Xristos vo skres! Va yestinu vo skres. That is Russian for: Christ has risen! Indeed, he has risen! Happy Easter you all! We have made it to Krasnoyarsk. We are exhausted. We have lost another 4 hours of time and our present time is now 11 hours later than at home in Virginia. Next weekend, the clocks will fall back and we will lose another hour, putting us 12 hours later than Virginia.
We didn’t get bumped from the Hotel Krasnoyarsk—thank you for your prayers! This hotel is a little smaller for the room, although we will be put in a larger room once we get Aidan, but there are a lot of things that are close by for us. This afternoon we will eat at the Subway and there is even a Baskin Robbins down the street. That will be fun to take Aidan there in a couple of weeks.
There are so many folks here from America. . .it’s really interesting. In Moscow, there ended up being about eight couples, some coming for the second trip and some heading home with their children. It was so fun to meet everyone, especially since I have been following so many of their blogs. I found that most were with the same agency and have had contact with each other, although they live in different states, throughout their process. In addition to having a weekly blog from the agency, they also have an ongoing chat room that they each log into and share ideas. Pretty cool! They have all found a very easy Russian language book and CD that I will be copying and ordering.
So, we will be picked up tomorrow to be taken to the orphanage about 2:00 in the afternoon. We can’t wait to see Aidan! Then on Tuesday, Court Date!
I’m back. We slept for about three hours and then went out for a walk around Krasnoyarsk. We ate lunch at Subway and I got a picture of Pat.
Then we walked down and found a store that carries children’s items: we think we might need an inexpensive stroller for walking around with Aidan after he is with us. And they sell children’s shoes, too.
The weather is quite warm, probably in the upper fifties. We came back to the room for a while to leave our coats behind. Too warm for the cold weather gear! Although I can’t be sorry we brought it as it was definitely needed while we were in Moscow. It warmed up once we got to Siberia! Pat is thinking of working on a tan. . . Here he is with the other guys with us in Kras:
One couple with us here was also with us in Moscow on this trip. They seem to know everybody and where to go. It’s really helpful!
The buildings in Krasnoyarsk are very Soviet looking. The city itself is several centuries old, but it appears most of the buildings were from the 60’s and 70’s. The people are nice but have been looking at us funny because we were walking around today without our coats and hats! Too warm. . .
The cost of phone calls is astronomical! We purchased International phone cards at home but it was an additional 32 rubles per minute in Moscow and 40 rubles per minute here in Kras (local call fee attached to our phone card fee). We bought some megabytes to send email and update the blog and will try to sign up for Skype (free phone service over the computer). Hopefully that will work. If not, we’ll just have to bite the bullet and pay the fee in order to call home a couple of times. In the meantime, we spent 300 rubles to buy 30 megabytes of time for Wi Fi.
And talk about being astronomical! The cost of our hotel stay in Moscow was outrageous! We apparently hit a black out day so the normal $365. a night (that’s the adoption rate??) went up to $750. a night for one of the nights. With a couple of our meals and the Wi Fi we bought there, the three nights wound up being only $200 less than what we will pay for 13 nights in Kras! Crazy. . .Fortunately, one of the folks with us found out there are no black out dates on our return trip through Moscow. Thanks be to God!
We’re missing everyone and the US. Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers. We still have a little over three weeks left here in Russia and are hoping it goes by quickly so that we can come home with our little Aidan. We can’t wait to see him tomorrow!
Love and Blessings to everyone. Paca! (That’s the informal Russian good-bye)
Stacy and Pat
We didn’t get bumped from the Hotel Krasnoyarsk—thank you for your prayers! This hotel is a little smaller for the room, although we will be put in a larger room once we get Aidan, but there are a lot of things that are close by for us. This afternoon we will eat at the Subway and there is even a Baskin Robbins down the street. That will be fun to take Aidan there in a couple of weeks.
There are so many folks here from America. . .it’s really interesting. In Moscow, there ended up being about eight couples, some coming for the second trip and some heading home with their children. It was so fun to meet everyone, especially since I have been following so many of their blogs. I found that most were with the same agency and have had contact with each other, although they live in different states, throughout their process. In addition to having a weekly blog from the agency, they also have an ongoing chat room that they each log into and share ideas. Pretty cool! They have all found a very easy Russian language book and CD that I will be copying and ordering.
So, we will be picked up tomorrow to be taken to the orphanage about 2:00 in the afternoon. We can’t wait to see Aidan! Then on Tuesday, Court Date!
I’m back. We slept for about three hours and then went out for a walk around Krasnoyarsk. We ate lunch at Subway and I got a picture of Pat.
Then we walked down and found a store that carries children’s items: we think we might need an inexpensive stroller for walking around with Aidan after he is with us. And they sell children’s shoes, too.
The weather is quite warm, probably in the upper fifties. We came back to the room for a while to leave our coats behind. Too warm for the cold weather gear! Although I can’t be sorry we brought it as it was definitely needed while we were in Moscow. It warmed up once we got to Siberia! Pat is thinking of working on a tan. . . Here he is with the other guys with us in Kras:
One couple with us here was also with us in Moscow on this trip. They seem to know everybody and where to go. It’s really helpful!
The buildings in Krasnoyarsk are very Soviet looking. The city itself is several centuries old, but it appears most of the buildings were from the 60’s and 70’s. The people are nice but have been looking at us funny because we were walking around today without our coats and hats! Too warm. . .
The cost of phone calls is astronomical! We purchased International phone cards at home but it was an additional 32 rubles per minute in Moscow and 40 rubles per minute here in Kras (local call fee attached to our phone card fee). We bought some megabytes to send email and update the blog and will try to sign up for Skype (free phone service over the computer). Hopefully that will work. If not, we’ll just have to bite the bullet and pay the fee in order to call home a couple of times. In the meantime, we spent 300 rubles to buy 30 megabytes of time for Wi Fi.
And talk about being astronomical! The cost of our hotel stay in Moscow was outrageous! We apparently hit a black out day so the normal $365. a night (that’s the adoption rate??) went up to $750. a night for one of the nights. With a couple of our meals and the Wi Fi we bought there, the three nights wound up being only $200 less than what we will pay for 13 nights in Kras! Crazy. . .Fortunately, one of the folks with us found out there are no black out dates on our return trip through Moscow. Thanks be to God!
We’re missing everyone and the US. Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers. We still have a little over three weeks left here in Russia and are hoping it goes by quickly so that we can come home with our little Aidan. We can’t wait to see him tomorrow!
Love and Blessings to everyone. Paca! (That’s the informal Russian good-bye)
Stacy and Pat
1 comment:
Happy Easter! All is well here. Cleo and I have fast become friends.
She and I now have the habit of she eats half her dinner and then she sits on my lap in the rocker for scratch time and then after about 10 minutes she finishes dinner and I leave. The plants and fish are also still alive and well. Good luck Tuesday. See you in 3 weeks.
Lia
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