Downtown

The City Wall

Taking a Walk

As I begin writing this, it is about 5:40 pm Russia time, so that would mean it’s about 6:40 am California time. Good morning!

We had an interesting day today. Before I go on, I have a few key memories to log:

Russia dubbing – they don’t take out the English, they actual talk over the English so at times you can understand what’s going on. We watched Chuck Norris this morning!

The weather – PDC (pretty darn cold) although our jackets et al seem to work just fine.

The food – so far it has been excellent! I have really enjoyed the food, especially the Asparagus in cheese sauce! Butter is unsalted here just like in Italy.

Everywhere we go they seem to be playing American music – going from Frank Sinatra to Journey to The Doors to Pink. Its quite amazing.

This city does not seem like much of a tourist town – not many souvenirs and they looked at us taking pictures a bit strangely.

Women dress very fashionably here.

Deana looks hilarious when she wraps her scarf around her face; her glasses fog up and then freeze that way…..

We arrived in Russia close to midnight – immigration was a bit intimidating because they really check you out!!! The guy I had didn’t speak much English so it was a bit difficult at times, but it worked out. Customs went very smoothly and we then met our translator Olga and our driver Sergei. We got into a small Subaru and headed for our hotel, which took a bit longer than I had anticipated. During the drive, we were told it was 14 degrees Fahrenheit! Brrrrrrr. Today it was -10 degrees Celsius – not sure of the conversion, will check it out after I log onto the internet.

Anyway, the hotel room is nice – not as big as American standards, but bigger than some of the rooms we have had in Europe. The shower is full sized so no cramped space like in Italy! Yes! And it is very warm once you get inside – VERY warm! Deana would tell you it is still freezing, but she is always cold. So far, most of the hotel staff speak English – some better than others – and I find that very impressive!

Today we had “the day off”, which meant we had free time and would not have any activities involving the adoption agency. We walked to downtown Nizhky Navgorod and did some window shopping and bum freezing!! The people we encountered seemed overall very nice, although not overtly friendly. But if you smiled or said hi, they responded nicely. I am glad to be sitting in our hotel room relaxing though! Even though it took us 24 hours to get here, I am still feeling the effect of the jet lag! It is also taking forever to download the pics to my laptop due to old pics on the card…..

Tomorrow we will be meeting Olga and Sergei at 8:30 am. Deana will go to the Ministry of Education (MOE) to be interviewed and then we head to the orphanage to meet her children!!! She is pretty nervous – she hasn’t talked much about it today and kind of steered away from that conversation. They are DEFINITELY not like the French! LOL

Sorry this is so random and inarticulate!

Here are a few shots from our walk today in the city.

Gina