[this is part 2 of Lorie's story; see part 1 here]

At the time there had been several incidents in the US that involved Russian-born children being abused by their adoptive parents. A fact that was making it harder on those of us in the process. Not only did some of the rules change (Russia started requiring psychological fitness evaluations from all prospective parents, rather than just the single ones) but for a few months there was an almost complete shut down of adoption processing for anyone from the US.

Finally in the middle of January I got a call from the adoption agency - was I ready to go to Russia? I was scheduled to leave at the end of the week and had to be in Novosibirsk on Monday. That’s all they could tell me. They couldn’t tell me if the child I was going to see was a girl, or how old this child was, or even what orphanage she was at. I had to wait until I got there to find out.

Have you tried buying toys for a child you don’t know very well? It’s a LOT harder when you don’t know what sex or age! It didn’t help that I was making this trip by myself. However panic didn’t actually set in until shortly before meeting my daughter-to-be.

The flight into Moscow was uneventful, and actually kind of nice. Lots of room to stretch out and get comfortable - for some reason the plane wasn’t all that crowded in the middle of January. Go figure. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was the coldest winter on record! Daytime high temperatures were around -30 F to -40 F. In the evenings we switched to using Celsius, it sounded warmer.

Who’s this "we"? Well, upon arrival at the hotel in Moscow (Marriott Tverskaya), I met up with the rest of the group that I would be traveling with for the rest of the trip. The following day the agency rep gathered us all into a van and got us to the airport for domestic flights. Once inside and past the ticket counter we were on our own to find the gate for our flight to Novosibirsk.

It’s a four hour flight from Moscow to Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia. It was pretty late when we arrived, and well below freezing. Did you know that your eyeballs can freeze? Just thought I’d share that. It was cold. And the Novosibirsk airport is mostly outdoors and the indoor baggage claim area didn’t have the best heating system. It seems like it was nearly midnight by the time we got checked into the Hotel Sibir.

I don’t recall if we had one day or two in Novosibirsk before we were carted off to meet our children, but we had to take care of some legal details before visiting the orphanage. Little things like dropping by the office of the Ministry of Education to formally receive our referrals.

I finally found out that I was there to meet a 27 month old girl. As it turned out, everyone else knew their children were living in the town of Kuybyshev and were prepared (as much as one can be prepared) for the 5 hour drive in sub-freezing temperatures to get there. Did I mention it was cold? Yeah, cold. The windows of the van were getting iced over - from the inside. The condensation from our breath was freezing on the windows.

Shortly after arriving at the hotel in Kuybyshev they experienced a power outage. Probably not an uncommon occurrance given the condition of the wiring. Eventually we got checked in and were shown to our rooms on the 4th floor. No elevator. No bell hop. Good thing they tell you to pack light when traveling to Russia. At least they had plumbing. Toilets, anyway. Not much of a view from my room - the window was covered with ice, inside and out. An unexpected surprise was the food served in the little cafe - it was excellent! Basically home-cooked, even though technically we were in a hotel. I would consider going back just for the borscht and pelmeni.

Stay tuned for Part 3 to come