Day 2 in Russia

Hey! We're still here. It's late... we're trying to beat night coming before we get to the apartment. It does get dark for a couple of hours starting at 11:30 or so.

Well, we slept okay last night. The mattress isn't great, but we were tired! We woke up several times during the night for phone calls, which was okay. We needed to hear from the other couple also traveling and they didn't get in until about 2am. We slept until about 11am today and then had to hurry and get ready. Showers were interesting! The water smells very strange! But, at least we're clean. We ate our granola bars for breakfast and then headed out the door. We needed to be at the hotel of our friends by 1pm to ride with them and a translator to go see the Hermitage. I had called a number to find out what bus would get us there, so we were off to find it. We had 2 bus numbers and 2 trolley numbers to look for and finally found one. Once on, a woman came asking for money and fortunately another passenger helped us know how much to pay by showing us her money. It was 16 Rubles each. It took us about 20 minutes or so to ride to the hotel and we were just on time. We went with "Urey" (the driver) and Julia (the translator) and they showed us an Italian restaurant to eat at and then we were off to the Hermitage. It was really amazing! There is so much there we could not see it all. Also, while we were out it began snowing! Even our translator was shocked by the snow. After about 3 hours in the museum (and my feet feeling like they are going to fall off) we were headed back to the hotel. We stayed in the lobby talking for a while and then the Byinton's knew of a Greek restaurant some friends recommended. It wasn't very far from their hotel and we found it easily. The food was pretty good and not too expensive (most restaurants are very pricey here!). We walked back to the hotel and started looking for our trolley and have now come into the Internet cafe to write a minute. We have a few minutes walk to get back to the apartment and then we will rest up for tomorrow.

Please pray:
That our committee meeting goes well (and that we remember all of the documents we have to take). That the meeting at the orphanage goes well and that Anya is excited to see us. We can't wait to see her. Also, that the social worker "inspector" writes a positive report about us to the judge. We are very excited tomorrow, but also very anxious. We will be picked up at 10am for a 10:30 appointment at the Adoption Center. After that we will head out to the orphanage (it is about 1 1/2 hours drive). We hope Anya will want to ride with us on Friday, Saturday and Sunday back to the city to spend time with us, but we are afraid she will get car sick. Please pray she won't. Also, it would be great if we could find some things to do near the orphanage and not have to spend 6 hours in the car each day (while paying both a translator and drive). Also, pray that the coordinator here will let us share a driver with the other family on Friday and Saturday. It would really save some money. Right now, she has said we have to have separate drivers and translators. So, we'll see. We have to register our VISA, but haven't been able to yet. It is apparently a ways off that we have to go and we need to discuss this with the coordinator tomorrow, but it has to be done by Friday.

Thank you all for your prayers and comments! We can't wait to be home, but we are so excited that tomorrow is almost here. We love you all and miss you. Good night!

Jack & Stephanie

p.s. Please pray for my feet... we have walked miles and miles and I only brought heels & sandals (we were told not to wear tennis shoes and it has been very cold). I may try to buy some shoes tomorrow.