Today was our last day on this side of the world. The day was rather uneventful, so we'll see if I can stretch the un-events into a couple paragraphs at least!! Aren't you thankful?!
This morning we woke up at 7:30....and had to be ready to leave at 8:00. The morning was hurried. No time to make the toast (in a skillet) that I was planning to make like a little Miss Suzy Homemaker would. We had enough time to slurp down some yogurt (no spoons in our room) and munch on granola bars and out the door we ran. Oksana was waiting in the parking lot and off we went to the notary's office. I am ever so thankful for our notary's in the states. The notary's office was in a dark, dingy building. Up a couple flights of green trimmed steps and we entered the waiting room...which consisted of four chairs right at the top of the stairs, some with arm rests and some missing them. The notary arrived about 20 minutes after we did and we were soon called in to sign our three documents...to the tune of 900 rubles (translated that is $30...the exchange rate is very good right now...30 rubles to the dollar). She wrote a bunch of jibberish in her ledger and we signed our names and were off. Back into the scary streets where nobody offers the right of way and everyone zips around like maniacs. It's truly an adventure to ride through the streets of downtown city.
Notary work done, we headed to a bank to exchange some money so we could do a little shopping. So much for the resolve to not buy anything. You know, since we've been here twice before we shouldn't need too much, but since our family dynamics is about to shift to the majority being Russians, we thought that we would add to our Russian paraphernalia. GUM (pronounced goom) is where we made the majority of our purchases...nothing too extravagant. Just a Russian costume for Addie, some gifts for folks back home, a Russian bowl to add to my collection of one, a table runner (since I have SO MUCH company), and a few odds and ends for Jack. From there we headed to the army store to buy Jack a Russian fur hat. Then it was to the "baby store", though why it's called that is beyond me. Only a small fraction of it has to do with babies. Nothing was purchased there except for a few children's books bought by Oksana for our children. We were ordered to know how to read them by the time we return.....
Back at the motel again, we snacked on various things for our lunch and then everyone was down for a nice, long nap. Naps over and we ventured out to the beach where the children splashed around for a while. Hung out at the train tracks for a while watching people.....I mean, watching the trains come and go....and then back to our motel where we met up with a family from Maryland. They are here adopting a little boy named Nikolay and have with them their daughter from Perm region. She is the same age as Addie (their birthdays are one week apart) and they had a marvelous time racing around on the motel playground.
Supper was eaten in the restaurant here at the motel. We stuck with our tried and true meals of chicken strips and club sandwiches considering we have to fly out tomorrow and don't want to risk being sick on the flight. You laugh. You are likely calling us wimps. However, we learned our lesson the hard way the very first night we were here. We feasted in a little room called the White Rabbit and ordered a delicious sounding meal of nachos el grande. Sounds good, huh?! It is in the States. Maybe it is here sometimes too, but that night (and today, I guess, according to Todd and Rebecca, our new friends from Maryland) it was really not edible. Seriously. When they walked through the door with the huge platters of nachos, it smelled like something rancid had walked in. And then we tasted them. Oh my. The taste is something that words cannot do justice to. Lets just say that Jason didn't feel good the whole next day.....and Todd hasn't felt well all afternoon. We got some good laughs when we discovered that we both had the same experience. We're hoping that we don't see nachos for a good long time. Anyway....that was kind of a rabbit trail. We ate with Todd, Rebecca, and their two children and then headed back to our room to get to bed. That's been quite some time ago, though, and here I sit.
The bags are nearly packed and we should be ready to go by 1:00 tomorrow afternoon....which would be 10:00 Friday night in our home on the other side of the world. 25 hours after that....we should touch down at the good ole home airport.
Blessings to you all~
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