Hello from Moscow! Wow, it feels so good to be here in this place - on our way to making Maella a forever part of our family.

We flew from Madison yesterday, to Chicago and then there to Moscow. We landed today just after noon. We came to our hotel and took a blissful nap in the most comfortable bed, it was wonderful! For dinner we ate at none other than... McDonald's. It was cheap, fast and we knew we'd like it. We walked out of the hotel... and took a few wrong turns before we ended up there. We sat down outside and it started to sprinkle. Everyone rushed in and so we followed, found a perfect open table for two next to a window and watched the rain pour down! What timing! When we left McD we again made it back to our hotel just before it began to pour another time.

A fun note to share about dining in Russia. Russians don't care much about personal space. It's ironic, they don't smile that much when walking past strangers on the street or make much for eye contact but they'll scooch right in next to you at a booth! We were at a small table for two and across from us a booth (that could fit 4). A young woman was sitting there working on her laptop. In comes a group of 6 adults all wet and laughing and loud. They plop down right next to her, one woman proceeding to close her umbrella over the table and the woman's laptop. Wow. The young woman just laughs and accepts it, sitting next to these wet strangers. We had seen this when we were in Krasnoyarsk on our last trip at the Hotel Breakfast Buffet, complete strangers sitting right next to each other, not talking or looking at each other, but practically touching. It's not our usual US way of doing things but when "you are in Rome, do as the Romans do".

We have been told that our medical appointments will be done tomorrow now, instead of Friday. And then on Friday we'll get to do our tour of Moscow. This may work out nicely because Moscow is expecting rain all day tomorrow. We plan to sleep in (we're still up at just about midnight b/c we want to call our boys after school - I am quite tired as I've only had about 3-4 hours sleep in the past 33 hours, I didn't sleep well on our flight this time). We're going to make breakfast in our room tomorrow, there is a hotpot in our room here at the Marriott Renassaince and we found bottled water at a nearby vendor. I brought oatmeal packets along and tea bags. Then we'll have lunch and go to medicals, then dinner. Hopefully we don't end up at McD again... it's cheap and convenient but who wants McD every day... well maybe our boys if they had their way. No motion sickness this time when traveling from airport to hotel, what a blessing!

A note to other adoptive families when thinking about hotels in Moscow. We are loving the Renassaince by Marriott, it was very well priced considering it's now high season here. This hotel offers an adoption rate and we have been told they are family friendly. They also have free wi-fi in the lobby (and lots of good seating and laptop ports) and a free shuttle that will take you to the downtown area, Red Square. There is also a pool here.

Til next time...