Petro, the journey

Finally, we made it to an internet cafe. We've been trying to hook up the internet access in our apartment, but we are only staying there through Monday, so we haven't tried that hard. On Monday we are moving to a hotel.

I had two nice blog entries typed up and saved on our laptop, but you can't bring your own computer to the internet cafe, so I'm going to recap briefly, then post the lengthy entries later (one entry penned by Keith, if you can believe it!).

We left Almaty on Thursday evening. We took a very bumpy 90-minute plane ride to the country's capital, Astana. We were met at the airport by our translator, Igor, who is very cool. We then drove on a very bumpy road for about 9 hours, and around 4 AM we reached Petropavl. We went from the south by China to the north by Russia. I love this city, much better than the huge city of Almaty that we were in.

We spent this weekend looking around town, meeting other American families in the park, and sweating. There is nowhere with air conditioning, so we broke down and bought the world's most expensive fan for our apartment. Also, I have a million bug bites. But we are enjoying ourselves.

We're staying in an apartment through the weekend becuase the Hotel Skiff is full. The Skiff is where most American couples stay who are in this city to adopt. There is a couple leaving today, so we will most likely take their room. All the Americans meet in the hotel restaurant for breakfast and dinner. We've met several couples so far. One from Michigan who adopted two sisters ages 9 and 4, one from California adopting one little girl age 6, one couple from Indiana adopting a sibling set ages 13 and 10, and a couple from Mobile, AL adoping a baby boy age 18 months. We hope to add ourselves to that list shortly!

We should be able to visit the Baby House on Monday. We are really looking forward to this. Keep us in your prayers!

On Monday I will post any news, and some pictures of the city.