Moscow Update

We’re now at our hotel in Moscow. We arrived here at around 5:00pm last night but only after long 90 minute car ride to our hotel. After departing our plane, we got our luggage and were met by our new translator “Kate”. I’m guessing her name is Katrina or Katarina but she introduced herself as Kate. We were never introduced to our driver but his car fumed us out. We got sick on the car ride to the hotel. All you could smell was exhaust fumes the entire drive. We’re really hoping we don’t have to ride in that same car all day today. Getting gassed out of the car along with the bumpy flight here inspired us to stay at the hotel.

We ended up eating dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. Jess had some sort of stuffed chicken and I had white sauce spaghetti. Both were good. We are staying at the Hotel Irbis. It’s off the beaten path but much more affordable than the ones near the Kremlin. The Westernized hotels there start at around $300 a night.

We have our medical exams later this morning and we're told we travel to the facilitator’s office afterwards. Her name is Svetlana. She is in charge of everything here in Russia.

Earlier today, we got to visit with Roman and Sergei for the last time on this trip. Afterwards Nina surprised us with some more good news. She thinks our court date will be sometime in October! We’d take any day in October for sure, but the sooner we can just get them home and begin our “normal” lives, the better!

Prior to leaving the orphanage this morning, we gave the caregivers a couple of disposable cameras for them to take some pictures of the boys with for us in between our trips. This photo is one of the many they ended up taking for us. It's a tub of full of balls in the play area.

Now that we are apart from the boys, we really wished we would've booked our departure flight sometime shortly after our medical exams today instead of having to stay here until Saturday. Neither one of us are big fans of large cities any more. We're stuck here until through most of Saturday and will just make the most of it. Maybe we can take in some of Moscow’s more famous sights. I’m sure we won’t have a lot of time for sightseeing on the next trip.