We're Here!!

We finally made it!! It's always an adventure traveling half way around the world, but we are having a good time so far! We left on Sunday morning and flew to LA where we had a 5 hour layover. Our plane ride to Meg's country was long! It was through the night and there were babies crying all night long. I was happy I wasn't the one in charge of any of them, too! There wasn't a lot of sleep to be had for anyone on the plane.

Ready to leave on our first leg!

This guy was siting next to us on the long plane ride.  He looked exactly like Gru from Despicable Me!!  I wish I could have gotten a picture from the front.  His resemblance was uncanny!  Even their accents are the same!!

Coca Cola light!!  Reminds us SO much of living in Austria when we first got married.  So fun!! I don't know why it won't rotate this picture, but you get the point.

Beautiful sunset

The frozen capital city right before we landed.

We arrived in the capital city and had a six or seven hour layover, so we rented a room at the airport in a "capsule hotel". It is a small room that has a bed, toilet, and shower. You rent it by the hour, so we paid for 4 hours. We took a nap and a quick shower, then walked around the airport. There was so much I wanted to buy! Hopefully on the way home once we have an empty bag (after we give all our presents and donations) we can do some serious airport shopping ;)

Our room in the capsule hotel.

The flight to Meg's city was in the middle of the night. I don't know why, as it's just a 2 hour domestic flight, but whatever. There is a 2 hour time difference from the capital to the city where we are now, so we arrived at 5:30 am. All the other stops we had made up to this point we never had to go outside, so imagine our surprise when the airplane door opens and we have to walk outside! It was 25 degrees below zero!! We had short sleeves and no coats. Needless to say, all the natives were full on staring at us ;) Some of them were even pointing and laughing! I'll admit, we really were dumb Americans at that moment!

We had arranged with the hotel to have a driver pick us up. To our surprise Oksana, who is our facilitator through our adoption agency, was there as well with a different driver! We paid the driver from the hotel and rode with Oksana. Nothing like 2 drivers waiting to take you to your hotel to make you feel extra loved! We went to sleep after we arrived at the hotel at like 7:00 am and didn't wake up until after 3:00 pm! Whoops!! We quickly showered and then set of to find a bank to change money. This is not as easy as it sounds! We were lucky the bank was nearby for 2 reasons. 1: It's impossible to get around when you can't even read the words let alone understand the language and not many people here speak English, and 2: it was so cold my nose hairs were frozen! There was a little mini grocery store next to the bank, so we stopped in and got some chips and soda. We got back to the hotel and planned on asking for a taxi to take us to get some dinner, but our sweet hotel lady was making us breakfast. Breakfast is included in our hotel, so I guess since we slept so late she still wanted to feed us. She is so very kind! So what do you do when it's 5:30 pm, too cold to go outside, and you don't speak the language? Hide in your room and watch movies on your iPad, of course! We just barely did face time with the kids, so that was fun! It was so good to talk to them for a minute before school! I guess we'll be going to bed early tonight to try to get on the right schedule.
 Tomorrow morning I am hoping to see the city and shop for souvenirs! This is where our daughter is from and it's important to soak up as much as we can and take as many pictures as possible!  We have plans tomorrow afternoon to go to the Department of Education. We will go to the orphanage Thursday morning for our first visit!! We will have two visits on both Thursday and Friday, then we take the middle of the night flight back to the capital city on Saturday to make it home for Christmas! 
So right now there is a brand new problem with relations between the U.S. government and the government in Meg' country. There is a bill that would ban U.S. adoptions from this country completely. Please pray that this doesn't happen!! These kids need us! Even if it's just special needs adoptions that they will allow, that would be okay (this is one idea being floated around with their government). Not that the other kids don't need families too, but they are more likely to be adopted by locals. This bill could go into effect as early as January 1, 2013. Please pray!!
Thanks for following along with our journey!  Hopefully we'll know more tomorrow about our girl and get to see pictures!!!