Even though the apartment that we had reserved through Expedia had been given to someone else, the owners had another smaller one for us to use. A little studio flat with bright blue and green walls and a hot pink ceiling. At only $80 per night, compared to $150 for the only decent but affordable hotel in the city, it was hard to pass up. The first night we were here, we stayed at the Doubletree hotel, enjoying one night of luxury until our apartment was ready for us. The breakfast was divine and we enjoyed every bite.
Day two. Time to check out of the hotel, check into the apartment, then travel over to the baby house to visit Hazel again. Luckily, it was a holiday here in Russia, so the roads were free from the usual heavy traffic.
Today, our agency lined us up with a new interpreter named Oksana. What a fun lady. We loved hearing all of her stories of traveling to America and visiting all of the past adopting families that she had met over the years.
As always, we were told to help ourselves to the big therapy room, and that Hazel's caregiver would bring her to us in a few minutes. It wasn't long before we heard the slap, slap, slap of little feet echoing in the hallway.
There's our baby girl. All dressed up in a classic Russian dress, mismatched tights and one of her silly ponytail hairdo's. All cute and ready to play.
Here's some video of us playing with our little elephant toy. By the next visit, she had this thing down She picked it right up and started shaking it. Didn't take her long!
I have to be honest. We were kind of concerned after our first visit because she was REALLY hyper/grabby/pinchy/hair pully/head-butty. But we had a hunch that it was because she was just excited to have some two-on-one attention and didn't know quite how to handle it all. I think we were right. Monday's visit we saw a much more in-control Hazel. Our interpreter asked her caregiver later if she was always so hyper and she said that no, she was actually really well-behaved and calm in her groupa. That was good to hear. Seriously, we were freaking out a little.
After our visit, the cab driver dropped us off at a yummy Italian restaurant near our apartment, where we enjoyed some fire-roasted pizza with Oksana. Later, we crashed for a couple of hours, then had a court preparation meeting with our in-country coordinator, Anna in our apartment.
That night, we bundled all up in our hats, gloves, scarves, boots and down parkas and headed out into the cold night air toward the metro station, a few blocks away, to meet a senior missionary whom we had met the day before when we attended church (this deserves a blog post on its own. I may go back and write about it on yesterday's post while we're flying or something.) Anyhow, Elder Web met us, then led us four metro stops away, where we met up with his wife, then another two stops further, where we got out and walked 20 minutes to another senior missionary couple's apartment, on the "left bank" of Novosibirsk. The Webb's are the "office couple" here in the Novosibirsk LDS Mission. They take care of all the office responsibilities, helping the Mission president manage his army of about 80 missionaries, covering an area that's geographically as large as the U.S. The other couple (whose last name has left us) is in charge of the seminary and institute program here in Novo. They also help the young Elders and Sisters by hosting teaching appointments in their apartment. What's really amazing is that both of these couples are from the same small town in Washington state and knew each other before being called to this mission, about a year apart. We had a fun night, talking about our adoption miracles and laughing about all the silly, quirky things that Russians do. We enjoyed our 2nd home-cooked meal in two nights and felt completely at home with these wonderful people. Their hospitality was like balm to our emotional, travel-weary, culture-shocked souls. It's truly remarkable how you can go anywhere in the world and instantly connect with other people, when you're a member of the LDS church.
We love experiencing the city life, Russian-style. Waking up in the morning and looking out of our 7th-story window to a bustling city street, where bundled-up people walk every which way in the snow. Everyone in this city of 3 million people lives in an apartment. Few people own cars because there's nowhere to park. People take the metro or bus, then walk to get where they're going. I asked the Webb's if you ever get used to walking so far in such cold weather every day, and they surprized me when they answered that, yes, you do! You just have to dress for the temps.
That's it for day 2! I'm going to let Jeremy use the computer to call his employees for a little while, then if I have enough energy, I'll catch up with a post about day 3, which was today!
Day two. Time to check out of the hotel, check into the apartment, then travel over to the baby house to visit Hazel again. Luckily, it was a holiday here in Russia, so the roads were free from the usual heavy traffic.
Today, our agency lined us up with a new interpreter named Oksana. What a fun lady. We loved hearing all of her stories of traveling to America and visiting all of the past adopting families that she had met over the years.
As always, we were told to help ourselves to the big therapy room, and that Hazel's caregiver would bring her to us in a few minutes. It wasn't long before we heard the slap, slap, slap of little feet echoing in the hallway.
There's our baby girl. All dressed up in a classic Russian dress, mismatched tights and one of her silly ponytail hairdo's. All cute and ready to play.
The hairdo lasted all of 10 minutes. Ah, to bad.
Time for some squeezes and kisses.
I love that every time I kiss her cheeks, she pulls back so she can look at my face, then she smiles at me like, hey, that was kinda awesome.
Here's some video of us playing with our little elephant toy. By the next visit, she had this thing down She picked it right up and started shaking it. Didn't take her long!
I have to be honest. We were kind of concerned after our first visit because she was REALLY hyper/grabby/pinchy/hair pully/head-butty. But we had a hunch that it was because she was just excited to have some two-on-one attention and didn't know quite how to handle it all. I think we were right. Monday's visit we saw a much more in-control Hazel. Our interpreter asked her caregiver later if she was always so hyper and she said that no, she was actually really well-behaved and calm in her groupa. That was good to hear. Seriously, we were freaking out a little.
After our visit, the cab driver dropped us off at a yummy Italian restaurant near our apartment, where we enjoyed some fire-roasted pizza with Oksana. Later, we crashed for a couple of hours, then had a court preparation meeting with our in-country coordinator, Anna in our apartment.
That night, we bundled all up in our hats, gloves, scarves, boots and down parkas and headed out into the cold night air toward the metro station, a few blocks away, to meet a senior missionary whom we had met the day before when we attended church (this deserves a blog post on its own. I may go back and write about it on yesterday's post while we're flying or something.) Anyhow, Elder Web met us, then led us four metro stops away, where we met up with his wife, then another two stops further, where we got out and walked 20 minutes to another senior missionary couple's apartment, on the "left bank" of Novosibirsk. The Webb's are the "office couple" here in the Novosibirsk LDS Mission. They take care of all the office responsibilities, helping the Mission president manage his army of about 80 missionaries, covering an area that's geographically as large as the U.S. The other couple (whose last name has left us) is in charge of the seminary and institute program here in Novo. They also help the young Elders and Sisters by hosting teaching appointments in their apartment. What's really amazing is that both of these couples are from the same small town in Washington state and knew each other before being called to this mission, about a year apart. We had a fun night, talking about our adoption miracles and laughing about all the silly, quirky things that Russians do. We enjoyed our 2nd home-cooked meal in two nights and felt completely at home with these wonderful people. Their hospitality was like balm to our emotional, travel-weary, culture-shocked souls. It's truly remarkable how you can go anywhere in the world and instantly connect with other people, when you're a member of the LDS church.
We love experiencing the city life, Russian-style. Waking up in the morning and looking out of our 7th-story window to a bustling city street, where bundled-up people walk every which way in the snow. Everyone in this city of 3 million people lives in an apartment. Few people own cars because there's nowhere to park. People take the metro or bus, then walk to get where they're going. I asked the Webb's if you ever get used to walking so far in such cold weather every day, and they surprized me when they answered that, yes, you do! You just have to dress for the temps.
That's it for day 2! I'm going to let Jeremy use the computer to call his employees for a little while, then if I have enough energy, I'll catch up with a post about day 3, which was today!
2 comments:
Post a Comment