(Maureen's Post)
We had a three-hour layover in Frankfurt before boarding our next flight to Almaty, and that flight was much more pleasant. There were fewer people on the flight which allowed us to spread out a little more. While in Frankfurt we met up with yet another couple adopting with our agency. We learned a few days before leaving that a third American family with our agency (Terry and Frances Chinn) was also going to Karaganda. This is their first Kazakhstan adoption, and we are glad to be sharing our experience with another family - the more the merrier!
Our driver in Almaty is Vitalli - he was also our driver when we first arrived in Almaty three years ago. We also saw Andrei, another driver we had during our stay in Almaty when we were leaving Kazakhstan with James last time. Andrei is driving for one of the Belgian families who is also using our agency's facilitators to complete their adoptions. He has a daughter who is about James' age, so last time we were here he was a new father, too. It was so nice to see him again, as well.
Vitalli drove us from the airport to our apartment, and we got a few hours' sleep before preparing to go to our morning meeting with the sisters. Our apartment is small, but has what we need for our two-night stay here. The location can't be beat, either. It's literally a block down the street from the Ramstore and just around the corner from the sisters' office, right across the street from the U.S. Embassy.. After getting a few hours of shut-eye (the time change is wreaking havoc on our inner clocks) we got up to start preparing for the day. It sure was nice to finally get a shower! After breakfasting on some food we brought from home to hold us over until we could get to a grocery store we went to the sisters' office to meet with Gulzhan and Aizhan to take care of paperwork and get our plane tickets for our flight to Karaganda. After our meeting we went to exchange some money and met with the Chinns for lunch at Venezia, an Italian restaurant. We ordered pepperoni pizza for ourselves and a grilled chicken dish and a side of rice for James since he's not a big pizza fan (I know - very rare that kids don't like pizza). Fortunately, the menu was in English and Russian so we could point to what we wanted on the menu and it would correspond to the Russian description. James' dish had lots of chicken so he did have some leftovers. At least we knew what to feed to him for dinner!
Then we took an afternoon nap, after which Sean walked to the Ramstore (spelled Pamctop in Russian), which is a grocery store within an indoor mall. He bought some items to get us through until we leave Almaty later today. Unfortunately, he was unable to find any Twix Dark (Twix candy bar covered in dark chocolate), which became my favorite candy bar while we were in Kazakhstan last time and is unavailable in the U.S. I think it's available in Europe, though. So, Jodi, if you're reading this, just know that I am on a quest to find Twix Dark while I'm here!
There is only one flight per day on Air Astana from Almaty to Karaganda, and on Saturdays it happens to be at 11AM, so we were not able to make that flight since our meeting with the sisters was also occurring in the morning. So, we'll be flying out to Karaganda later tonight (again, the only flight available), with us hopefully going to the Baby House first thing Monday morning.
James has done pretty well so far. He is still recovering from a little cough and cold he caught a few days before we left. He didn't eat very well on the flights coming here (was being quite picky), but once we were in Almaty his appetite picked back up a little bit. We knew that this might happen, so we made sure that we had packed his multivitamins for this trip. Otherwise, he's doing great so far. Gulzhan and Aizhan (two of the sisters who we worked with last time) were very glad to see him, and he was being quite the charmer, of course. He impressed them with his writing skills and the various stories he was telling while playing with some toys that were at the office. Gulzhan told James that she was going to call Dr. Nataliya (our coordinator in Kokshetau from when we adopted James) to let her know how well he was doing. He's been keeping busy playing with some toys we brought from home. The DVDs were a lifesaver on the plane, too, although I think we went through almost every Thomas the Tank Engine DVD he has. As I type this entry right now James is watching a Wiggles DVD and singing and dancing in the apartment living room.
Our latest little snag is that our camera started acting up while we were at the sisters' office, and now the lens doesn't retract completely anymore. That being said, we are apologizing in advance that the pictures may not be as sharp, as the auto-focus feature appears to have also been compromised. We are having a little bit of luck using the manual focus feature, though.
So, those are our exciting adventures so far! Stay tuned as we get closer to meeting our baby!
