12/15/07 Red Carpet Lounge at Dulles airport: Half an hour till boarding and we are sitting in the lap of luxury. Our first flight is on frequent flyer miles and only business class was available. The irony is not lost on us. In fact, as we are sitting here imagining all the ways our lives will change they pale in magnitude of the changes the kids will face. For the purposes of this blog we’ll call them Peter, Paul and Mary from youngest to oldest. It’s hard to keep a train of thought for very long as my mind is racing to all the experiences we’re about to have. We said quite a few prayers over the last twelve months and quite a few more the last ten days or so. I told Nancy on the way to the airport that when I asked her to go on adventure travel this wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of. On the other hand when I said “I do” I certainly imagined that Nancy I would add to our family of three. Of course, I could not have dreamed that we would double! God works in mysterious ways and as we said recently in our email to family and friends he must know that we are ready.
Nothing of major note on our last days preparing for this trip. Although we did do a fire drill this morning when Nancy noted that the baggage weight limit was 44 lbs for flights within Russia – including carry on. We had planned on 50 lbs and not including carry on. So, we completely unpacked and repacked and gave up about 25 lbs of stuff. I cut back on socks and underwear. We also gave up on taking some things for the kids and hope that we can fill in on things when we get to our region.
So, it’s time to fold things up and head to the gate. We know that all of you are with us in prayer and spirit. It’s the only way we could imagine the life-changing events before us. So, we are powering down for now.
12/16/07 Business Lounge Warsaw: We’ve made it to Warsaw in what has thus far been an uneventful trip – except in the good way. We were able to use our Miles on United to get to Moscow and back – but we had to fly business class. Darn the bad luck. I’m not sure how we can fly economy again! Yes we can, with 3 kids in tow. We keep thinking how wonderful it would be to fly home this way with P,P&M. We were wined and dined and stretched out like we never have on a flight before. We actually got some sleep! It didn’t help a lot as we landed in Amsterdam at 2:45 AM Maryland time so we are well on our way to a severe case of jet lag. 6 time zones down – only 6 more to go! Yikes.
It is snowing outside and completely overcast. As we landed we did get to see some of the local architecture. Some rather uninteresting block buildings but some very interesting-looking single family homes also. Worthy of some future trip I suppose.
Nancy is working now to get the photo album set up for the kids. We’re anxious to see how the kids react to all of this. Well, all for now – it’s time to copy to a thumb drive and get in line for a computer.
12/16/2007 Moscow: We made it! Now we are safely in our hotel and without any real hitches. It wasn’t even that cold here tonight when we got off the plane – about 30 F. Our flight was late leaving Warsaw so we arrived at 9:00 and waited patiently to go through passport control and customs. No problems as there are plenty of English speakers here – and plenty of ads in English. The hotel is nice but no wireless in our room which is why this blog continues to be delayed. With any luck we can connect in the business center in the morning and get this posted. The way the itinerary appears to work out we will have the day tomorrow to rest and acclimate on our own here in Moscow. Then Monday evening we will take a late night flight to Kemerovo leaving at 10:30 PM and arriving sometime in the morning. I think there is a four hour time difference to add to the 8 we have gone though so far. In the dark Moscow seems like any other big city. A few well lit signs and stores and a lot of construction seemingly everywhere. One major project at the airport was actively pouring concrete as we walked out of the terminal.
So, we are tired and hungry (of a sort) but are ready to turn in and start our adjustment to the new time zone. We are nervous and excited and can’t wait to meet the kids!
We forgot to mention last night that we fly back to Moscow on Friday morning so we will only have Tues-Thursday to meet and interact with the kids. Stay tuned!