The beginning of a crazy special day... Part 1

I'm really not sure if it's jet lag or emotional exhaustion...maybe a mix of both, probably a mix of both, but I'm exhausted so please forgive my grammatical errors in advance. Also, blogging on the iPad is a bit difficult, so this is going to come across in a few different posts.

I have three lists of things I want to blog about, but for now, just some highlights (maybe some lowlights) from our first meeting.  But then again, there are things I just can't skip cause it just wouldn't  be right.

We were told last night we would be picked up by Oleg in a nice black BMW who would take us to meet our facilitator who lived 10 min from where we were staying.

To our surprise, as you can imagine, we were picked up by Mikel in a white Ford. Mikel doesn't speak English. And he smokes. But off we went. I asked a yes or no question in Russian and hence he supposed I spoke Russian. I got a whole shpeel about religion and Santa Clause. and 30 min later, he dropped us at a кафе (cafe).... No facilitator. I asked about her by name and he said yes, and said something about his машина (machina aka car) and he left with our suitcases and backpack in his car.

And so we sat there like fish out of water. The waitress offered us drinks to which I replied "I only speak English" before I came up with чай (chai aka tea) and she gave us a teapot without making us pay first, probably because we looked so pathetic.

Thankfully, our facilitator showed up about 30 min later and all was well. 

We proceeded to the Ministry of Education where we waited awhile and then called in. We were asked a couple of easy questions - about our family and jobs and why we "couldn't adopt from the US) which I answered and then our facilitator translated in a better fashion. Money well spent there...little did I know. The lady then read us the profile of our little girl and asked us to sign 5 papers if we wanted to go meet her. We did and she proceeded to tell us спасибо (thank you) for giving this orphan a chance at a life with a family and she hopes we love her very much. I could have cried then. 

Then it was lunch - crepes filled with meat and sour cream and eclairs - and off on the LONG drive to the orphanage with Mikel. We saw a few familiar sites along the way.