Greetings from Astrakhan!

Well, now we’re in Astrakhan.

When we woke up this morning, it was raining pretty hard in Moscow. So we just hung out at the hotel. We ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant. A bit expensive, but it was good and we didn’t have to go outside in the rain. Mia (our translator) and the driver picked us up at about noon. Traffic was pretty heavy, so it took us a little longer than usual to get to the airport. When we did get there, Mia found that our flight had been delayed. We had to wait around a bit before they would let us through security and in to the check-in area. We only waited about 20 minutes or so. Once we got through security, we headed to check-in. This is where they weigh your luggage. Uh, oh!!!! We were about 30 kg over our limit. It cost us over 4000 rubles for the extra weight!!!!!! Woah!!!! I thought that was pretty steep! Especially since one whole suitcase is just for our little girl. We’re hoping that on the way back we won’t have this charge, since she will be with us. Anyway, we paid the fee and headed up the stairs to wait by the gate. We took the tram to the airplane and it looked like we’d be about 30 minutes late. Then security pulled up to the plane. Two security people came on the plane. I don’t really know what was going on, but there were a lot of loud voices! After a while, the security people left the plane and we were able to take off. All in all, we ended up being about an hour late. On the plane, we sat next to a man who was from Arkansas. Go figure! We were probably the only people on the whole plane who spoke English and we ended up sitting next to each other. He and his family recently moved to Moscow. He is here on a 3 year work visa. He works for Wal-Mart and he is coordinating the opening of Wal-Mart stores in Russia. (Sorry, Bridget! I know you’re not going to like that). Anyway, it was nice to talk to someone who was also from the States.

We ended up not getting to our hotel here in Astrakhan until about 7:00 p.m. By the time we got settled in, it was getting pretty late to go out to dinner. So we just ate here at the hotel.

Of course, you know the main positive reason of being here in Russia – our little girl. But as we were watching TV (all in Russia, so we have no idea what they are saying), we thought of another positive reason for being here. We get to go a whole month without hearing all about Kwame Kilpatrick’s woes. That’s quite a positive too.

Tomorrow we get picked up at 10:00 a.m. to go to the orphanage. We can’t wait to see her! We’re hoping that she somehow remembers us! That’s all for now.