We spent yesterday, at the hospital, having our 8 doctor physicals. The best way to describe it was like playing musical chairs popping in and out visiting different doctors. Only one spoke English, so our translator would stand behind a screen and translate "touch your toes" "breathe deep". We had chest x-rays to rule out tb done here in Russia but brought our lab results from the US for the bloodwork. We visited an oncologist, pulmonogist, dermatologist, narcologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, immunologist, and finally a primary care doc. John enjoyed seeing the hospital, and comparing the facilities, medical practices and procedures to his hospitals. We then had to wait for the head of the hospital to sign the official paperwork, so that part took the longest.
We then drove over to the office and dropped off our paperwork. We were then done for the day. Our driver dropped us off at our aparment and John and I walked over to the grocery across the street to get some bread. We had some dinner at the apartment, and then went walking the neighborhood north of us. Saw some beautiful old homes and several embassies. This is a wonderful time of year to be in Moscow, pleasant weather, beautiful flowers and just lots of stuff to see.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thomas
We have accepted our referral. He is a cute, curious, very busy 8 month old. The weather has been very pleasant and we were able to go outside in the stroller and walk for more than an hour today. We are very surprised that Thomas is so young...we were expecting a toddler around 2.
We have been much busier than we anticipated. The Moscow traffic is very congested and it takes several hours of driving a day to get to the orphanage and back...Vladimir is a very good driver...I have no worries about motion sickness. With the upcoming Russian White Nights, it stays light here so late...past 10pm and sunrise is around 4 am...you easily miss your normal bed time as you don't realize how late it is. Will try to update some more tomorrow.
We have been much busier than we anticipated. The Moscow traffic is very congested and it takes several hours of driving a day to get to the orphanage and back...Vladimir is a very good driver...I have no worries about motion sickness. With the upcoming Russian White Nights, it stays light here so late...past 10pm and sunrise is around 4 am...you easily miss your normal bed time as you don't realize how late it is. Will try to update some more tomorrow.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Second Day-Sunday
We slept really well and had a morning of leisure. John flipped through the tv stations and at one point we were watching Foyle's War in English on the Hallmark Channel then flipped to an old Elvis movie on Turner Classic Movies.
We met Katia and Vladimir at 11 for a city tour. Being Sunday and raining, the traffic was very light. We went to Red Square first by St. Basil's Cathedral. The area was cordoned off with lots of security; police and military and teenagers or young 20 somethings in various military outfits (the women were all wearing skirts). Katia explained that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was having a meeting at the Kremlin and a service at St. Basil's. We took some video of the Russian folk dancers and chorus singing...will try and upload at some future point.
We walked to GUM department store, which is something I've always wanted to see. I remember sitting in my Intro to Marketing class at Notre Dame, sophomore year and seeing pictures of GUM, and thinking I would really like to see that (at that time it was still the Soviet Union and GUM was considered the super luxurious place to buy goods) I guess its lost its cache or I've gotten jaded as it looked like any other upscale mall you would visit in a large city. We walked through quick. Katia took our picture at the center fountain.
We then stood in a short line to see Lenin preserved in his tomb. Katia said she would hold our cameras for us as they were not permitted. Had to go through metal detectors and then entered the building and wound down and through some passageways with everything made of dark stone. They had military guards stationed at every corner that just stood stiffly and stared straight out. So I found that very interesting/unnerving as you felt like you were being stared at yet they would not make eye contact. There purpose was to keep the line moving and not allow talking. Wound around where the glass case was and he looked like a pale, Madame Treussad wax figure. Then rounded the corner and popped out into the daylight. Walked through some gardens where Stalin and other famous Russians were buried. Just at that time, the Russian Orthodox priests in gowns and hats carrying icons and gold vessels emerged from the Kremlin gate. They formed a long parade from the Kremlin to St. Basils. Would have loved to have a picture but we were still behind the secure area and Katia was at the meeting point all the way across the square with our cameras. So missed that event. Will have to try and freeze that into memory.
Walked through Alexander Garden and saw the eternal flame for the grave of unknown soldier. The gardens were beautiful with all the tulips and lilacs in bloom. Vladimir picked us up on the other side of the gardens.
We drove to the Christ the Savior Cathedral and toured it (our apartment has a good partial view of the church). Katia stopped and explained a lot of the paintings and the different saints featured. They had relics from St. Nicholas (Santa Claus fame). Toured the lower Cathedral and museum. The cathedral was recently re-built in the 90's but you would never know, as it seems to be centuries old. We drove up to the high point of Moscow, where Moscow State University is (one of Stalin's 7 skyscrapers) but with the weather being so poor didn't spend a lot of time viewing the city. Just popped out, took a picture or two and popped back into the car. We did the same with the Novodichy Convent and park. After 3 hours of site seeing, we headed back to the apartment (flat as they like to say here)
Had some lunch. We made the mistake of just laying down to rest our eyes, and 3 hours later realized we just slept away the late afternoon-early evening. The last 2 days the weather has been rainy all day, then around 5 it clears off and gets sunny. We had planned to walk and stop for dinner but were moving slow from the nap and in the indecisive point of what to do since it was getting too late to do our plans. We went with the path of least resistance and decided just to walk to the 24 hour market and pick up dinner fixings. We did stop and visit a very large bookstore right near our apartment. Just browsed as everything was in Russian.
At the market, we picked up a few things. John picked up some blintzes/blini--not sure what the filling was. I was kind of surprised he was so daring, as he usually doesn't like the unknown. We picked up some pelmini that I was going to cook. Again, didn't know what the filling was as it was all Russian. They had lots of variety. John picked something in a red package that had "3" something. I was hoping it was 3 cheese. On the way home, John confessed that he saw a blini that the filling was oozing out and it looked like apple to him, so he matched the lettering on label. Aghh...that explains the daringness.
Got home, took a picture of our $20 purchase, and started to cook the pelmini. I realized right away it was some kind of meat...either beef or pork from the smell.
I sent John to go "google" the label so we would know what the mystery meat was that we were eating. He found the companies website with the ingredient list. It was 3 meat...beef, pork and lamb.
The one package I really wanted to avoid. We're not anti-meat but just are a little uncomfortable with processed Russian meat (and processed American meat, too). We ate it along with our cheap Russian white wine in the plastic, wine barrel package. We had no hopes that it was going to be good but figured we would wing it. It was very juicy and even though the label said wine (I can read that in Russian) it was more like fortified grape juice, but with the alcohol content we figured it would kill any off any germ in the mystery meat.
Cleaned up, watched some tv and headed to bed. The St. Basils/Cathedral/Red Square pictures are on the other camera and didn't get downloaded...so will add those at a future date.
We met Katia and Vladimir at 11 for a city tour. Being Sunday and raining, the traffic was very light. We went to Red Square first by St. Basil's Cathedral. The area was cordoned off with lots of security; police and military and teenagers or young 20 somethings in various military outfits (the women were all wearing skirts). Katia explained that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was having a meeting at the Kremlin and a service at St. Basil's. We took some video of the Russian folk dancers and chorus singing...will try and upload at some future point.
We walked to GUM department store, which is something I've always wanted to see. I remember sitting in my Intro to Marketing class at Notre Dame, sophomore year and seeing pictures of GUM, and thinking I would really like to see that (at that time it was still the Soviet Union and GUM was considered the super luxurious place to buy goods) I guess its lost its cache or I've gotten jaded as it looked like any other upscale mall you would visit in a large city. We walked through quick. Katia took our picture at the center fountain.We then stood in a short line to see Lenin preserved in his tomb. Katia said she would hold our cameras for us as they were not permitted. Had to go through metal detectors and then entered the building and wound down and through some passageways with everything made of dark stone. They had military guards stationed at every corner that just stood stiffly and stared straight out. So I found that very interesting/unnerving as you felt like you were being stared at yet they would not make eye contact. There purpose was to keep the line moving and not allow talking. Wound around where the glass case was and he looked like a pale, Madame Treussad wax figure. Then rounded the corner and popped out into the daylight. Walked through some gardens where Stalin and other famous Russians were buried. Just at that time, the Russian Orthodox priests in gowns and hats carrying icons and gold vessels emerged from the Kremlin gate. They formed a long parade from the Kremlin to St. Basils. Would have loved to have a picture but we were still behind the secure area and Katia was at the meeting point all the way across the square with our cameras. So missed that event. Will have to try and freeze that into memory.
Walked through Alexander Garden and saw the eternal flame for the grave of unknown soldier. The gardens were beautiful with all the tulips and lilacs in bloom. Vladimir picked us up on the other side of the gardens.We drove to the Christ the Savior Cathedral and toured it (our apartment has a good partial view of the church). Katia stopped and explained a lot of the paintings and the different saints featured. They had relics from St. Nicholas (Santa Claus fame). Toured the lower Cathedral and museum. The cathedral was recently re-built in the 90's but you would never know, as it seems to be centuries old. We drove up to the high point of Moscow, where Moscow State University is (one of Stalin's 7 skyscrapers) but with the weather being so poor didn't spend a lot of time viewing the city. Just popped out, took a picture or two and popped back into the car. We did the same with the Novodichy Convent and park. After 3 hours of site seeing, we headed back to the apartment (flat as they like to say here)
Had some lunch. We made the mistake of just laying down to rest our eyes, and 3 hours later realized we just slept away the late afternoon-early evening. The last 2 days the weather has been rainy all day, then around 5 it clears off and gets sunny. We had planned to walk and stop for dinner but were moving slow from the nap and in the indecisive point of what to do since it was getting too late to do our plans. We went with the path of least resistance and decided just to walk to the 24 hour market and pick up dinner fixings. We did stop and visit a very large bookstore right near our apartment. Just browsed as everything was in Russian.
At the market, we picked up a few things. John picked up some blintzes/blini--not sure what the filling was. I was kind of surprised he was so daring, as he usually doesn't like the unknown. We picked up some pelmini that I was going to cook. Again, didn't know what the filling was as it was all Russian. They had lots of variety. John picked something in a red package that had "3" something. I was hoping it was 3 cheese. On the way home, John confessed that he saw a blini that the filling was oozing out and it looked like apple to him, so he matched the lettering on label. Aghh...that explains the daringness.
Got home, took a picture of our $20 purchase, and started to cook the pelmini. I realized right away it was some kind of meat...either beef or pork from the smell.
I sent John to go "google" the label so we would know what the mystery meat was that we were eating. He found the companies website with the ingredient list. It was 3 meat...beef, pork and lamb.
The one package I really wanted to avoid. We're not anti-meat but just are a little uncomfortable with processed Russian meat (and processed American meat, too). We ate it along with our cheap Russian white wine in the plastic, wine barrel package. We had no hopes that it was going to be good but figured we would wing it. It was very juicy and even though the label said wine (I can read that in Russian) it was more like fortified grape juice, but with the alcohol content we figured it would kill any off any germ in the mystery meat.Cleaned up, watched some tv and headed to bed. The St. Basils/Cathedral/Red Square pictures are on the other camera and didn't get downloaded...so will add those at a future date.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Arrived in Moscow
We got to the airport just as Delta was doing the cancel and consolidate thing with the 10:45 and 11 something flights to Atlanta. We were on the 10:45 flight just in case we needed a safety buffer for our 4 o'clock Atlanta flight to Moscow. So left Nashville on a completely full plane around noon. We found our gate for the Moscow flight and had high hopes that it was going to be a somewhat empty flight as it was completely quiet. We strolled down to the food court to burn some time, hit the restrooms one last time and returned to the gate to see a mob of people. Definitely not an empty flight. We actually left on time.
The flight was smooth and as pleasant as a 9 hour flight in a sardine can can be since every seat was taken. Our only complaint was that usually, we watch a movie or two during the flight since we never go to the movies. The plane was old and didn't have the nice seat back personal screens with movie choices, just the big screen at the front and the mini-tv's hanging. So didn't pay any attention to the 2 featured movies...Hotel for Dogs and Yes Man. So that being our biggest complaint...things were good. Dinner was actually even good for airplane food...chicken.
We landed just as it was starting to rain. We had to wait a few minutes while two ladies with heat detecting gun devices went through the cabin and took every passengers temperature to detect for flu. The one thing that struck me right away was how everybody follows direction so well. Everybody was up getting their bags out of the overhead bins, as usual, and then they made the announcement that everybody needed to sit back down as they needed to do the temperature scan. Everybody immediately sat and remained seating until they gave the "all clear". That never happens in the US.
We funneled out to passport control. They opened up 3 additional lanes as we got there, so we zoomed on through. No questions, nothing. The guy looked up once to verify my picture then stamped the visa and the registration card that non-Russian citizens fill out on the plane. We've had a much tougher time getting into Canada. We picked up the bag we checked and headed to the Customs Green line (nothing to declare) which was more like just a doorway than an actual line or checking place.
We didn't know who was picking us up. So we just scanned the crowd for somebody holding a card with our last name on it. We met Katia, who was younger than I expected. She called for the driver and we walked to the pick up spot and he was there in seconds. We loaded our checked bag and our carry on in the trunk. Reading other peoples blogs about their experiences, we knew to expect small cars with small trunks. We always travel very light, we usually never check a bag, but I did fill an entire bag with second trip stuff...orphanage donations, clothes, toys, a few cheap gifts, some snacks. My plan was to stick it in the CSS office closet between trip 1 and trip 2. So anyway, loaded up the car and got into a very small back seat that smelled like stale cigarettes. My knees were jammed up against the drivers seat and I noticed right away that it was a stick shift. My first thought was "I'm pretty sure at some point this week, I'm going to throw up." If you know me pretty well, you know I get very motion sick. Astronaut and pilot, were career choices I eliminated at an early age. John's driving around town even makes me sick. My fear of Moscow traffic and all the driving that is required, was a really big fear. But I think its going to be ok. Vladimir, our driver, seems to be very smooth, even with the manual transmission. So thats a happy miracle.
My first impression of Moscow was that it reminded me of the urban outskirts of Vienna. Lots of grey, concrete buildings interspersed with planned green areas and lots of neon signs and billboards. Katia/Vladimir took us to a money exchange. This is the part for us thats hard. We just have to trust that we're being taken care of by CSS and not being ripped off. Everything I had read on line about having unmarked, clean, crisp US dollars to convert, really didn't matter. I even ironed the money so it was super crisp (the paper has a high cotton content, so it irons very nicely) We went into a little booth and the money exchange lady behind the glass just put the stack of bills in the automatic counting machine and didn't even look at them. She then replaced the stack of bills with Rubles and ran that through the money counting machine and passed the stack through the window.
We then went to a grocery and Katia asked what we wanted. We picked up some spreadable cheese, bread, a frozen pizza (for that night we just don't feel like cooking) bottled water, cookies, bananas,etc. Just a few things. I noticed that Katia handed the check-out lady a card. But didn't know what it was for. Later on, at the apartment, I noticed on the receipt that it must have been a discount card as there was a discount 120 rubles (about $4). So I need to remember to thank her today for doing that as I was in my "just getting off an international flight fog" and didn't connect the dots.
We then went to the apartment. David from Best Moscow Apartments met us in the parking lot. We said goodbye to Katia & Vladimir and headed to the 19th floor trying to remember how to get back out. David, who's Australian, was very nice. He showed us the apartment, explaining how to use the satellite tv, get on the internet, use the washing machine, etc. The apartment looks just like the pictures http://www.bestmoscowapartmentrentals.com/ and look for the Anastasia apartment.
David opened up the little fridge and he had stocked it for us.
We had butter, cheese, lunch meat, beer, water, juice, fruit, a fancy cake and really premium dark chocolates. The apartment is very nice. Its like somebody was living here and just left with all their clothes. Its got anything you would need....office supplies, full kitchen tools, even an Espresso machine.
We were walking zombies, at this point, as neither of us ever are able to sleep on planes. It was raining still, so we decided to nap. What a great nap. Five hours later, I got up. The rain had stopped and there was even a rainbow.
Feeling much better, John and I had a little bread and cheese snack then went walking. Our apartment seems to be in a convenient location.
If looking out the window it looks down on New Arbat, which reminds me of the Strip in Vegas or maybe even a little of Times Square. We have a casino with lots of lights and neon and one of those jumbotron screens playing advertising out the window. Lots of traffic and people walking but since we're on the 19th floor, unless we open a window, we can't hear it. We walked up New Arbat to the beginning of Old Arbat. Walked down Old Arbat, which is a pedestrian only touristy type street with souvenir shops, 2 McDonalds, 2 Starbucks, etc. Then walked back to New Arbat and went to the 24 hour market that is across the street from our apartment. We bought some egg noodles and what I thought was breaded chicken cutlets and headed home. I cooked up the noodles and prepared to pan fry the chicken but realized they were thick, fish fillets. Had some really good tangerines from the apartment fruit basket. Dinner was good. We cut open the fancy cake and discovered it was a prune cake. Then went to bed.
The flight was smooth and as pleasant as a 9 hour flight in a sardine can can be since every seat was taken. Our only complaint was that usually, we watch a movie or two during the flight since we never go to the movies. The plane was old and didn't have the nice seat back personal screens with movie choices, just the big screen at the front and the mini-tv's hanging. So didn't pay any attention to the 2 featured movies...Hotel for Dogs and Yes Man. So that being our biggest complaint...things were good. Dinner was actually even good for airplane food...chicken.
We landed just as it was starting to rain. We had to wait a few minutes while two ladies with heat detecting gun devices went through the cabin and took every passengers temperature to detect for flu. The one thing that struck me right away was how everybody follows direction so well. Everybody was up getting their bags out of the overhead bins, as usual, and then they made the announcement that everybody needed to sit back down as they needed to do the temperature scan. Everybody immediately sat and remained seating until they gave the "all clear". That never happens in the US.We funneled out to passport control. They opened up 3 additional lanes as we got there, so we zoomed on through. No questions, nothing. The guy looked up once to verify my picture then stamped the visa and the registration card that non-Russian citizens fill out on the plane. We've had a much tougher time getting into Canada. We picked up the bag we checked and headed to the Customs Green line (nothing to declare) which was more like just a doorway than an actual line or checking place.
We didn't know who was picking us up. So we just scanned the crowd for somebody holding a card with our last name on it. We met Katia, who was younger than I expected. She called for the driver and we walked to the pick up spot and he was there in seconds. We loaded our checked bag and our carry on in the trunk. Reading other peoples blogs about their experiences, we knew to expect small cars with small trunks. We always travel very light, we usually never check a bag, but I did fill an entire bag with second trip stuff...orphanage donations, clothes, toys, a few cheap gifts, some snacks. My plan was to stick it in the CSS office closet between trip 1 and trip 2. So anyway, loaded up the car and got into a very small back seat that smelled like stale cigarettes. My knees were jammed up against the drivers seat and I noticed right away that it was a stick shift. My first thought was "I'm pretty sure at some point this week, I'm going to throw up." If you know me pretty well, you know I get very motion sick. Astronaut and pilot, were career choices I eliminated at an early age. John's driving around town even makes me sick. My fear of Moscow traffic and all the driving that is required, was a really big fear. But I think its going to be ok. Vladimir, our driver, seems to be very smooth, even with the manual transmission. So thats a happy miracle.
My first impression of Moscow was that it reminded me of the urban outskirts of Vienna. Lots of grey, concrete buildings interspersed with planned green areas and lots of neon signs and billboards. Katia/Vladimir took us to a money exchange. This is the part for us thats hard. We just have to trust that we're being taken care of by CSS and not being ripped off. Everything I had read on line about having unmarked, clean, crisp US dollars to convert, really didn't matter. I even ironed the money so it was super crisp (the paper has a high cotton content, so it irons very nicely) We went into a little booth and the money exchange lady behind the glass just put the stack of bills in the automatic counting machine and didn't even look at them. She then replaced the stack of bills with Rubles and ran that through the money counting machine and passed the stack through the window.
We then went to a grocery and Katia asked what we wanted. We picked up some spreadable cheese, bread, a frozen pizza (for that night we just don't feel like cooking) bottled water, cookies, bananas,etc. Just a few things. I noticed that Katia handed the check-out lady a card. But didn't know what it was for. Later on, at the apartment, I noticed on the receipt that it must have been a discount card as there was a discount 120 rubles (about $4). So I need to remember to thank her today for doing that as I was in my "just getting off an international flight fog" and didn't connect the dots.
We then went to the apartment. David from Best Moscow Apartments met us in the parking lot. We said goodbye to Katia & Vladimir and headed to the 19th floor trying to remember how to get back out. David, who's Australian, was very nice. He showed us the apartment, explaining how to use the satellite tv, get on the internet, use the washing machine, etc. The apartment looks just like the pictures http://www.bestmoscowapartmentrentals.com/ and look for the Anastasia apartment.
David opened up the little fridge and he had stocked it for us.
We had butter, cheese, lunch meat, beer, water, juice, fruit, a fancy cake and really premium dark chocolates. The apartment is very nice. Its like somebody was living here and just left with all their clothes. Its got anything you would need....office supplies, full kitchen tools, even an Espresso machine. We were walking zombies, at this point, as neither of us ever are able to sleep on planes. It was raining still, so we decided to nap. What a great nap. Five hours later, I got up. The rain had stopped and there was even a rainbow.
Feeling much better, John and I had a little bread and cheese snack then went walking. Our apartment seems to be in a convenient location.
If looking out the window it looks down on New Arbat, which reminds me of the Strip in Vegas or maybe even a little of Times Square. We have a casino with lots of lights and neon and one of those jumbotron screens playing advertising out the window. Lots of traffic and people walking but since we're on the 19th floor, unless we open a window, we can't hear it. We walked up New Arbat to the beginning of Old Arbat. Walked down Old Arbat, which is a pedestrian only touristy type street with souvenir shops, 2 McDonalds, 2 Starbucks, etc. Then walked back to New Arbat and went to the 24 hour market that is across the street from our apartment. We bought some egg noodles and what I thought was breaded chicken cutlets and headed home. I cooked up the noodles and prepared to pan fry the chicken but realized they were thick, fish fillets. Had some really good tangerines from the apartment fruit basket. Dinner was good. We cut open the fancy cake and discovered it was a prune cake. Then went to bed.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Countdown Has Started
In 48 hours, we will be on a plane, leaving Atlanta, headed to Moscow. We'll land around 11 on Saturday. After going through passport control, customs and finding our driver and translator, we head straight to the apartment. Our plan is to take it easy for the rest of Saturday. We'll head out to the market to pick up some groceries and maybe explore the area around us, have an early dinner and head to bed. On Sunday, we're doing all the touristy stuff by walking to Red Square to see GUM, the Kremlin, etc. Then Monday, we head to the Ministry of Education to get our referral and permission to visit the orphanage. In the afternoon, we head to the orphanage to meet the future "Thomas".
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Visas Arrived
I was very glad and slightly shocked that I opened our mailbox and found the envelope containing our passports and visas had arrived. Thank you Seattle Russian Consulate. John is getting his last Hepatitis B vaccine shot today (its 3 shots over 6 months). We do have electrical plugs/converters/adapters coming in the mail. The ones we had for Europe should work, but it was a good excuse for John to "need to buy" more tech. So as long as the house/dog sitter shows up next week, we're good to go.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
What We're Working On This Week
I'm hoping that the visa's show up on Thursday. That would be the best-case scenario and correspond to the dates given on the consulate's website. We know that nothing is happening tomorrow as its "Victory Day" in Russia. The celebration is for the victory over Germany during WWII, and a celebration of veterans and a memorial of those who died, equivalent to our Veteran's Day on Nov. 11. So everything is shut down, including the consulates in the US, to honor the day.
Our project for this weekend was to get our "tech" organized. We're taking an ACER Netbook with us instead of a laptop. We loaded it with anything we won't ever need; but possibly may use and wished we had a copy of: like the info pages of passport, our dossier and homestudy and all the websites that we may find helpful...McMaster's Universtiy FAS visual demonstration, the CDC toddler growth charts, the orphan doctor's website for evaluating referral's, etc. etc. Stuff we could find on the internet, but since we'll be under stress, I decided it would be nice to be able to find them at a click of the mouse. Probably over-planning, but we've got the time.
We do need to re-do our fingerprints for the FBI search and have new criminal background checks done. Those expired months ago and we need them to be done within 3 months of court. If we're super-planners, we'll go get those done in the next week so that they can be processed the week we're gone. That way they'll be in our mailbox when we get back from our first trip. I can get them notarized, county certified and state apostilled the week we return and get them sent to Russia. That's it for this week--one sidenote. If you look at the sidebar...the "Church of the Week" in Guernsey, Channel Islands was built by one monk with remnant pieces of Wedgewood china and is the smallest consecrated church in the world. A very interesting church.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Visa-Plan B
Feeling much better about the visa situation this week as I have decided on Plan B. For whatever reason, the Seattle consulate's website says they do processing in 6 days rather than the 4 to 20. We filled out their application and sent everything off on Saturday. Now we just have to wait to get it all back. At this point, we've done everything we need to do for the trip. We just need to put the finishing touches on packing and wait for the date.
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