We're Back in the USSR!!!

We'll we've made to Moscow!! And so did our bags!!! They were almost the last ones off the plane and I had visions of our last trip without any luggage. It's about 24 degrees here with maybe 1-2 inches of snow. Oksana, our coordinator here said it had been much colder in the past week but is supposed to warm up a little in the coming week. When we took off from Atlanta last night, they told us it was 0 degrees here (course it was 1 am here at the time). Our flights from Lexington to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to Moscow came off smooth as could be for a change, for which we are very thankful.

To back up a little, we weren't even sure we would be able to come right up to the last minute due to our visa situation. Since the Russian consolate was closed for New Years until Jan 9, we had to go right to the wire to get our visas in time to travel on the 11th (see previous post for more details if you are confused already). Anyway, the plan was that the consolate in NYC was to open on the 9th, process our visas and ship them out overnight for us to receive on the 10th. Well, just our usual luck, the consolate sent them to the wrong zip code and they ended up in upstate New York. Needless to say, I was a little stressed out. You cannot enter Russia without a visa. I tried to call the travel agent who had helped me with ordering the visas, but she never returned my calls (turns out she was off sick!!) I finally got thru to DHL Shipping, who confirmed indeed that it was in New York at 1pm on Thursday. The lady said "there is no way it will get to you today." So I had a little melt down and tearfully told her I HAD to have this package delivered because we were supposed to leave Friday morning. Guess she felt sorry for me, and after about 20 minutes on hold she came back and said they could ship it to Cincinnati and then drive it to Lexington and deliver it at midnight. So, that is what happened, and in fact it actually arrived around 9:30 pm. I felt like a new woman once that package finally arrived. It's been a crazy week but FINALLY everything fell into place, and here we are.

We have a 12 hour layover in Moscow, so they took us to a hotel near the airport for a "daystay" where we checked in at noon and have to check out at 6pm tonight. It's nice to be able to crash for a little while, take a shower, etc. However, our bags stayed in the car that will pick us back up so we can't really change clothes since we just have our carry ons with us. The biggest bone of contention for Rich on this trip so far is all of the luggage. I just HAD to end up packing 3 bags because of all the junk we had to bring for 2 weeks for the baby and the both of us. He only wanted me to bring 2 bags but there was just no way. I was up till 4am last night trying to get everything packed and still ended up with 3 bags. One was over the weight limit with Delta and we had to pay $50 for overage. I'm sure it'll cost even more on the next leg of the way. When we got here and finally rounded up all the bags and were walking out, some man said to me and pointed at my bag, "you are dripping" and sure enough the littlest bag which has off of Haylie's stuff was just drip, drip, dripping. I couldn't go thru it right then, but when we go into the hotel, turns out a plastic bottle of pedialyte had busted and leaked all over everything. Don't know how it leaked since I had everything in ziplock bags, but leak it did. Nothing really ruined though.

We leave tonight at 10:30 pm to fly to Kemerovo in Siberia and because of all the time zone changes, we arrive at 8 am, even though it is only a 4 1/2 hour flight. We will stay there for 3 nights before returning to Moscow with Haylie!! Court is scheduled for Monday morning the 14th. We will then drive to the orphanage on Tuesday morning and pick up Haylie and she will be ours for good--I can't wait!! We come back to Moscow on the 16th, and Oksanna just told us we go straight to the medical clinic where Haylie will have her medical exam and HIV test. We will then check into our apartment Wednesday afternoon. She also said we will go to the American Embassy on Thursday for our interview there. Seems like it will move even faster when we get back to Moscow than I had orginally thought.

I don't know if I will have any internet access while we are in Kemerovo, so I may not be able to post again until Wednesday, but will try if possible. We have free unlimited internet access at the apartment which will be great.
We already miss everybody and home.