Random Bits

Daughter (in gruff voice): I’m a remote control!

Me, puzzled: oooooookkkk…

Daughter (same gruff voice): and I’m grumpy! I’m a grumpy remote control!

Me, scratching head: oooooookkkk…

Daughter (gruffer still): and you can’t cross my bridge!!

Me: oooo -oh wait! hahaha you mean you’re a grumpy *troll*!! hahahaha

Daughter: yeah! And you can’t go *under* my bridge either!

Just like a girl. I tell my 3-year-old daughter to grab a toy to keep herself entertained at the store we’re going to. As we’re putting on our shoes she comes racing back from the playroom with her makeup compact.

What’re the odds? Wait, let me back up. So our flight from the U.S. to New York (to Moscow) was at o’ dark early and thus the shuttle we’d scheduled was for half past “what the @&#^$% am I doing up at this hour?” Oddly enough I just happened to be outside in the side yard when I saw headlights. Now no one else sane would be up driving at this hour so I instinctively knew it had to be out shuttle. Except he slowly drove past our house. I ran after him but to no avail.. he obviously wasn’t looking in his rearview mirror. I run back inside to tell Lori to call the service and get him back ASAP and head back outside to find not one, but TWO shuttles have found their way to our house. One departs and I never did ask how we ended up with two. So…

What’re the odds? As we’re all telling the driver what airlines we need or something we detect a Russian… Slavic… accent on the woman in front of us. 3am, heading to the airport to go to Russia and we bump into a Ukrainian lady (our age) heading back to Kiev on business! We spent the 45 min drive chatting about all things Russian/Ukrainian. Very nice lady… husband and child and they live in the area. Obviously life’s a little hectic right now but we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses in hopes of getting together after Life settles down.

The next ohhhh… 16 hours or so are spent on planes. From Oakland to New York (where we spend a few hours) and then on to Moscow. It was a bit disheartening to fly PAST Kaliningrad, knowing the day after we arrive in Moscow we fly BACK 2 or 3 hours to Kaliningrad. We again question the wisdom of flying past our destination but this is what the adoption agency has counseled. The first of several misguided suggestions we’re due to discover.

Don’t remember much more… lots of (attempted) sleeping, book reading, and movie/tv watching. We landed in Moscow and were fully prepared to spend a few hours getting through security. We surprised our coordinator when we breezed through in 10 minutes. Luckily she was there waiting for us but our poor driver who’d assumed he had lots of time had to throw away his fresh cup of coffee to come get us. Foreshadowance… this wouldn’t be his last time doing so.

We headed into town and found out our hotel was just a mile or two from Red Square. We had to drive PAST the hotel and almost all the way to Red Square to turn around since they have specially designated places you can do U-turns. Convincing our coordinator Natasha that the 16 hours of flying hadn’t wiped us out, she took us sightseeing down to Red Square. We got to see the walls of the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb (from the outside) and St. Basil’s cathedral – again, from the outside. Don’t worry, later on in our trip we’d venture inside the Krelim’s walls. We also stopped in a few shops and a grocery store that was AMAZING in its beauty.

I’ll probably add more to this post as I remember it. I’ll try to insert postings between this one and the next in order to have a post a day, covering each day of our trip. So keep coming back for updates!!