moscow traffic. He woke up while Kali went into Detsky Dom, a baby store, to get some diapers and more food. After getting settled into the apartment and giving Lucas some lunch...he was quite hungry and ate like a baby bird...we called the airport lost and found number to inquire about the delivery status of our luggage. "Your bags are here however I'm sorry...we cannot deliver...you must come to the airport to pick up" click. At this point we didn't care what we had to do to get our luggage especially as we now had Lucas and nothing that we brought for him. So we called our driver and although he had already had a long day and anticipated having the rest of it off, he came to pick us up for a trip to the airport. Of course this was just in time for Lucas' afternoon nap! He fell asleep about 5 minutes before we arrived in the airport. I had hoped to be able to stay in the car...but no...we both had to go in. We waited in line for about 20 minutes and towards the end of that time I started to feed Lucas his '2nd lunch' - this was now around 4p. He was hungry! He ate a whole jar of baby food and an entire banana..whimpering the moment I strayed too far with the spoon. We finally got our bags...hooray! Once we got back to the apartment it was around 5p and Lucas was still wimpering. I made him a bottle of formula that I brought and he sucked that down! Afterwards he was all smiles while we happily unpacked our luggage.

After dinner and more playtime, I rocked Lucas magically to sleep...he was definitely not used to that as they are just laid in their cribs at nap and nighttime. Boy I'm spoiled without a rocking chair :). Overall a great day!!!

This morning he awoke all smiles and quickly drank another bottle of formula before we had the visit from the Embassy doctor. That was quick and painless and we had a day finally free. Here's a shot from our afternoon walk...

Lucas has been in generally good spirits though he is quite stubborn and knows how to whine and pout when he doesn't get his way. He makes lots of silly faces and mimics every face or gesture that we make. I was also 'chasing' him in the apartment this morning and got some great belly giggles when I caught him. We're definitely in the honeymoon phase but I'll take it for now and hopefully through traveling home. He's sleeping and eating great and not much more I can ask for. Kali and I on the other hand are tired...jetlag catching up big time and we haven't really slept well the past couple nights. Here's to some serious snoozing by all 3 of us tonight.

That's all for now!

Paka,
Laura, Kali and Lucas