Wednesday-Tourist Day

Today, we went to the Cosmonaut museum and Kuskovo Estate. John enjoyed the Cosmonaut museum. They had some nice displays including space food.

Outside the Cosmonaut museum they had some gardens with statues dedicated to different men who contributed to science, including a very impressive, modern flight statue.









After the Cosmonaut museum, our translator wanted us to see the Kuskovo estate. The Sheremetev family, in which one of the airports is named after, was a wealthy family that entertained the czar's. It was built in the mid to late 1700's and contained the main house, a formal garden, guest houses, a church, a green house (orangery) that now contains a ceramic museum and an Italian grotto. The Italian grotto was fascinating. It was totally unexpected inside. It had an under-the-sea theme and was inlaid with shells, glass, sand and mother-of-pearl shells. The picture doesn't do it justice. The main house still contains the original wood parquet floors,
paintings and some furniture. It was very lavish with gold gilding and crystal chandeliers. We were very glad that Violet suggested our visit.

Monday & Tuesday

I can't believe how fast the time is going. We are at the 1/2 way point of our trip. On Monday, we switched apartments. This was part of our agreement with the guy we were renting from. The apartment we were in was being renovated on July 1st. The apartment we were in was the same one we stayed in on first trip so we wanted the comfort factor of familiarity. We were on the 19th floor so we had a gorgeous panoramic view of Moscow. One of my favorite things to do was sit in the kitchen, with a glass of bad Russian wine and watch the sun set over the city. With the new apartment we are in the same building, in the exact same apartment location just 15 floors lower on the 4th floor, so now we just see the buildings next to us. The apartment is very comfortable. Back when I was sick with my cold, I commented to John that I was glad I could go sleep in the bedroom and close the door and he could do what he wanted in the family room rather than being in a one room hotel.

On Monday night, we had dinner with another family that was adopting with our agency, they were here for court. We met at TGi Fridays and had a nice dinner. It was fun to get together with them and see pictures of their son and just visit and hear about their experience. They were flying home the next day to wait out the 10 days at home.

On Tuesday, we went to visit Thomas. He was still napping, so they had to wake him. He was actually sleeping outside. They have playpens in the shade that the children sleep in, believing that the fresh air is good for them. The caretaker brought him in along with a cute girl, who is also being adopted by an American couple. He was bundled from head to toe with sleeper, hat and a sleeper suit. The only thing you could see was in round face, the rest of his body looked like the Michelin man...all padded and stiff. They believe in overdressing the children, and even though it was 73 degrees, they dress them as if its 40 degrees. He glanced at us and we both thought there was a slight look of recognition on his face when he saw us. He's so young at 9 months, its hard to tell what he's thinking. As far as we know...we're just the people that pop in and out of life for a few hours and give him continous attention. He does show a strong preference to being carried as we walk rather than going in the stroller, though.

After the orphanage, we had our driver drop us at the entrance to Old Arbat street. Its a pedestrian street with lots of tourist stuff. We went and ate at My-My's again. We're getting a little more daring with our food selection. An older guy in front of us (its cafeteria style) picked something that looked good...a fried triangle of something. We both got it also along with fried potatoes and mushrooms and an unknown white sauce with dill. It turned out to be a pork cutlet. I was really wanting some vegetables. I chose a cabbage/carrot salad. You are supposed to stay away from fresh vegetables as they are washed with the local water and has the possibility of messing up your stomach. I figured they'd been pickled in some vinegar. Vinegar will kill the stuff that makes you sick, so I figured I was safe. We then walked to the grocery and picked up as much as we could carry home.

On Wednesday, we're having a tourist day. We've hired Violett and Vladimir, our driver, to take us to the Cosmonaut museum. We thought we may also go to the Russian Military museum (very much a "man" day) but Violett suggested she wanted to take us to an estate slightly out of town that the Czar's would visit. So we'll go with her suggestion.

Lastly, I wanted to say "hello" to Audrey in Oregon!
Jill

Pictures of Moscow

We've spent some time walking the city, exploring the neighborhoods. Here's what we've found...

Friday & Saturday

John and I walked to the Kremlin on Friday morning to visit the Armory Museum. We struggled a bit to figure out where to buy tickets and where to find the entrance in the wall of the Kremlin for the museum. There is a large red brick wall that surrounds all the churches, current government buildings, historical buildings and parks that make up the Kremlin that date back to 1156. We found the right line and after going through security, found there was another line inside the wall to get into the museum building. After entering the building, we wound around, stood in another line and then found the English Audio Guides.

We enjoyed the museum. Saw all kinds of things encrusted with jewels...guns, swords, bible covers, goblets, platters, robes, religious icon frames, crowns and even carriages. I had a hard time comprehending why you would have a carriage with diamonds decorating the wheel spokes. The items were so close you could reach out and touch the carriage wheels if you wanted, although I'm sure some alarm would go off. I wondered how many people thought about trying to pry one of the diamonds out. I had no idea there was so much gold and silver, pearls, diamonds, emeralds and other jewels in the museum. Also in the museum are several Faberge eggs and other beautiful items made by the Faberge company. The armory dates from 1511 and has always been used to warehouse the royal gifts and treasures.

We then went ahead and did the architectural tour of the Kremlin. We visited several Russian Orthodox Cathedrals dating from the 1300's through the 1500's. All the churches are in a small area and have unique features. Some are huge cathdedrals with chandeliers and walls of painted frescos and icons while others are very small, dark and are only partially restored. By about the sixth and final church, you start getting church burn-out. They did not allow photographs in any church, unlike Europe.

We took a rest on a bench in The Secret Gardens. They had a lot of impatients planted in color patterns along with a small rose garden. We headed back home, and stopped at the grocery again. With a small apartment refrigerator and the fact that you can only buy as many groceries as you can carry back to the apartment, you run out of groceries fast. I'll remember this when I'm back in the US at the warehouse club store buying jumbo packs of everything that will last me months. We were feeling like Mexican, so we bought stuff to make chicken burritos Russian style. Which was kind of an improv thing as we really didn't have any authentic burrito ingredients other than salsa. But with some canned corn, fried diced potatoes, chicken strips, cheese and the salsa on some kind of Russian flatbread we had Fiesta Friday. I didn't get any sour cream, which would have made them excellent, and the irony is you can always find sour cream in Russia. We did 2 loads of laundry and headed to bed.

On Saturday, David, who we are renting the apartment from, drove us to the Izmaylovo Market. It was much better than I expected. I had visions of the Nashville Flea Market at the Fairgrounds...the junky electronics, the "as seen on tv" products, the off label "designer" purses, etc. On our orphanage days, we drive by the front of the market and it looks like the US flea markets. But we went to the back of the market and in a small contained little area. It was so much better. It was like a European Christmas Market with booths of hand painted items and traditional Russian made souvenirs along with fur hats and lots of old Soviet knick-knacks and military items. We bought some Christmas ornaments, which is what we bring home from every vacation as our trip souvenir. We also got a beautiful hand painted Uzbek blue bowl for under $3 and John bought a big wooden egg painted with St. Basil's Cathedral in winter and a few other items. I thought about bringing home some of the Uzbek plates painted in blues and greens...but decided it would be too hard to get them home while juggling a new baby and all his baby stuff.

We ate dinner at Yalki-Palki, a Russian chain restaurant. John had mushroom soup and chicken cutlets with mashed potatoes and I had Hungarian Goulash. It was ok. The My-My restaurant food was better. We then walked north of our apartment to a church we could see from our window and then over to a very long park with lots of beautiful trees and fountains. We walked the length of the park then turned around and walked until we hit New Arbat street and headed back to the apartment. We decided to live dangerously and bought ice cream from a steet vendor. It wasn't the pre-packaged Nestle bar type but the actual ice cream in a cone. We'll see by tomorrow if that was a mistake. John is missing ice. I'm getting tired of brushing my teeth with bottled water. So far we've been super careful about boiling our water or drinking bottled and avoiding anything rinsed in the water and haven't had any stomach issues. We have no plans for tomorrow yet. So we'll see what we discover.

Thursday's Orphanage Visit

Jill has a bad cold, so I ended up going to the orphanage alone. Svetlana accompanied me. Traffic was terrible, but we still made reasonable time... getting there about 11:45AM. The caregivers were curious about me, asking many questions through Violet, our translator, while they prepared Thomas for my visit. They asked about what I did, what our home was like, and why we were adopting. Thomas apparently had not been willing to eat, so they brought him out with a bottle of compote. He was cute in brown corduroy overalls and had on bright red shoes. Having just risen from a nap, he was quiet for a little bit, just looking around at everything. He is clearly very curious, appears to favor the color red, and can't get enough of feeling buttons, fabrics, and rings. Once his world grows a little larger, I'm sure he'll be busy.

I was showing Thomas a toy lion that had wheels. I spun the wheels several times as he watched. Eventually, he copied me and spun the wheels too. This kept him busy for a little bit, but soon we were in a walker. He had liked it from our previous visit, and this time was no exception. He took off and broke a broad smile as he walked toward me. Because the play room is under construction, we have been visiting Thomas in a small day room that unfortunately did not give him enough space to go before he had to turn around. Still, he went back and forth for some time. The bright red shoes kept coming off while we walked, so they brought a second pair. They lasted a little longer, but came off too. I let him keep going in his socks until he started to tire out. By then, I had no problem feeding him the bottle of compote.

Late in the visit, Svetlana and Violet joined me and they played with him as well... singing some Russian Children's rhymes to him. At the very end, he grew a little fussy but I got him to calm down by showing him his reflection in a mirror. The caregivers then took him for his afternoon nap. We headed back for Moscow, fighting bad traffic all the way to Svetlana's office. There we picked up papers needed for the notary that we will file next Tuesday.

If Jill is feeling better, we will try to go out tomorrow and see the Kremlin Museums.

--John

Slow Day

We stayed close to the apartment for much of the day. Jill has been feeling under the weather, so we didn't venture out until the afternoon. We took a walk to Sivtsev Vrazhek Pereulok street -- not far from Novy Arbat. It was where the Gromyko House in Dr. Zhivago was located... and was also a location featured in War and Peace. We followed it to its end and were near Cathedral of Christ the Savior, seat of the Russian Orthodox Church, so we decided to spend some time again there. We had briefly visited the Cathedral on our first trip with our translator, but knew there were more exhibits to see in the lower level. We stopped at a grocery on the way back to buy some staples for dinner.

Tomorrow, we go to see Thomas at the orphanage. Jill may stay back and rest, but I'll go and see Thomas. I know I have to sign some documents and visit the notary to keep us on track.

--John

Tuesday

Our plan was to have breakfast out and to try some of the Hot Chocolate that I've heard is really rich. We had a hard time finding any place open. It was around 8 in the morning and we've realized that Russians really don't start their mornings until 10. We ended up eating breakfast at McDonald's as it was the only thing open. The place we were going to get the hot chocolate from didn't open until 10. So will have to try that another day.

We stopped and got a few groceries and headed back to the apartment. Our ride came at 10 to take us to the orphanage. It was a nice day, so they let us go outside and walk. Thomas was quiet. He's just very happy to be held, while he looks at everything going on around him. I hope that quiet curiosity lasts during the 11 hour flight home. They came at 2 to bring him back in for his lunch of pureed fish soup, that he missed earlier since we were visiting and his afternoon nap. So we drove back to Moscow and hit some bad traffic. It took us 2 and 1/2 hours to get back to the apartment. We spent the evening at the apartment and watched some tv. We went to bed but were woken around midnight to the sounds of fireworks. Looking out the window, they were doing a big fireworks display right over the Kremlin. We could hear it really well but the apartment building across the street was blocking most of the view. We checked the news to see what the event was, but never figured it out. Tomorrow, we're doing a tourist day. We'll probably head to the Kremlin museums.

Court Day

We had court at 10:30 in Moscow Regional Court. Our driver picked us up at 8:45, and we drove out to the suburbs of Moscow. The courthouse is brand new, built in 2006, and in an area of new office buildings. The court room was small with the judge, court reporter, social worker and prosecutor for the state there; along with John, myself and our translator. The judge went through the file, reading our paperwork: the dossier and homestudy we had submitted last fall. She also added our updated fingerprints and background checks to the file. I had to give a short statement covering why we wanted to adopt and why we would be good parents for Thomas. After going through all the paperwork, and everyone giving their statement of support, we were declared the parents.

Sunday

Yesterday we drove out to the orphanage at 10. Since it was Sunday, everything was very quiet. The orphanage was doing major renovations last month when we were there. They appeared to be still in process. The play rooms are part of the area thats being renovated. The weather was too cold and rainy to go outside so we played in a small reception area. Thomas needed more room to move. At 12:30, they brought his bottles. He was having a pureed meat and potatoes meal and compote, which is a beverage made from stewing dried fruit in hot water. He drank a little but had no interest in lunch, he was too busy playing to take time for lunch. By 2, he was slowing down and getting tired for his afternoon nap. We headed back to Moscow.

We took a little nap ourselves, then headed to Old Arbat for dinner. We ate at My-My (pronounced Moo Moos and has a dairy cow theme) It is a Russian food chain restaurant, served cafeteria style. After 2 soups, 2 beef stroganoff's with potatoes and a shared chocolate cake, we walked down the rest of Old Arbat and stopped at a fancy grocery store on the corner. We just browsed all the display cases filled with fancy cakes, chocolates etc. We headed back to the apartment and headed to bed. We have court at 10:30 tomorrow, so wanted to make sure we got enough sleep.

Back in Moscow

We are back in Moscow. We are staying in the same apartment as last time. It was exactly one month ago today that we arrived for the first visit. The last 3 weeks have been busy as far as getting paperwork in order, packing and getting the house ready for Thomas to come home. The FBI fingerprints finally arrived Monday of this week, after several phone calls to track them down. Amazing enough, the visas arrived in 2 days...they were returned before the fingerprints.

Our flights were fine. Everything left on time. Somehow we got the exit row, so we had tons of leg room. The airport was quiet. We had Violet pick us up. Last time, we had Katia. Violet said she was going to be our translator for court. We also have a different driver with a green van. We stopped and exchanged money and then met David at the apartment. John and I walked over to the market and picked up some food and then took a 5 hour nap.

Tomorrow, we go to the orphanage at 10 to see Thomas.

Court Date

We heard yesterday that we are headed back to Moscow.  We have a court date on June 22.  This was so fast, that it's shocking.  We are quickly trying to get arrangements made for the apartment rental, flights and visas.  Our fingerprints from the FBI have not come back yet, so waiting anxiously everyday to see if the mailman delivers them.  Next week will be the anxious wait for the visas to arrive.  

Home

We made it home and are working on getting back into the groove of life.  We had a fantastic experience, it really could not have gone better.  We are expecting to go back to Russia the beginning of July for court.  So at this point, we wait for court dates.

8 Doctor Physicals

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.

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.

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.