Stir Crazy

Is anyone getting sick of reading about bonding yet? We know it is an emotional experience for us, and a unique glimpse into a different culture. However, the days must seem to be blurring together by now for those of you following on a regular basis. Our days are punctuated with 2 hours of excitement each morning when we see the kids, surrounded by long stretches of very little activity. This may sound relaxing to many of you, and indeed it was the first few days. However, imagine this:

Each morning we get up between 4:00 and 7:00 (depending on the whim of the jet lag fairies). We each enjoy a brief shower that is either scalding hot or freezing cold (depending on the whim of the shower fairies). We certainly have run out of hot water at home, but who runs out of cold water?

The Shiny River Hotel complimentary breakfast starts at 7:00, and being cheapskates, this is our big meal of the day. This is not the American style continental breakfast. Our buffet starts with a light salad of tomatoes and cukes, hold the lettuce (actually, come to think of it, hold the lettuce for the whole country; we haven't seen any since we arrived). We then have a selection of weiners, pizza, and potatoes (fried with onions or boiled with nothing depending on the whim of the breakfast fairies). Adjacent to this are blintzes that share a heating container with.... hot porrage (we think). Then we have yogurt, canned fruit, instant coffee, and dried pastries. There is also a make-your-own omellete station which Blythe attends religiously. Seth usually just makes do with one of everything. We sit and enjoy this repast with the same erie background musak medley every morning: ave maria, over the rainbow, the godfather, flash dance, heaven can wait, and the strangely apros pro hotel california. Then we rush upstairs to read all of our blog commentary, which really does make us happy.

9:45 - Off to see the kids. You know how that goes for the most part. Several highlights from today: Kostin has been increasingly more quiet and subdued recently. Today he started off his usual rambunctious self, but soon fell into a more pensive mood, sitting on papa's lap and clutching his "sweet" carbonated water. We think he's starting to realize what's going on. Or perhaps, this is more of what he is like when we are not around. Either way, he is more resistant to learning English than is Alina. She is now parroting back any word we repeat twice. Her pronounciation is pretty good, and a heck of alot better than our Russian. Alina's generosity never ceases to amaze us. Anything we give her she sooner or later gives away to her friends or care givers. Even her much cherished beaded necklace and tiara popped up on one of the care takers who appeared in a play the other day. We had to stop her from smuggling toys out of the room today to give away on the playground. Blythe is thinking of bolting down the furniture when we get home. Anyway, there are worse vices.

At noon we leave the orphanage with our friend Lauren and our interpreter Denara. We have a driver for a few hours, and usually head to lunch. We have tried Turkish, Chinese, Pancakes, and pizza. Yesterday we asked Denara to take us somewhere new. She took us to another pizza place. Actually, it was another franchise of the same pizza chain. We guess we've done the whole town. Today we forgot to ask them to hold the mayo on our pizza. It wasn't bad. We can't say that it was good, but we can scratch it off our to-do list for this trip.

After lunch we usually head back to the hotel. In the afternoon we occassionally do some shopping for the kids or for souveniers (don't get excited; there isn't that much here in that department). Once back at the hotel we update the blog and write in our journal for the court. Then Seth goes through a daily ritual of cinema widthdrawl as he forgot to bring any DVD's and none here are on U.S. format. Can you imagine Seth deprived of his movies? Not a pretty sight. We then settle in for a night of CNN (the only English speaking station we have other than the fashion channel). By the way, when you watch CNN for 4 hours a day, 10 days in a row, it becomes clear just how few stories they report and simply recycle through the day. Other than bizzare local interest stories, we pretty much only hear about the U.S. presidential race (in painstaking detail) or the apocalyptic weather patterns you people seem to be enjoying. We're out of the country for 10 days, and the place is clearly falling apart!

We've now reached the point in the evening where Blythe watches the fashion channel and Seth reads a book. So we will sign off until tomorrow!