its 3 am in Vladivostok and I cant sleep. we will meet kenzi in 6 hours and I cant even describe how excited I am! I guess since I'm awake I'll detail our trip so far. first and foremost I want to reassure all the families who are waiting for travel dates or who are considering international adoption but are intimidated by the travel requirements....this trip has been incredible so far. I know everyone wont feel the same as I do but I want to at least give people some hope that they might actually ENJOY their time in Russia! our journey started out at home in Tennessee. we left Thursday afternoon on may 18th, with our boys and headed up to Chicago to leave them with their nana and aunt and uncle while we were gone. we stopped about halfway between Jackson and Chicago in tuscola Illinois. the motel room we stayed in was so seedy, and smoky, and nasty....I opted to sleep in the car! that motel room was by far the worst part of the trip so far. :) Friday afternoon we get to Chicago. we spend friday-monday with friends and family...soaking up time with our boys and getting them settled in. so finally Tuesday gets here, may 22nd....its time to head to the airport!! we get to O'Hare around 11 am and find out our flight has been delayed 1 hour. ok no big deal we were hungry anyway so we headed to the food court that was conveniently located next door to C-18, our gate. we get a couple Italian beef sammies and return to our gate and wait, and wait....and wait. finally our plane starts to board...3 hours late! we were unphased though since we had such a long layover for our connecting flight. the seats we had on the plane sucked. we were in the center aisle, in the center seats. I thought I hit the jackpot when a girl in our row boarded after us and offered me her aisle seat, about 7 hours into the flight, and after being bumped into a million times, and being climbed over a million times ...I realized the little switcharoo she offered was waaaaay more beneficial to her! lol our flight from Chicago to hong Kong was exactly the way you want your flight to be...uneventful. :) they showed 4 movies and a few episodes of friends and frasier .... Dave watched them all, and I watched none Lol... I opted to bogart all of his leg space, and his shoulder, and sleep for 10 of the 16 hours we were in the air. the other 6 hours I spent reading, eating (since they fed us 3 times!), pacing the aisles, or standing in the back of the plane. I tried to minimize the amount of swellling in my feet to no avail, when we landed in Hong Kong I had some pretty wicked cankles! !! let me pause there for a second. we were the first family in our little group of Russian adoptive moms and dads to "go west" to get to Russia. most people, even those who live on the west coast of the US, fly east through NYC, then Moscow, etc...we somehow ended up getting cheaper fares going west so we took them and we are now the guinea pigs for western bound Russian travel Lol :) back to our layover in hong Kong. we landed at 9pm local time, with 2 hours until our next flight. the delay at ohare really ate up our snooping time at the Hong Kong airport but we were sent on a goose chase around the airport to find our boarding passes so we saw every square inch, of every level, of the Hong Kong international airport. :) we took a train, a shuttle bus, you name it... but we got to our gate with enough time to spare for a pitstop at starbucks! we get on our plane, Vladivostok air, and Dave and I were both searching for Panam logos....the plane, and the stewardess uniforms, were straight out of the 1970's!! The flight wasn't full so we could spread out, and it was much smoother than the flight to Hong Kong...which had soooo much turbulence. they fed us a delicious meal....and not delicious for being plane food either ....it was really good! we had beef with couscous, a cucumber and tomato salad with smoked salmon, a roll, and a pastry. way better than the food on United. :) so, 4 hours later we land in Vladivostok. the sun was just coming up, and the mountains as we were coming in were just beautiful! so lush and green! the airport was like NOTHING I've ever seen before. we didn't pull up to a gate, we just stopped on the tarmac and got off using a portable staircase!!! it was so cool!!! we took a shuttle bus to the "airport" (that totally looked like a government building) and waited to go through customs. we stood and a lady behind glass looked at our passport, customs form, visa etc etc then off we went to get our luggage. we get our bag then we go wait for our ride. there was a little coffee shop, and a souvenir shop, and we browsed through that ...our ride was late and the boy working security seemed SO concerned for us. he asked if we were American and we said yes, when our ride was still not there 30 minutes later this sweet boy, who was maybe 20 years old, let me use his phone to send an email (we had no wifi), then he tracks down someone who speaks English and asks them to call our ride!!! he was so kind, and I gave him a big American thank you hug. :) so our ride shows up and takes us to our hotel. the ride was about 20 minutes long and to be honest the highway and scenery could have been any highway and any open field back home in Tennessee, then as we got into the city the roads, traffic and buildings were like something out of Chicago's southside at rush hour. so far there are 2 things different here: the driver of the car is on the right, and the language....and for someone who grew up near Ukrainian village in Chicago and who went to high school with all Ukrainian /Russian kids....even the language isn't all that new to me. we get to the hotel and we're given an hour to rest, unpack, etc...then its off to see the MOE (minister of education) . shes nice enough, she asks questions about our motivation to adopt an "unhealthy" kid, do we have other adopted kid's, our income, our kids opinion about the adoption, etc...it takes all of 5 minutes, she was more smiley than I would have imagined and she loooooved the coffee and chocolate we brought her. so we get our permission slip to go to the orphanage and head back to the hotel. small side note: our translator and facilitator are amazing. they are so sweet and helpful and FUN! we're driving and I'm taking 900,000 pictures out the window like the tourist I am...we pass a GORGEOUS bridge that's still under construction and I'm so bummed I didn't get a picture!! I'm sure we'll pass it again though. before going back to our hotel we stop at the market and get some cheese, bread, trout, salami, crackers, water, and diet coke (coca cola light!) and our sweet translator Dasha shows David a little restaurant within walking distance where he can get bbq because he told her it was popular where we live. :) so we get back to our room and change our clothes. its around noon and we hadn't eaten so we put our market purchases away and head to the dining room/restaurant. I had pancakes, Dave had some huge omelet....altogether it was rubles with tip ....a little less than $20. kind of pricey for what we got so we'll eat more market food, less hotel food :) we were going to walk down to the sea but we ended up hanging out in our room, watching Tv and resting up. we ate some salami and trout for dinner, I unpacked and made our room more "homey", we called our boys to check in, and that's about it so far! we love it here and feel very content with our surroundings. we feel very safe, and havent had the least bit of homesickness. we miss our boys but know they're in good hands being spoiled! we're blessed to have one child old enough to know why we're gone, and one too little to really care that we're gone! :) we meet our princess shortly! I'll update with those details soon!