Friday

On Friday, we drove back to the Moscow Regional Court to pick up the court decree declaring us the parents of Thomas Alexander. We then drove to city hall to get his new birth certificate listing us as the parents. We then drove around the outside loop of the city to the south side to go to the immigration office. Since it was lunch time and the office would be closed. We went to a large grocery store/general merchandise store (like a Walmart) and bought baby food, diapers, bottles, etc. They had a Sbarro's in the store. Our translator said we were still too early for the office so please eat lunch. So we had pizza.

After filing for his passport at the Immigration office. We drove back into Moscow to take all the paperwork to the CSS office. We were then done for the day and got home around 4.

We decided to walk south of our apartment on the other side of the Moscow River. We were following one of the recommended walks in our guide book. So far none of the "recommended walks" have been that impressive. They mostly point out some non-descript building and say that "so and so" famous Russian writer or poet lived or worked here. This walk was about the same. It did take us to the foot of the Peter the Great statue (pictured in an earlier post), so we got a close up of that.

We walked by a Starlite Diner car and on the way back had dinner there. Some American bought an old diner car and moved it to Moscow and serves hamburgers, milk shakes and other American food, while decorating the inside with a 50's theme. John had a hamburger and fries and I had a chicken sandwich. Apparently, it was so popular that he has now placed several of the diners throughout the city. Even though, the food and atmosphere were American our waitress only spoke Russian, but we got everything we ordered.

We then took a Moscow River boat ride. It was ok. It started to rain while we were on the boat. We were covered by a roof deck, but it was chilly. Luckily, it let us out near New Arbat street, where our apartment is. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and then headed to bed.