Arrival

And so, our adventure begins! After an hour of fumbling, I have figured out how to log on to the internet and keep the blogspot controls from defaulting to Russian. Blythe is trying to get some sleep after 2 days of travel, and my typing is preventing that - so I'll be brief.

We flew out of Hartford on the evening of May 30th non-stop to Amsterdam, where we were happy to see the West Hartford Cow Parade is alive and well at the Hilton. After a 13 hour layover (during which time we slept and saw nothing) we took another overnight flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Incidentally, KLM beats Northwest hands down, as we spent our second flight in a non-stop movie marathon with our own personal display screens.

June 1st - we celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary in a small uncomfortable airport hotel in Almaty. Our coordinator assures us that this is a substandard facility, but as our flight to Ust-Kamenogorsk was 3 hours delayed we had little choice. Blythe passed out on the cardboard mattress (as seen in photo below) while I repacked our bags.

On the flight to Ust, we met a fellow yankee adoptor (Lauren Bloom) and we welcomed the company. The flight was trecherous, but our hotel is beautiful, and our coordinator Alma seems very capable. Blythe & I are realizing we woefully underestimated the quality of the gift we plan to give her at the end. Glittery beach bags are cool, but we'll be scrambling for something better.

Tomorrow is the big day, and we are looking forward to meeting the kids....