What a Great Day

Today was an awesome day. Since the other couple had their preliminary trial this morning we had the orphanage to ourselves. First thing before we went to the orphanage was that we went over to the other hotel to see if we could check into a nicer room for when my parents come into town. We were able to get the largest room, which will accommodate 3 to four people. Supposedly it is a triplex but we did not even go to look at it, we were just happy to move out of the youth hostel known as the Hotel Volga. Osnabruck also has a nice restaurant and internet access. I am psyched. Mike and I will move over after trial on Friday.

We headed to the orphanage with our translator in a separate car than the other couple who took the yellow van with our coordinator to court. We were able to play in the back room and had the place to ourselves. It was really nice not having the other couple there also. Even though their daughter is great and it is nice sharing this experience with them. Just being a family of four and hanging out together was awesome. The room was quiet with very little distractions so we were really able to play with them and get them to focus and relax. Our translator stayed in the room with us and he used my flip video to video us playing. I have almost 1 hour of footage. It will be so valuable to have and I am excited for the girls to be able to see it when they are older. Masha really opened up. She even babbled a little. She said ‘da’ which means yes in Russian but said it a couple times in a row so mike swears she was really saying dada! Which she was not -but it was fun anyway. Dasha was really interactive and we got her to stand and walk a lot. They had been brought down to us wearing the other outfits I had left with them last trip. The onesies (without feet) were 12 month size and huge. I brought footed fleece onesie outfits in 9 month size that Esther had given me from her twins. I was thrilled to be alone to change them. I took everything off of them except the diaper and under shirt. It was great to see their bodies. Both are sooooo skinny, you can’t really tell how little they are when they have all those layers of clothes on. Both have outie belly buttons and no scars or marks on their bodies which was nice to see. I put the 9 month outfits on them and they fit so much better. It was still a little big on Masha but fit Dasha perfectly. They did not have grippy feet so it was a little difficult for Dasha to get herself up and walk around but she managed fine. It was a great morning and we were reluctant to give the girls back to their caregivers for the afternoon nap and meal.

We headed back to the hotel and met up with the other couple to be debriefed after their court experience. We learned a lot and heard about their experience. It is mostly paperwork and answering questions relating to documents on the first day. Sounded stressful but thankfully it was only an hour. We went to a restaurant called Fortuna which is in walking distance from the hotel on a nice pedestrian street. I would have never known it was a restaurant. The retail places here are so weird. Not open with glass windows so you can see inside like we are used to. Just a tiny sign and a side door entrance which looks like you could be walking into someone’s home, basement or whatever. Anyway, you walk in and there is a tiny room with 8 tables. The menu was all in Russian so our translator made suggestions for us. We all got a type of soup and I had a chicken dish which I was told had fried vegetable in it (We are so deprived here of vegetables that whenever we can get them we jump at it) but what ended up coming to the table was chicken over a warm potato salad with mayo. It tasted good anyway, but was just weird. Mike had a specialty dish called a ‘Russian Frying pan’. It was like a pot pie type thing with meat, scalloped potatoes some vegetables covered in cheese. It looked really good. Our translator eats borsht with every meal. It is gross.

After lunch we got in a 1 hour nap and headed back to the orphanage. This time we had to play in the lobby area again but we were left alone for the most part so that was nice. Dasha and Daddy and the other couples husband and her daughter spent the time hunched over walking around with the girls. It was so cute to see. Dasha is walking so well and she is so happy doing it. Masha and I lounged on the sofa and read a book and played with toys. She is very observant and we had a good time. She loves the little bunny that plays music and the book that she can touch the different textures on. The time flew by. We were not ready to leave when the caregivers came down. So we dillydallied and asked to bring the girls up to their groupa ourselves. We spent a little more time and carried them upstairs we put all of them in the playpen and gave them lots of hugs and kisses. The other couples daughter was clinging to dad so tightly she cried when he put her down. It was so sad to leave them. The other playpen next to theirs had about 6 kids already in it. One downs kid was banging his head against the bars. It was really heartbreaking to see.

We left for the night and headed to 24hour cafeteria for dinner. We have officially dubbed the place ’24 Yaca’ because yaca is how you spell 'hours' in Russian, but it sounds like ‘chasa’ in Russian. Mike is learning how to pronounce the names of the dishes he is ordering and we are having fun figuring out words in Russian as we are figuring out that an ‘H’ is an ‘n’ and a ‘N’ is an ‘I’ , a ‘c’ is an ‘s’ and a ‘P’ in an ‘R’ and a ‘B’ is a ‘v’. A whole lot of letters come directly from the Greek alphabet. Lamda, gamma, phi, and pi are just some of the Russian letters that we know from Greek. My sorority days have helped in that area. Off to sleep at 9 pm after reviewing some of our documents for trial. Of course we are now up at 4 am writing this because we cannot sleep any more. Hopefully another hour or 2 before we have to get up for the day.