We Made It!

Greetings from Almaty! After 16 hours of flight time and 2 lost bags we are here (the bags were delivered on Saturday night, so we did not have to go very long without luggage)!

Our trip started in Denver with a visit to the President's Club - Lufthansa's VIP lounge for frequent flyers. What a nice way to start off an international trip (all of those frequent flyer miles are good for something). We checked our email while sipping free drinks and snacking on free munchies. I could get used to this. Then we had a direct flight to Frankfurt, where we had a very short layover (which probably explains the lost luggage). We arrived in Almaty at 11:30pm on Friday night (time here is 13 hours later than Denver time).

Our driver was right outside the door waiting for us, and he took us to our apartment, which will be our home in Almaty for the next 3 weeks. The apartment is very soviet-looking on the exterior (think gray and concrete) but very nice on the inside. We have one bedroom, a spacious living room with TV (with English stations!) and stereo, kitchen, bathroom, and a small balcony.

On Saturday morning, we went to the local office for World Partners Adoption and met with the in-country coordinators. We signed some paperwork and learned more about how the whole process works. Our first visit to the Baby House would be at 2:30pm that day. In the meantime, we visited the Ramstore (a mall that includes a huge grocery store) to exchange money and buy groceries and an international calling card. After that we tried to sleep off some jet lag.

At 2pm we were picked up by our driver (Andrei) and taken to the Baby House (BH#3) for our first visit. Our first stop in the BH was the orphanage director's office, where we met with the director, our coordinator, and a representative from the Ministry of Education. Barb found this process a little intimidating! There was a lot of talk in Russian as we were asked some questions and were brought our child. He was even cuter in person than he was in his referral pictures.

After that, we went upstairs to the "music room", complete with pianos, xylophones, electronic drums, and various other musical toys. We played with Bryce for 1.5 hours (we will meet with him from 2:30 to 4:00 every day - hopefully we will be upgraded to 2 visits). He is the most adorable baby either of us have ever seen!!!! He is 10.5 months old, has brown eyes and black hair (we really will figure out how to post pictures soon). He was handed to Barb and we spent most of the time holding him and playing with toys - and a little bit of time trying to make him stop crying. Of course we have not figured out his personality yet. He seemed pretty quiet and laid back (that's what the caregivers said about him too). The visit must have exhausted him, as he fell sound asleep in Barb's arms towards the end of the time. We can't wait to visit him again today!

After the visit, we went back to our apartment for another nap and ate dinner at an Indian restaurant. The Indian food was great, but we are going to have to seek out some traditional Kazakh food soon (horsemeat sausage is the national dish). Then we waited for our luggage to be delivered. It finally came at 1am. Better late than never.

That's all for now. We'll post another update (maybe even with a picture) soon.