Arrivals!

Almaty
We arrived in Almaty late Saturday, stayed overnight in the Kazakhstan Hotel (for 5 hrs.), and this morning, met with our adoption agency's local contact people. It was during this meeting where we signed our lives away on multiple legal documents that we could not interpret, unstrapped our money belts from our bellies, and handed over our life savings! Our adoption process continued!

We had expected to depart for Karaganda that afternoon, but because it was a Sunday, the only flight was at 9 pm. What was there to do in Almaty, we asked? Well, the mall down the street was open (just what we felt like doing after 5 hrs. of sleep and being jet-lagged - shop for 8 hours in a country where we don't speak the language).

The afternoon wasn't that bad, afterall. We did walk around a modern mall for awhile, had lunch (thank goodness for the English menu!) and visited an internet cafe from which we began writing this blog. With another couple who is also adopting from our agency, we walked over to a museum and spent a couple hours learning a bit about Kazakhstan.

We're off tonight to our final destination - Karaganda. It is here where we will meet our daughter. After such a lengthy adoption process and waiting period, it's hard to believe that we'll finally meet her tomorrow!! We're very excited and hopeful that all will turn out well. As we continue updating our blog, we hope you will feel free to post comments. While we're in Karaganda for a month, we'd be thrilled to hear from you and get all the updates from back home.

Karaganda
We arrived around 11 pm to Karaganda, were taken to our apartment (what John, who rarely curses, fondly referred to as the "sh_ _ hole"), and collapsed. Our first morning in Karaganda was spent walking aimlessly around our neighborhood, in sub-zero temperatures, searching for a place to eat breakfast. While there were a number of malls in the area, nothing was open at 8 am. "Well, obviously these people just don't eat breakfast!" said the Evanstonians who live within walking distance to Walker Brothers where they can put back a "Dutch Baby" pancake in no time, just a tad ticked off and frost bitten. Thank goodness for the trailmix and dried cherries we still had from our trip over to Kaz! We were tired, hungry, and cold! Welcome to Karaganda!