Russia, day 1

its now about 8pm Monday night, vladi time. (almost 5am Monday - michigan time) and we are finally
in our hotel and ready for sleep. Well, Amy is... I'm still wide awake.

We arrived here about 2:30p. The airport is very small and old. in fact, it pretty much looks abandoned from the runway.
after a lot of hustle and bustle through customs and immigration we finally got our luggage and met with our driver and interpreter. They gave us a very brief tour of the town on our way to the hotel. The area we are in is very rural. Lots of trees.
Most of the houses that we passed on our way into town are in very poor condition. Pretty much an urban explorers dream town.

The hotel is decent. Unfortunately its about 30 minutes outside of the city center, so activities are limited.
The plan is to get to the downtown area on Wednesday for touring and shopping.

Tomorrow will be spent at the Ministry of education to sign some forms, then its off to the baby home.

We met two other families that Amy knows through blogging while at the airport, and a third family we met after we arrived at the hotel. They are all super nice. It will be nice to have other ppl to hang out with in the evenings while we are here.

I know there is a ton of stuff I wanted to share, but am too tired to think of the right words now.

some quick thoughts....

Sean Astin, the kid who played in some lord of the rings movies and in Rudy (?) and some other stuff was on our plane from Detroit to Los Angeles. I didnt know who he was...I thought he was a guy from Entourage.

LAX is the most effed up airport I've seen in a while.

Korean airlines is tha shit! super nice planes, polite, efficient staff and surprisingly good food. The only complaint with them has been the planes have been really really warm inside. uncomfortably warm. boo to that.

I'm loving my flip video camera, even if we look totally dorky in every video.

I've been awake for almost 48 hrs.


Dasvidania!