Monday, 21 May (good day, busy day, long entry!) Up at 8:30 and after a chemically-induced full night’s sleep, we woke to no hot water. We have now learned to shower when you can…a “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” lesson in opportunity management. Mark had decided after a hot and dirty day at Extreme Park that he’d wait until morning to shower. He made good use of the “personal wipes” that we brought! About 10:15, we got a call from Sveta telling us to be downstairs in ten minutes so we could go to the courthouse to meet with […]

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Sunday, 20 May 2007 Since the first day we arrived at the orphanage (OK, so that’s only two days, but it seems like longere…) Masha has been asking to go to “Extreme Park.” Apparently, at least one of the families that came ahead of us took their child to an amusement park in town called Extreme Park. Seems now that all the kids have decided that this their adoptive parents purpose in life is to take them to this place. We were originally going to try to put this off until later in the trip, but for a number of […]

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Saturday, 19 May Not quite as time-adjusted as I had thought, I was awake and ready to meet the world at 6:30 AM. I got up, made a cup of tea, and went through a couple of sections of Russian using the Rosetta Stone program. I now know how to say “The horse jumps” and “A ball on a boy.” Really useful stuff. At about 8:30, Mark got up, and we got ourselves around and ready to go by the time that our driver Sasha arrived at 10:45 to take us to the orphanage. We had brought gifts for several […]

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Friday, 18 May, 2007 Today was the day! Our train arrived right on time at 9:00 AM. We were met by two drivers; one for Fred and Lisa, the other for me and Mark. We both had so much luggage and the cars were both so small that Sveta barely fit in our car! We dropped Fred and Lisa off at their apartment, and then drove to ours, about three miles away. The apartment here is very large, and comfortable(unlike the elevator, which *barely* holds three very friendly people. There are two bedrooms, an eat-n kitchen, and a separate living […]

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Thursday, 17 March Today, we didn’t have any real plans, so we took the opportunity to sleep in a little bit. And then a little turned into a lot. We got up around 11:30, which left us just enough time to pack all of our stuff, eat lunch, and check email. Mark walked out to the grocery to pick up a few bottles of water and some snacks for the train. At 3:00 on the dot, Zhana arrived with a new driver who would take us to the train station. She had thoughtfully prepared us a care package for the […]

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