Arrival in Vladivostok

Today's a big day...  this morning our driver will pick us up at 9:15 and take us to go see Little M.  Evan finally gets to meet his new little brother.  We learned yesterday from our coordinator, Ivan, that Little M has been moved to a summer house.  Apparently Children's Home #2 is undergoing renovations.  Apparently it's about a 45 minute drive.


With the 15 hour difference between Vladivostok and Florida, our internal clocks kept us waking up every few hours or so and as of 4:30 Vlad time, we were up for the day.  (with a little luck, I'll be able to fit in a nap later) The hotel's restaurant doesn't open until 7:30am, so we're biding the time with some beef jerky, Nutella and peanut butter which we combined with an apple we picked up yesterday from the restaurant on our dash to our medical appointments.  Not a bad appetizer.


Let me back up to our mad dash.  Our flight from Moscow to Vladivostok lasted about nine hours, landing at 1:30 pm here.  By the time we found our driver, collected all our luggage and got on our way, it was nearly 2:15 pm.  Our coordinator, Ivan, was meeting us at the hotel at 3:00 pm and another driver would take us from there, to our medical appointments in downtown Vlad.  If you could see the roads in Vladivostok right now, you'd understand that the ENTIRE highway system we had to travel is under construction for the coming APEC conference next year.  Our arrival at the hotel at 3:00 was a miraculous event.  Our medical appointment was at 4:00 pm and we couldn't be late.  We needed this panel of physicians to sign off on our medical health as part of the court requirements for the adoption.  That left us about 10 minutes to get our luggage to our room, rinse off in the shower and change into fresh clothes, not to mention locating our xray chest films which we hand carried over to prove that we're not carriers of TB.  Somehow we made it on time.  Evan was so tired, he fell asleep, again.  First he slept the entire car ride from the airport to the hotel, then he slept the entire car ride from the hotel to the medical building.  He was so sound asleep that we actually left him sleeping in the car (with our trusted driver who spoke no English) while we dashed in for our appointments.  He was still snoozing when we returned to the hotel.  We were left with just enough energy to have a light dinner in the restaurant, walk around the outside of the hotel to the kids playground, and then get settled into our room for the night.  More on that later...