Thursday June 15, 2007
Our hotel is a revolving door for couples coming to and from Astrakhan to adopt. Everyone we have met is very nice and it is nice to speak English and socialize a bit with other people. Like I stated in a previous email, some of the couples are having a successful experience while others are having a heart wrenching experience. The couple from Lancaster, PA – Greg and Rebekah are the ones who have gotten the run-around in court. They are working through a different agency than we are. Our coordinator who is employed by our agency is trying to help them get things figured out here. We are hoping that our coordinators experience and connections will help this couple successfully adopt. Please say some prayers for them. I really do not know how they are managing to carry on with all that they have been put through!
On a lighter note, we were able to see Madeline twice today. Our morning visit went very well. David and I had her giggling and laughing. She was laughing and enjoying the visit from Poppa, the “tickle monster”. We will send out some photos. These are from the morning visit.
In between visits, we met up with Greg and Rebekah again and went out to lunch with them and our coordinator. Again, no unique Russian cuisine to report on. David had some pork in a red wine sauce and rosemary and cranberries. I had a salad with pear and sweet red peppers. The
weird thing about Russian restaurants however, is that they never bring out entrees at the same time. Every restaurant that we went to in both Moscow and Astrakhan simply brought out the food when it was ready. It is not customary to wait for the others at your table to get their meal before you start yours. So it is not unlikely that one person at the table could be practically done eating before another gets served.
Our lunch out was our big meal for the day as we are trying to limit our dining out to only one meal per day. Tonight we will eat some chicken stuff that we bought at the grocery store, although we might order a salad from the restaurant to go with our dinner. Sighhhhh……..if only there was a Wegman's so we could purchase some fresh produce to make our own salads. (For those of you not from the Buffalo area, Wegman’s is one of the larger grocery chains. I am aware that our email updates are being forwarded to many of my former co-workers from my days as an employee at Tops Corporate, another larger grocery chain in the area) Anyway, the grocery stores here don’t carry a lot of fresh produce. You need to go to a farmers market.
By the way, breakfast is free in the hotel each morning. We definitely take advantage of that but the problem is that they NEVER change the selection. Even though we have only been in Astrakhan a few days, the breakfast menu is the same as the last time we were here. I am soooooo bored with the breakfast food already.
Anyway, back to Madeline…. We went back to the infant’s home at 4pm. Madeline was a bit distracted in this afternoon’s visit. I few things were going on to distract her.
1) it was hot
2) she was tired……which I’ll talk more about below
3) Someone else was visiting with their daughters in the same room and Maddie was observing a lot of what they were doing
4) Madeline is teething. She has 5 teeth and we can see a sixth coming in.
Despite all the distractions, it was good to just be together and give her hugs and kisses.
As for being tired….we are both exhausted. We would’ve thought that we would’ve relaxed some after the court hearing, and to a certain degree we did. Although our visits with Madeline are somewhat short, we are emotionally exhausted. We feel pressure to make that perfect connection with her in each of the short visits. We know that all this will take time but this whole thing is emotionally exhausting. Plus, the stresses of everything we have already experienced are starting to catch up to us. We also believe (and so does our coordinator) that these visits are tiring for Made line too. She is not used to all of this interaction and attention. We are all in an adjustment period. I know, I know, I know…..the exhaustion of parenthood has only begun!
With this said, David and I are hanging in the room tonight. Maybe we’ll pop into the computer one of the 4/$20 movies DVDs we brought along from Blockbuster. Russian TV is not very entertaining if you can’t understand what is being said.
We’ll include our hotel/contact information just in case. Keep in mind that if you are entertaining the thought of a call to Russia, the calls are VERY expensive…..David’s mom can vouch for that! But we are at the Azimut Hotel in Astrakhan. We are in room #314. Our phone number is 011- 7-8512-326-864 I believe it connects directly to the room so if there is no answer, we are not in. Keep in mind that we are 8 hours ahead of you (9 hours in Central Time Zone)
David and Amy
A second email was sent out later in the day titled "Hott - but cooler than it has been"
Russia CAN be hot! Check out June 20th's weather report.
Somehow, I don't think this is what David had in mind
when I told him things would be hot on our
wedding anniversary! :-)
(I then attached a link to the Astrakhan weather which
forcasted temperaturesin the high 90's)
Thursday June 15, 2007
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