Past 48 hours: Facebook Updates & Pics

Wednesday evening-Paka Ottawa! Next update should be from Frankfurt.

Thursday evening - Privet Kazakhstan! — with Almaty International Airport.

Friday Morning - Reporting from the hostel style airport hotel in Almaty: over 24 hrs since we left home. Great movies on AC and Lufthansa till Almaty! Landed n felt like we were in Delhi! Cabbies n touts galore thankfully Dee speaks fluent Russian! Chkd into Akunsar at the airport for a 8 hr layover. The cacophony of noise with stray dogs barking all night, cars honking away... Feels just like Delhi :) the Tien Shan snow capped mountains look gorgeous this morning! No sleep for me though Dee got quite a bit of sleep. Dee knowing the language is making things so much easier! Now getting ready to catch the flight to Aktobe! Having 10 meds to speed up getting better. In pain, sleep deprived but super excited to see what the day brings. Will v see him today or not... That is the million $ Qs. — at Almaty International Airport.

Pic: Morning views of the Tien Shan in Almaty —

Friday morning in Almaty - This dawn after yesterday's full moon night, a little child will wake in Aktobe not knowing he just got up from his last sleep without a family. For today is the first day of the rest of our wonderful lives together. The first day he will meet his parents and we will meet our child. It's 'delivery' time! (even if there's still some time to spend at the 'hospital' before baby ji comes home) 

Friday afternoon in Aktobe - So. We are finally in Aktobe!!! Flight was delayed 2 hrs which meant the rep from Ministry of Education wasn't free this late afternoon as we arrived at 2pm to a rainy n slightly chilly Aktyubinsk. (Reminds me a bit of Aurangabad here) so we can't see him till Monday morning. :( That meeting will be about a 15 min meeting so as to not shock him too much, followed by the official start of the bonding process on Tuesday for a daily single visit of 2 hrs. From Thursday we will do the twice a day visit of 2 hrs each (hopefully). We knew it was a risk coming in on Friday, but we also knew it was a risk we wanted to take, for any chance of meeting him as soon as we could was worth it in our books. I will now update the blog too. Whew! What a crazy 38 hrs it has been. Wow! Now let's set up our soviet era apartment for our month+ long stay (its pretty large and not bad at all I must say. Infact its quite nice!  

Friday evening in Aktobe -Ok, so Lays has crab flavored chips, caviar chips etc etc. Stocked up our pantry and kitchen from this HUGE grocery store. Think Costco & T&T with a lot more variety and no GMF. Of course no English on many of the items, unless they were the American brands (Nestle, L'Oreal etc etc), so again was glad to have Dee translating. Aisles and aisles of just types of Mayo and milk and other dairy products too. And women really love their heels here-nothing less than a 6 inch heel-yup even if you're grocery shopping.